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The Snow Pixies are nearly done, a little more detail work on their parkas and then its washes and dry brushing time. The lascannon team is also nearly complete and the base is scenicked and ready for a last primer coat and then painting. I'm trying a different method of plasma coil painting to try to get a look I like, we'll see. Possibly more pics later tonight, definitely tomorrow.

For now, here's a new item I picked up on clearance at Walmart:



It's an illuminated bobber for night fishing and I gave a dollar for it, because as soon as I saw it I was thinking: "this is a Tau gadget if ever I saw one". Here's how it looks sticky taped to an insect fogger lid in normal kitchen light:



And with only indirect light sneaking in from the living room:



And the same thing, but this time sticky taped to the lid from one of those air freshener pots you stick in your closet:



It uses two button batteries (they come with) and turns on by twisting the base one half rotation. I'm thinking after I finish this fire team of Snow Pixies, I'll scratchbuild a proper plinth for this guy- and I don't even play Tau! Just too cool.

More follows soonest.

That's a cool find

That has potential.

Thanks very much for looking, Tommygun1918!

Quite a bit of progress tonight, the Snow Pixies and heavy weapon crewcats are nearly done, the bases are well along and the lascannon is nearly finished. The 'plasma glow' effect I tried this time I like better, but still not quite what I'm looking for. While I like mixing up the skin tones a' la Inso, I'm not liking how the light/pale skin tone with a red wash came out- I may try over with sepia wash, but I'm concerned that it will come out looking more or less like the other two skin tines (medium and tan) and lose the striking effect of being from far northern climes. We'll see. A bit of washing to do yet- the Pixies hair, notably, and the rest of the muzzle burn on the 'cannon, plus some touch up details and done:



More follows soonest.

Kind of in a hurry tonight, so these pictures are rushed.

The Snow Pixie fire team is done:





Giving me one full squad of them:



The base for the lascannon team needs only a little dry brushing, and then they and it are done also- I should have pictures on Monday. I've also primed the figures and bases for a full squad of Doom Pixies- I figure I need to build up a little more infantry before I undertake another vehicle. I should be able to start them on Monday also and I intend to try a modified 'speed painting' approach- see what economies of scale I can incorporate (I don't think I've tried to do ten at once before, not even the Panzer Jaegers).

More follows soonest.

Ladies all look set for combat!

Thanks very much, shas!

Took a quick minute to finish up the Rifles' Heavy Weapons Lascannon team (may go back and smudge up the cannon muzzle, rather than leave the attempt at muzzle burn I tried):









Thank you for looking in and your constructive criticism/pointers for improvement are always welcome.

Starting a full squad of Rifles tonight, they're primered but need mounting on temporary bases and everything else.

More follows soonest.

Nice looking Las-cannon, and the red-brown dirt works nicely.

Awesome job on the lascannon! Yeah I use quite watered down paints to create heat burn and layer them up. Looks like yours just needs a little over the top to blend it in and should be excellent!

Thanks, Olthannon! I'll try a wash (not sure which one yet) to try to tie things together- the worst that happens is that I paint it out and try something else.

Ah, the joys of a project completed and that pre-dawn silence before the next starts, a pristine desk, new, clean paint palette, crisp, new figures waiting for the brush....



Enough of that unnatural nonsense- on to the next:



Basecoating largely complete: skin tones (two coats), Ugg Boots and North Face jackets, all done. Next up is the web gear and rifles, then hair and on to the washes and highlights.

Thank you for looking in, more follows soonest.

Yup, got done what I had hoped to tonight (but unfortunately not more, but hey, you take what time you can get)- rifles and web gear are done:



Next is the special metallic bits on the chain sword and bayonet, grey fur, and hair and basecoating is done and it's on to washes and highlights.

I might have them done tomorrow- I hope to- but won't get the bases done until later.

Debating on the next project- on the one hand I've got a really neat and little known Soviet tank hunter from WWII (not one of the SU's) that will look cool with its Panzer Pixie crewcats, but on the other I've got these nifty wannabe Ice Warriors that are just itching to get started and on the third hand are some new Space Samurai infantry, plus another unit of Tang Dynasty infantry, or.....

