Aaron Vayro's Keffiyeh / Shemagh painting tutorial

Helping out a friend by posting his tutorial for him. All credit goes to him, not me. I'm just the typist.

Keffiyeh / Shemagh painting tutorial 

by Aaron Vayro

Paint the shemagh in your choice of red (in this case Vallejo FLat Red), making sure to leave black lines for the folds. Use a dark wash on the Shemagh and re highlight. If you want to paint a black Shemagh start with German grey, again leaving black lines for the folds, and washing with black wash.

Wash applied and re highlighted

 Thin paint and paint in white lines to represent edge of the pattern . And the tassle bits . Try keep some of the black showing . Trying to make the headscarf appear folded . Best to work in triangle shapes . Some touch ups may be needed

 Thin paint and paint in the dots . Or small lines . Trying to keep them all in a line to represent a pattern . But try and follow the contour and the segment / triangle you are painting.
Handy to have a bit of red paint to use to correct any mistakes as you go .

This should work in 15mm, 20mm and 28mm.

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.

I've got a job! Yeah, about that..... :(

Got a phonecall this morning from Iris, my job agency coach. She informed me she had received a vague email from the company that is going to hire me. Well, make that WAS going to hire me. Quoting economical circumstances, they have decided to put the job on hold for the time being.

Iris is more then a bit upset (as am I) as she has put a lot of effort into it, all the paperwork is done and was to be signed this week by the 3 of us. But no. Iris is also quite upset that all her communications have been with the company president and now all of a sudden a employee is emailing this without a real explanation.

So yeah.....shit.

<sigh> I took some painkillers for the knee, discussed this with Kim as I was visibly quite upset, took the afternoon off and just returned from my final First Aid training day (exams next week). I volunteerd to do a test exam (day could not get any worse, right?) I only managed to forget to remove the ring and watch of a 2nd degree burned hand and accidentally held a victims hand when he had just spilled lye over his arm and hand. But you don't flunk on that kind of stuff and I won't make those 2 mistakes next week. I really want to pass this exam, not just for my resume but for myself and Kim and the kids, if something ever happens.

Tomorrow, a new day, a fresh start, and we will carry on with the Quest for Work! TM


Anyway, we are here for the hobby stuff. Been burning through my stuff (not literally) on monday, managed to cut the amount of junk on the gaming table in half, removed half the junk from my first cabinet and sorted out what can be sold off (most) and what not (very little). So progress is being made. Also, I received some trade stuff and decided that in the future, starting now, anything I get that I want to use myself, gets cleaned, based and sanded asap. That way I'm not online hunting for new stuff and working with what I got.

So, in no particular order:

Did the Renedra Ramshackle Barn and American Farmhouse 1750-1900 I had in my stash for a while now, glued all the windows shut, fixed the roof and based them on 3 or 4mm MDF (took this picture) and just finished sanding the edges. General cleanup tomorrow. It's aimed at 28mm TNT, but will do for Cowboy games and ACW skirmish f I ever get that far.

I got these 2nd hand, I just stuck them to their bases and changed the cobblestone one on the left to the same sand one as the rest. Captives for 28mm TNT or any other game that needs prisoners/hostages/sacrifices.

I've bought a second hand lot of 20mm VC and NVA, just based and fillerd them, sanding tomorrow when everything has set hard and is trimmed on the sides. The lot came with the grey Liberation Models K63 APC on the right (missing its gun), I washed, cleaned and trimmed that to fit today. The yellow one is a Red Star one I just removed from the bag, cleaned, heated and bent back into shape, and is now ready for basing and a new gun. The 3 painted ones (including 1 command/medical version) are gifts from Chris. Also need to be cleaned, based and a ggun. They are for my (2nd) Iraqi army for Iran-Iraq and the Gulf War. The Liberation one is marginally bigger in size and has some different details, but nothing major and will make a nice platoon CO ride I guess.

The VC and NVA need sand and good cleaning of any mould lines, and I wanted to convert the NVA into VC by sanding down the sun hat until Piers reminded me that they woudl work perfectly a Main Force VC. So that saves me the work for that.

Also, I need to grab from my weapons bin, a MG-34, a PIAT and a MP40 for the VC as weapons.....some conversions are in order.

