Back to the Future: Desert Town

Remember the 20mm desert town I made a few years ago? And them dumped into boxes for later.

Well, later is now. With my thumb removed from my arse, having a quiet sunday afternoon with the girls crafting and me firing up the airbrush after getting the first box of buildings (Kim was off for a high tea).

So.....1 basecoat of Vallejo RAL8000 airbrush primer later (and a bit of grey primer on some doors for practice).

And the basics are done. And then realised some bases are not completely sanded yet <sigh>.

My high quality phone cam *cough* bullshit *cough* washes it out so much it looks grey, but these are washed with Brown and Black  and then airbrushed on a 45 degree angle with VMC Dark Sand. (just trying out stuff here to get the look)

Slightly better shots of how they look now.

But......my VMC paints are now 10+ years old and in need of replacing. Many have clogged beyond use, and with my more frequent use of the air paints (not just Vallejo but many others) I think it is time to no longer to use them for my airbrush (as all of the cleaning when they clog (and clog they do!) is getting annoying. So, I picked up some AK Real Colours lately, and the AK RC079 CARC Tan (beats me what that means) come damn close to the Dark Sand I used so I am giving that a try, and will highlight it with AK RC041 Portland Stone and that will be the paintbase for all of them.


I grabbed the 3 water trougs as well as they are nice and small practice models. The missing basing sand on a few isn't an issue either, I'll paint the buildings first anyway and the real weathering is done first, and the basing finished last.


The factory/barrack toilets are ready to be primed.....but I can't for the life of me get a colour in my head that is neutral yet fitting. Pictures of the wrecked one are plentiful though, like this one:

On a sad side note: Googling "Open pit latrines" breaks your heart. Drownings, and the amount of people in the world who don't even have this most basic of toilet plus the pics of kids.

Last of the many ( I hope)

I visited a local fellow kitbuilder (aka hoarder) who is liquidating his 1/72 collection and I brought him some of my surplus 1/35 stuff. In the end, I can say we were both pretty happy with our trade..

I picked up the following:

 Partially started Skyhawk, with upgradeparts for the extended exhaust for the Israeli's. Goes into the 1982 Israel pile.

 Toss up between a Iraqi or a Argentinian bird, purely planned for display purposes.

 Decals for the Gazelle helo, so I'm now sorted for the Syrian, Iraqi and Yugoslav ones.

If I can find a cheap box of these, I always snatch them up. With additional plastic bits they become lovely.

 For the burned Russian convoy.

 My favourite 222

 For my Overlord British

 Even though it has rubber tyres, I picked it up anyway. I'll either wreck it or trade it.

 Will this joing my future French of the German Polizei Units? Who knows....

 Straight onto the Israeli pile.

 Extra AAA for the Desert Brits or the BEF.

 Will be a civillian aircraft, I think.

 Another Russian wreck.

 For Iran-Iraq.

Other then some outstanding orders with the Hobby Den, Grubby Tanks and some second hand trades, I'm kind done with buying/swapping/trading (not selling though!). I'm going back to building stuff several nights a week to make a dent in the pile in the atic, as well as more scenery, courtesy of a new friend:

After getting interested in these a few years ago, but never having the money to buy one, I've been looking on and off for one for the past 2 years. 6 months ago Erik and decided to put a little more effort into it, and tonight I picked up this beauty at half retail. The receipt says it was bought last week, and the owner bought it to try it out, and felt he could find something better, so bought a 700 euro model with all the trims and fittings possible, and put this one up for sale. Jay me.

I will invest in some add ons for it, to make easy and consistent angular cuts and straight cuts with thicker foam. For now I will just play with it for a bit.

Fencing in some sand.

