Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Maybe you could add some of the Russian Combat Engineers?
(They're the ones with the single large metal plate on thier chests. I presume to deflect blasts when diffusing things, I'm not too sure)

Just thougt some of them as a diorama would be pretty cool next. Clearing mines or what-not.

Great work on the KV-1 so-far! And I really like the crew too.

Disjointed Entity wrote:Maybe you could add some of the Russian Combat Engineers?
(They're the ones with the single large metal plate on thier chests. I presume to deflect blasts when diffusing things, I'm not too sure)

Just thougt some of them as a diorama would be pretty cool next. Clearing mines or what-not.

Great work on the KV-1 so-far! And I really like the crew too.

Those guys are cool, I've seen photos. I actually considered some Sappers but since this is set in Russian held defensive positions prior to the start of the main engagements at Kursk it wouldnt really fit.

Definately an idea for future projects though!

Thanks for the compliments on the KV-1 , I hoping to make the tankers better soon and have everything positioned how want it.

Can't wait for the final images!

Managed to finally get some painting done on the GAZ.

Hitting the KV-1 shortly and hope to have some images up shortly.

Base colours and markings:







The masking tape worked really well for marking out the white stripe, theres a tiny bit of bleed on the curved edges but this can be tidied up later with very little effort. As you can see I also used it to protect the clear plastic windscreen. Leaving the edges exposed so that the paint would cover the frames. Using an airbrush to mark out the colour of the frames is much easier than trying to paint it by hand with a brush.

Windscreen:







Once I had peeled the masking tape off it gave a nice clean finish.

Basic colours and decals:





The Staff car is now ready for the next stages, filters.

Can't wait to see it finished.



On an off-topic note once more,I would really love to see a diorama of the presentation of the sword of Stalingrad(don't know if I spelled that wrong).

Stalingrad would be a great battle to model, I've been considering either the defence of Stalingrad or the fall of Berlin as my next WW2 project.

A diorama of these battles would be great as it would allow me to model two factions (Red Army and German forces) as well as a ruined city scape.

Maybe when this project is finished

I am talking about when Stalin accepted the actual sword of stalingrad,maybe I have my history all screwed up though.

But yeah those two battles would be rather nice if kept to strict historical guidelines.

You mean this story:

THE SWORD OF STALINGRAD
Ten months after the German surrender, Winston Churchill recognized the extraordinary suffering and heroism of the Stalingrad people. He presented the jeweled "Sword of Stalingrad" to the Soviet leader. It bears this engraving:
To the steelhearted citizens of Stalingrad, a gift from King George VI as a token of the homage of the British people.

Yeah that would be cool to see too! Tamiya do a famous generals box set but I'm not sure if it includes Churchill...

I just think it is a very nice moment in history to make a diorama out of.I saw in the last project you did that there was Russian writng,can you speak Russian?

Fall of Berlin.

Dude.

If you do the Soviets hanging the flag from the Reichstag, I will be eternally indebted. The coolest thing EVER.

sA

smiling Assassin wrote:Fall of Berlin.

Dude.

If you do the Soviets hanging the flag from the Reichstag, I will be eternally indebted. The coolest thing EVER.

sA

Haha thats sounds like a challenge Sir!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I managed to get some more painting done this evening. It's rather late so the light is rather extreme, so apologies for the bad pictures.

Officers: I decided to try painting the skin and faces first, i've seen this method used by other painters but had always worked in reverse before, starting with the uniforms and finishing with the faces. It made an interesting change and I think it's an approach that'll try again in the future.











I also managed to get some base coating done on the KV-1 but sadly had to stop before I could finish it completely.






Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've been thinking alot about the colour scheme for the KV-1 recently and did some more research. I didn't like the idea of just painting another plain dark green tank again, after all I just did this with the T34/76.

I also figured that something else a bit different with a more summer feel would be appropriate for the scene, and found a few different examples of camo schemes on KV-1's (hence the light base coat colour).







I especially like the three tone scheme, and saw a similar thing done on an SU-122 in Xtreme Modelling magazine.

A drive in the country... in a Heavy Tank.



















It was great fun using these new scenic materials. The flowers especially give great results. The only problem is that they come in tiny clumps and take some time to arrange. It really is a time consuming process but is very rewarding to see take shape.

I also managed a bit more work on the figures, working on some highlighting:

Looking good Gundam.I am liking the officers.Also the three tone scheme strikes me as the way to go with that tank.Those flowers are a nice little touch looks like you have got the whole base almost finished.

Thanks Deff, yeah I've had a lot of positive feedback over on Warseer on the 3 tone scheme so I'm going to give that a shot. I like it because its different and interesting, totally unlike what I did on the T34, so it will be a chance to try some new techniques and effects.

Theres actually a whole shed load of work to go on the base! I wish I were nearly finished. To be honest I added the plants and clumps of grass last night quite late while I was watching TV just to get a feeling for how it will look and and to start off. I have to bulk it out a bit with more grass and shrubs, mostly along the river bank and in certain areas on the main field, as well as add loose leaves on the ground, ferns, and other bits.