All of the Partisans I received have been based, fillered and sanded. Removing of mouldlines is up this week, and then see who needs a head swap, conversion, GS work etc. Also build 2 light AT guns for them (which will do double duty with my Russians).

So much to do, and suddenly a lot more time (jay..... :( ) so hey.

Spendthrift

Depression sucks. To feel better I spend money on stuff I may or may not need or at least I manage to convince myself it is a good investment for the future.

Right.

<sigh>

So, what have I done this time? Since the mother of all bandages on my finger is preventing me from getting a decent grip on a fresh blade I've been spending a wee bit too much time on Marktplaats and the local FB groups.

So today this arrived:

Academy Blitz Fuel Bowser for the airfield scenario, the Schwimmwagen is a nice bonus. GMC came with it as a lot, going into the spare bin. Desert Bf109F for the Afrika campaign, Karas for the Poles, Morane 406 for the French and a really, really old Revell-Esci Panzer 3M that I'm not sure if I'll use for parts or just sell on to a collector. Some of these kits are older then me.

Also arrived today was a trade in for some Warhamster crap. 4 more Concord books.

 I'm not into Gulf War Brits, but I am into Iraqis and this book has a ton of stuff on them. It's abit dusty and the price sticker is proving to be a downright arse to remove, but I can't complain for about the wealth of pics.

The next book is one I've been after for ages.......

 Whenever I wanted it, I could not afford it, and when I could afford it, no one was selling it. It's not in very good shape sadly:

 But man, is this a treasure trove or what? Perfect for my Yugoslavia collection.

 And I learned something new. I can use my spare M38 jeeps and lightweight Landrovers for Croatian forces. Yeah, pity about the state and the spine giving way, but this is a keeper.

This one however is not! I hadn't realised I already own this one....

So basically I now have 1 copy each of After the Storm: Iraqi wrecks and Fortifications, and Armor of the Afghanistan War.

If anyone wants them, I'm asking 10 euros per book, plus shipping, just shoot me a PM on the Guild or a message here on my Blog.

Take care everyone :)

Christmas book purchases - a small review

I picked up a few books for reading and adding to my book collection, though they are mostly picture books. I tend to use those as inspiration for things I need/want to build. And to practice my German (Reading I can do just fine, speaking....better then most but still bloody horrible :D )

First up is Waffen-Arsenal - 8,8 FlaK an allen fronten ( 8,8 Flak on all fronts)

It's a from the looks of it brandnew copy that I paid 7 euros plus shipping for. I got it for reference pics of the 88 in use with very nice shots of Flaktrains, 88's deployed ad hoc or long term, summer and winter, with and without shield and the bloody mess they become after use as they just left the expended empty shells everywhere which was a bit of an eye opener.....you'd think they chuck em to the side as not to trip over them? Then again they probably had other things on their mind when firing at the enemy. Great shots of markings and other small details too from all fronts. Very useful, this is a keeper. Here are some more shots of the inside.

Next up is the Waffen-Arsenal Deutsche Kustenbefestigungen in Belgien 1914-1945 (German coastal fortifications in Belgium 1914-1945).

Yeah, about that one......I paid 4 euro plus shipping for it (also a brandnew copy) as it peaked my interest as it was listed as German fortifications in Belgium 1914-1945, and I can use some intell on that. But I should have read the cover and did a search on it, as it focus only on the shore based artillery fortifications which isn't really what I was after. There are quite a few very clear pictures of the Belgian, English, French and Polish guns used in the fortifications, as well as some quite heavy WW1 guns. Really nice for someone, just not for me. The sea defences shot was nice though. Artillery shell with fuse on a stick anyone?

Last book of this short review is Concord Publications 1024 After the Storm: Iraqi Wrecks & Fortifications.

I paid 10 euros for it, rather cheap as most Concord books tend to sell in the 12-15 euro range (and sometimes more). It's also brandnew but the spine is discoloured and there is a faint tobacco smell to it (which I loathe. Ex smokers are the worst :P ) Tons of pics of wrecks (what I bought it for) and some excellent shots of fortifications. Nice colour pics too. Well chuffed with this one. Here are some samples.

And that is it for now. I'll do a review on the new Kampfgruppe Walther book soon but I'm still going over it......there is a lot to see and take in!