Victor, Charly and Bob - WIP

Did not feel like building more stuff, so decided to grab the brushes and have a bit of painting fun while I still can. So, Victor, Charly and Bob.

The other 3 are still in various states of conversion, so those are for a later date.

Partisan Maxim rework 99% ready

I picked up some Grubby Tanks MMG VC teams in a pre order at Crisis, only to realise they are firing antiquated Maxims <sigh>. But waste not, want not, so a quick filing, headswap and very little GS later we have this.....

Option 2 of the Partisan MG Team, the Maxim. Not sure if that is meant to be the wheeled shielded version, but being Partisans I'm assuming they are not very high up on the MG food chain, so this old banger should do them nicely. Tbh I'm not sure what gun it actually is supposed to be....the tripod is reversed (most likely to help casting), it had the flash hider of a Vickers but not the cover or other bits....so a bit of a mish mash of guns....I guess? Made a condensor can, added some lead wire for the tube. Need to file off the sight and replace it with some upright brass wire. Als do some trials with some thicker paper to make the fabric  ammo bands. His head is from the German crew of the Greek Caique pack, it comes with 3 useful generic figures, 2 with beards....which are perfect for my Partisans. The last gun I need to convert is the MG-34 and then all 3 options are available.

Getting sidetracked, as usual, I also picked up the Britannia Vietnam Firebase Command bunker. Then sawed and sanded off 1/3rd of the resin. As I really dislike lift oof roofs for most buildings, I sanded the sides of that as well and have now glued it down with expoxy to make sure it stays on, and will fix the seam  sandbag at a time. For a Britannia resin piece, the bubble holes aren't as bad as usual which was a pleasant surprise!

I've orderd 400 resin barrels for this project as to make the Firebase like I want it. The bunker will have a row of them surround it, as well as some plus sandbags in front of the door (that I also enlarged). I'm trying to find a iron lattice tower with the right dimensions to function as the antenna, but dumping 25 quid incl shipping for a single H0 is a bit rich, so I guess off to China I go?

I'm not going for the red dust allover you see in parts of Vietnam....when needs be, this one will have to double as a rebel bunker or whatever I feel like. Same for the defensive works. In the end I have a finite amount of room here.

Not much else to say.....tried a new sandy yello on the Grot tank and having a good long think about it. These wrists are not doing me any favours and even typing for more then a few minutes at a time turns my hands into claws. So I just sit here, do some sculpting, sort some stuff for sale.

Oh, Crisis was a blast, sale went reasonably ok, some stuff just did not shift while others that have been for sale for ages were snapped up quickly. But going to a show kills me. I have very little stamina left, everything hurts all the time, ad it was very hard to focus when I finally packed the lot back in the car and went for a stroll around the show to see what was there....which was a lot! I hope next year I will be able to visit it and enjoy it a bit more. Who knows. I might even be in less pain.

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.

Spending Easter in a proper fashion, sans eggs.

Right, after clearing a bit of the atic and a lot og my hobbyroom like a rabid ferret on Red Bull, I've got in my hobbyroom this monstrosity....

...and all of this needs to be sorted, bagged, tagged and put online for sale. Of course, that will happen after Easter, cause right now is family time. And after a day spent with Kim and the kids and a guest and delivering a killer cola marinated chicken I spent some time in the hobby room with todays arrivals. Cause yes, I have bought stuff. And all of the stuff that had arrived today is now cleaned, built and based.

I received some Viet Minh, to be used as low class VC. Just sanded the bases smooth and stuck them to 1 euro cents with the exception of the LMG, that I put on a miscut 2mm MDF base. When everything has dried I can get to work on the mould lines and find a solution for their heads as every single one of them, with one notable exception, comes with a straw hat. And the bareheaded guy has it on his back...... So I need to find somesuitable heads and use Oyumaru on those to get some proper heads, and I can remove the straw hats or slide them onto their backs, but booney hats would be nice too. I think I have some of those in my Liberation Models box. All Britannia figures these, rather nice, and they should look fine with some work.

The tents, firepits and well are from this set:

The set is from 2010 but easily found on Ebay, not so much in local stores. Not that I need more then 1 set now. Built in all in less then 30 minutes, then some cleaning after the glue had set, cut bases, added and and aned the tents sides smoorth. When ready it will go right in the 20mm Desert Village/City box, until needed. Really nice items, should set you back around 10 Pounds for a box.

Also found a ladder that I had made back then when Mordheim was released. It was bases straight up ona  piece of 3mm plastic foamboard I've long since given to Modhail. Removed that base and made a new minimalistic one for Morheim. I also found some really thin wood that I will use in the same manner for fences etc as it is perfectly 20mm scaled.

One of my pick ups for today from the charity shops, besides 2 more bags of very thin lenghts of wood, are a bag of beads for 5 cents, a cookbook holder which is perfect for mty book collection and a large sheet of woven grassy fabrik, and the pattern will not look out of place on a building from a county in the Pacific. The beads make very fine for sale items at the various shops that I want to build.


That is all for now folks, might be back tomorrownight with more news! Enjoy your Easter!