Thank you for looking in. More follows soonest.

You have the Cats, I have the Apes.

"Get your paws off me, you dang dirty ape!" Charlton Heston

Thanks for looking in, shas!

Got good work done tonight- all that's left is the washes (skin, coats, hair, web gear, boots) and basing and this squad is done. First time doing a whole squad at once and sometimes getting the base colors on was a drag (Norwegian Death Metal music to keep the momentum going, also The Bangles) but for rank-and-file grunts (meows?) I would consider doing them in lots of ten again.



I'm up to the farm tomorrow, so will probably not get to these until Monday.

More follows soonest.

You're really moving with this latest squad

NP Meer, stay safe

Thanks very much, Syro and shas! Thanks for looking in.

I think that I'm not really 'speed painting', really just using the same techniques when I paint them up five at a time, but because there are ten I'm painting more. Instead of painting five jackets and taking a small break to stretch, I'm painting all ten. I also remember something Camkhieri said a long time ago, that the explanation for his prodigious rate of production was because when he sat down to work, that's all he did- no TV, no radio, just him and his Muse and the figures to paint or the structure to build.

I cheat and play music, but otherwise, yeah- no distractions, just painting time.

And so many things to tackle next: I'm not worn out on Nekomimi Winterguard, but there's Ice Warriors and all sorts of things waiting; these are nice problems to have! (Although also a stain on the escutcheon of my Mountain of Plastic Shame. )

More follows soonest.

What ever your doing it is working! Great work.

Looking forward to more.

Thanks very much, Cam! Good to see you drop by!

The figures themselves are done tonight:



It may not look it (and is surely hard to see in my lousy photography) but there are five different washes on the unforms, and another four to do the different hair colors. Sepia, Agrax Earthshade, Athonian Camo, Reikland Flesh and Nuln Oil. This lot just need their bases, and the squad is done. I'm going to use the same base coat of green as the first squad of rifles, but different color ground cover, to make it easy to group them as they got painted. (I'm weird that way: the last FLGS that I was able to go to lost their 'F' and I stopped going because when we gamed, the guy overwatching/helping/'keep it moving people' would calculate the results of dice rolls faster than us- so no learning going on- and then grab figures off the table. I asked him twice not to do that, but he didn't so I stopped going. My stuff may not be connoisseur-level, but it is mine.)

I think I'm going to do the Soviet ZIS-30 tank hunter next.

More follows soonest.

So, figures done, bases done. I used Huge Miniature's 4 in 1 (Bog) pre-mixed flocking this time, I like the look.













I started looking over the instructions and sprues for the ZIS-30 tank hunter (which in Nekomimi Winterguard parlance will be named the Puma) and it has an interesting twist that I haven't run into before- I'll explain more goodlier tomorrow.

Thank you for looking in.

More follows soonest.

New project: the self-propelled anti-tank gun/tank hunter: Bagheera (the Black Panther from The Jungle Books).

It's based on this Maquette model of the ZiS-30 SPG:



There is some interesting video on YouTube and other places of surviving units, and their history is amazing. Essentially, the Soviet Union was not ready for Operation Barbarossa and had no good self-propelled gun that could surge to wherever the highly mechanized German forces were, so they took the existing komsomelets artillery tractor and stuck their current production towed 57mm anti-gun on top and viola: instant tank hunter.

These little buggers were so small that they had to deploy ground jacks in the rear or park with the tail upslope- to avoid flipping over from the recoil of the gun when fired!

This is a 1/35 scale kit, so it's hard to scale it with no figures in the picture but the crew was usually three, sometimes four- two dudes in the tiny cab and two hanging on for dear life, one on each side of the gun. I like early war vehicles from the Soviet Union and some German because they're so small and fit the scale of the Nekomimi Winterguard better (even when they are printed at 105%). I was thinking of doing up a crew of two for this piece, but given all the space there is going to be, I'll probably put half a dozen or more on it- really hype up the anime vibe.