I've been at it in the attic and have now 10 moving boxes full of stuff ready to disposed of in the coming future (not on this Blog though, I use forums and FB groups for that). One of the nice side effects of digging into boxes that have not been open for years is finding stuff I made when I started (historical) wargaming, like a ton of painted figures and what not. One rather useful bit is this:

Made with the coarse sand I used 10 years ago, and dental plaster casts of a rock wall purchased on my very first Crisis shopw and painted to go with my DAK stuff, they are nicely tall walls in 20mm and chest high walls in 28mm. For something that is about 10 years old it has weathered remarkably well, with only very minor chipping. So, some dusting off, retipping some paint and varnish and she's ready to hit the table in a desert near you.

And in other news....I've been collecting some Israeli stuff.....uh oh......what's this then?

For you following my Blog my love for the Middle East and small scale conflicts with Technicals and militia is nothing new. Collecting stuff to make a 1982 Israeli force just flows naturally from that, so I picked up these at the second hand shop at the Overloon TWENOT show last weekend to go with my M163 and AH-6 TOW and other assorted Israeli stuff that I have. God knows where this will end up.

Look at me! I'm a tree!

Thx to this excellent tutorial that I can just keep looking at over I've made my first tree using the 0.6mm floral wire that I bought. My fingers hurt a bit, it took me a good 2 hours to get this far but with practice I can get that down I think. Well, it's a start.

It's not a huge tree by any means, and it won't be a winter tree but a barren desert tree, and may or may not get some greenery on it. I'll make a couple more so I get the hang of building them. I'll ask Evin to lasercut me some irregular bases for them, as I put this one on a round base and it just screamed "Warhammer!" at me and that's not the plan. When I have the bases, and a few trees, I can epoxy them on the bases and start coating them with woodglue to hide the wire.  I'll use the cut offs to make some shrubs I think.

Plenty of ideas and directions I can go in, tree wise.

Walls didn't happen today. Cleaning is almost done but I thought, to hell with it, and grabbed the box of wire and got cracking. Hey, I actually did something hobby wise, that counts! :D

Just give me a break, would ya? (talking to Life here)

 
Sofar, this weeks "holiday" is completely faling apart. The kids were finally well other then a cough here and there, Kim managed to get a double eye infection so on saturday morning we were at the hopsital for meds, and then Kim's mother insisted we had dinner at her place on Saturday evening (which Kim mentioned after I made tuna pastasalad for me and the kids) so I had some of mine and I had some of hers.....and to be quite frank I've been on the shitter since! (I'm blaming my food, not hers....though if this is a case of the Noro virus I could have picked it up anywhere in the days before so God knows).

Every single time I hit some sort of holiday and my body craps out on me, dammit. This afternoon, after a few days with nothing but water, a few crackers and some vitamins, I felt well enough to finally cook my family a meal (after they had eaten bread and reheated food for dinner since sunday cause Kim wouldn't cook no matter what....I swear, if something ever happens to me she'd starve) and wouldn't you know it, I'm back on the can every hour ever since. I can't do anything cause I'm constantly hopping from left to right, trying to gauge if I have to go or not. I've slept a lot (wel, in 30-60 minute bursts) but it doesn't seem to do anything either.

So, have I studied this week? Nope, nothing. Cleared the desks? Nope.  Well, at least I sold stuff, but I can't go out and actually ship it for fear of soiling myself on the trip back and forth. On top of that, Kim sold our entire baby room (which is a good thing, cause we got a good price for it and we need the money to even out on the new beds, matrasses and assorted stuff), so I have to dissasemble the wardrobe tomorrow, by myself, carry it downstairs, by myself, and then get everything from the attic, and take it downstairs, by myself. Since we have no help, my knee will be fucked for a good few days.

Yeah, great holiday. It's not effing fair :( Now stop crying.....

Right, rant over...

What I can do, is just sweep everything off my desk on thursday as Kim is taking the kids to a friend and her kids (jay, more diseases....), grab the bluefoam, and get cracking on making walls etc to go with my desert village and get it all done cause it has been going on and off since 2013! It would be great to have this done in time for Tobruk, and motivate me to get some Taliban done as well as get cracking on proper scenery for a game of Black Ops. Friday I need to study (or seek medical attention at this rate) in the morning, the afternoon is mine for the hobby. The weekend is for the kids and then it's a normal week again so God knows when I find the time to work on it.