I got some great paper plants from Frederus Rex yesterday and I'm planning to add those in near the water side and scattered across the main field. I can't really carry on with that until I have the farm house put down. Once I have all the features in place like the building and the vehicles I can decide where to place the rest of the plants and grass in a natural way.

The farm house is coming along well and I've finished the basic wooden structure, I just need to do the roof to finish it off and then paint it and attach it to the base. I plan to have some ivy growing up the walls of the farm house too.

After all thats done, and the MG nest and Tank barriers painted I can work on the crystal resin and fill the river.

Sounds good,get cracking!

I've finally nearly finished the farm house, at the moment the glue is drying and after this I'll move onto the painting. The lat stage will be to add the thatch roof surface once the model in painted. It's my first time to try a partial building that is sliced in half at an angle, and it was quite tricky but I think worth it. It's often done in Dioramas to add more variety and depth to a scene without having to fill too much space.











Rough placement with vehicles

Love what you did with the plants and wildflowers along the stream bank! Really enjoyed the previous diorama and this one seems to be shaping up even better. Its all those small details that really make the scene believable and a real joy to see. Keep up the great work!

Thanks Shellfish! The Farm house is still quite WIP, but most else of the actual terrain is done now.

As I said to Deff there's still alot of filling out of the plants and vegetation to go, but edging closer all the time! I'm looking forward to getting to work with the Crystal Resin. I've never used it before so it will be fun.

I like the farmhouse thus far.Which kit are those flowers from?

After some discussion with a poster on Warseer I decided that I wasn't happy with the corners of the farm house, so I added some planks to finish the edges with textured plasticard.



Looking at reference photos of wooden buildings I think it gives a better finish.

Deff - The flowers are from a German company called Fredericus-Rex. They have a brilliant range of scenic accessories.

This blog is so cool. The whole project is coming along great, keep up the good work.

Thanks Northern!

I've been working on the farm house recently, and did some research looking for good reference photos for the wood effect that I want to go for.

I decided to paint something based on these images:









I really want to go for that weathered wood silvered look.

Heres what I have so far, just with a base coat:



I'm planning to use various filters and washes to get the grain patterns and look from the photos.

I also did some more on the Officers:







The two Officers in the blue trousers will have the Soviet Tank Officer uniform with the blue pants and red stripe, like in these reference photos.




(this guy 1st left is actually wearing captured German trousers, but usually would wear blue with a red stripe)



I also decided on a three tone camo that I liked, the example from the Leningrad front was a bit too strong for my liking, lots of rather dark colours. Also it's an unusual camo that was only seen in that theatre of operations. So linking it to Kursk would have been a bit of a push. I decided in the end to follow the three tone scheme I have from an SU-122 from Extreme Modeller Magazine.



XM Magazine also had an excellent article on the diorama, with great colour guides:













This is just the initial stages with base colours and light grey filters. I couldn't match the colours exactly to the XM article as I didn't have Tamiya paints, however I managed to get close enough though with Citadel colour and Vallejo. I also plan to use further filters and oil washes to tone it down and darken the brown areas a little.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
For those who are interested heres a link to a very good article on filters and washes by Mig productions:

http://www.migproductions.com/minisite/lavados/washes.htm

Looking good.I am liking the farmhouse and the tank,keep up the good work.

Underneath the picture of the guy in blue Trousers, it said Russian General.

Just thought I'd point that one out to you Gundam.

looking great otherwise!

Great camo man, looking really good.

Great progress. I am shure that the camo will look ace once finished.

BTW, are the russian uniform pics from Osprey books? Have been thinking about getting some of them.

Disjointed Entity wrote:Underneath the picture of the guy in blue Trousers, it said Russian General.

Just thought I'd point that one out to you Gundam.

looking great otherwise!

Your quite right, that picture is a Russian General, and if you look at the second example on the third picture your see that he is a Cossak Officer. Blue trousers with red stripes were very common in Soviet Uniforms, with various width and thickness of the stripe. For our purposes though I'll be using this example, of a Russian Tank Crew Officer from Kursk circa 1943:







His red stripe is a lot less pronounced than he General's uniform, being much thinner.

Northern as for the colour plates of uniforms these are from an old hardback book called "Army Uniforms of World War 2" part of the Blandford Colour Series published by Blandford. It's quite an old book, my edition was published 1973, I'm not sure if its still in press.

Thanks for the compliments on the Camo, I don't often do camo schemes on armour so it was very interesting for me to try. I'm quite pleased with the result so far, but I think it will look a lot better with weathering and paint chips etc. Right now its way too clean!

I also managed to do a lot more work on the KV-1 tonight, but the lighting is bad and doesn't show the detail nicely so I will take some more photos in natural daylight and post tomorrow.

Did some more work on the farm house, distressing the wood and I also made a start layering the thatch roof. The Straw roof needs a
lot more work and is still very heavily WIP, but these images give an idea for the direction it will take.

That wood is looking great! Nice work GM. I think the thatch is going to look good too.

Cheers
Dave

Agreed,the wood is looking very nice.Also with a little more work the thatch will look very nice aswell.

Ahh, I stand corrected. I just didn't want your dioramam to be a bit messed up historically, seing as it's looking so good!