This is the third kit by Maquette I've built (the first was the Snowcat Scout Car, the second provided the tread units for the Phaeton Ammunition Hauler a ways back) and I've another on hand to be built 'sometime' (the M-8 armored rocket launcher/carrier) and they are great little kits- lots of details and very exacting tolerances. This one is a bit different, however, in that it has instructions in both English and Russian (my reading in Russian is very weak):



And the instructions themselves seemed very clear, with numbered parts and indications where everything should fit:



The problem is, the sprues don't have any numbering- and most of the parts on the sprues aren't on the instruction sheets. And there is only the one view of the complete machine on the box cover!

So, building this beast is going to be interesting- I'm going to have to get some additional images from the Innerwebz to see what it's supposed to look like, then figure how I'm going to cUstoMiZe it for the Winterguard and then get building. I've made start tonight:



Thank you for looking in.

More follows soonest.

New vehicle looks intriguing

That is a funky looking little tanky! can't wait to see how it turns out. Good work on the gals

Thank you for looking in, Shas and PaddyMick! I'd never seen anything quite like this one and discovered it only recently. This little tankette is literally the short guy at the range trying to fire a Barrett .50 calibre from the hip- over he goes, brass over tea kettle!

A lot of work tonight for little to show- and this is no longer building a ZiS-30 kit- it's a full on customization, as the parts are so tiny, so fragile and so incomprehensible that I'm having to fashion a lot of my own to get it to work. The bogeys are particularly finicky and I'm probably going to have to scratchbuild something. I still love the design though, and that my Bagheera will at least trace its lineage to the ZiS-30.



The panels that extend out are the original full bench seats if you were to build this kit as a standard Komsomolets[i] artillery tractor and are now the footboards for the exterior fighting compartment. I'll add some struts under the ends so that it's a bit stronger and less likely to break off.

The gun is even more finicky than the hull- can't wat to start that[i]!

Thanks for looking in, all.

More follows soonest.

Very intriguing. The thought of it flipping over while firing is so funny.

If you are short of 1/35 scale figs just pop me a PM I have loads.

Anyways, looking great and can't wait to see how you get on with it.

Interested to see how this one goes,,,,

Thanks Alaricuk- it is definitely going to be non-standard!

A good evening's work- although a lot of it doesn't show. I did have to scratchbuild some simple bogeys for the Bagheera tank hunter- the model parts were too fragile and complicated for something that isn't going to be historically accurate anyway. And if I have to assemble tracks one fingernail-paring width track link at a time again, it'll be too soon.

But the fiddliest bits should be over- just a question of attaching the other hull parts and doodads like running lights and then on to the gun and finally the crew. I've two courses of action in mind for the crew- a fairly simple one using mostly existing figures and poses and a more complex one requiring substantial modification to unforgiving resin. We'll see what time and tide dictate when the time comes.



More follows soonest. Thank you for looking in.

Most of the build for the vehicle and gun is done tonight- some gubbins to add but the heavy lifting is done. Dove deep into my bits box and found a number of old Rhino items that work perfectly:



The gun was as fiddly as the vehicle and I'm going to end up not using a lot of the detail parts- 'way too small and fragile and no instructions on where they should go. It is interesting that the sprues for the gun components must be from the standard kit for the towed version, because I've got the trails and the spades, but no footplate (so I've got a lot of extra parts that the tankette wouldn't need, but not everything to build a towed version).

I hope to finish gluing up tomorrow night and maybe get a coat of primer on. And I can start looking at what crewcats I can use to populate this critter.

Thank you for looking in. More follows soonest.

Success! The Bagheera build is complete, crew figures are selected and customized (surprisingly little cutting was required) to become Panzer Pixies and everything is primered:







One of the many good things about posting photos to Dakkadakka, is I can see all the Testor's Model Cement threads festooned everywhere that have to get cobwebbed off before I spray the base coat of paint!

You can see the 'anti-recoil-flipping-over' trails I cut down from the extra pieces on the gun sprue, in a hark-back to the real ZiS-30 (theoretically, they swing out and down to lock inn place preparatory to firing). I've already fixed a fair amount of personal gear in place, but will probably add more bags, packs and tarps- this hull is too uncluttered. May have to make some more of everything from greenstuff, I'm running low on pieces.

Painting the vehicle is next, then the gun and finally the crew.

Thank you for looking in, more follows soonest.

That's a great scratch/bash build. It'll be fantastic after painted!