Did you know it's been June 2016 since I last properly painted something? Yes, I was shocked too.

Here is some of the stuff that is keeping me motivated to get things done for this no matter what.....

 I'll glue 2 sheets of foam for each wall (that be 6mm thick then), make as many straight tall walls as I can cause I'll never have enough I reckon, with plenty of corner pieces, shave the tops for the mud wall effect and make a dozen or so damaged pieces and the occasional one with a doorway or a carport....door.....oh you know what I mean. If I can burn through an entire bluefoam sheet to do this, even better, that way I can make sure I'll never run out for a big village.

Matakashi had a very clever idea for doing shops like this. I think I have an even better one. His are fixed to the building, mine will be on loose base, with poles in front (leaning a bit forward) and poles in the back (leaning a bit back, overhanging the base edge) so I cal slot them right up to my buildings, including the ones with metal slider doors, so they blend in better on a WW2 table. Trading goods etc can come later, no priority on that for now, get the basics done and get them done soon.

By the time these are done Tobruk should be about to be released and I can get cracking on building a small force to fight Erik and branch out for the Taliban, Iran-Iraq and Black-Ops with a dash of Pulp in there as well perhaps....God knows the options are endless really once you think of it. Sadly my lifespan as well as my attention span isn't so I will have to make choices.

Also, went out on a limb and made an order with SandS for some upgradekits for various vehicles. I have a lot of selling to do in the near future.....

More 3mm Panthers ahead

After posting my previous post lastnight, I went out and made a Bergepanther as well.

I see I need to clean up the spare roadwheels I put in the box. And yes, the box on the deck is a bit crooked, but I gave up after glueing them to my fingers twice and then just thought the hell with it. It looks ok-ish

 Then went and built a Regelbau Pantherturm for a non-city environment (Italy, Germany)

Yes, complete with backdoor!

Then based up 4 Panthers, 1 Co and 3 regular ones. One is actually a spare for a bigger game, as in Battlegroup the unit is normally 3 tanks (1Co and 2 regular ones). Now I need to get some Greenstuff and make 3 more casts for the 3 wrecks that I want to build, then get everything basecoated and paint it all in one go.

My CO's will be the ones with a turned turret.

While the regular ones will be stock standard casts.

Now, since my book is in storage *somewhere* I pcicked up the Panther pack as a test to see if things clicked for me. And yes, they do. Since Modhail likes the desert, I've decided to focus my attention to the upcoming release of Battlegroup Afrika, and guesstimate what I need based on the previous books. So I need to sort out Infantry, trucks and armour. Artillery bases, as they are usually offboard for me, can wait till next time. Sofar I have 15 euros in the pocket for my budgetted 50 euro order, so I need to get my thumb out and find more stuff to sell.

But, I'm not going to splurge or anything. I want smal to mid point lists, 4 per main battle tank, 1's of recce vehicles, enough trucks to transport troops and have supply trucks as well, 1 platoon of infantry with all options, and all of the air support choices available (but that is never more then 2-3 aircraft and maybe a bomber). The handy thing about Oddzial Osmy packs is that they (usually) have 15 of the same vehicle in the pack. So3-4 for the desert, 3-4 for early war, 3-4 for Winter war and spares for Late War oddballs (well, this applies to the Germans only of course). If I still have too many of a certain vehicle I can always trade them with others.

So, on the buy list is:

• British Infantry
• German Infantry
• British Trucks
• German Trucks
• Italian Trucks
• French Trucks and car
• Russian Trucks
• A modern car pack ....because it has a Beetle in it.
• British Cruiser Tanks
• German Light and Medium Tanks
• British and German command group
• German Armoured Cars
• British Armoured Cars 
• Palm trees

Anything else is for next time. I've given myself 2 months to clean, base and paint the 2 mainforces (aircraft and wrecks can come second this time). For now, I can get a head start on painting the houses and basing them up.