Airbrush Adventures - and Tanks!

It's been a long time organising, but I finally managed to get everything together to airbrush a bunch of stuff that has been sitting around for a while. The saga of the airbrush has been going on since November, when I got a brand new shiny Iwata Eclipse for my birthday - hurrah! Unfortunately, when I tried to run it using my little electric air-pump from HobbyCo (Japan), no paint..   arrgghhh.

The model I was given was the BCS, which is a siphon feed, so I suspected that I needed larger volumes of paint or a higher air pressure.

In the meantime, I sent the airbrush back to the vendor: air-craft.net to be checked (and also to see if they would consider replacing with a gravity feed model). Of course, in their hands, the airbrush worked perfectly, so back it came. Tried various tests: yep, my little pump wasn't managing enough pressure to get the siphon effect working.  So I needed a new compressor.

Much research later, I decided a Sparmax for around £100 would do the trick, got back in touch with the vendor, who had been brilliant  - sorry, no Sparmax in stock, but they did offer me a demo Iwata PowerJet Lite shipped for £100. Ok, done!

So the siphon thing means a bit more mucking around than with a gravity feed airbrush, but it just works brilliantly. I like to use Tamiya acrylics for airbrushing. With the Tamiya X20 thinner, even with my old setup (cheapo airbrush & electric pump purchased online for about A$40), I had much less clogging and issues than with other brands. With the new Iwata brush and compressor, it's an absolute dream.

The whole session lasted about two hours, and I worked out a new technique that minimised issues and cleaning. I had purchased a whole bunch of small plastic bottles online, so I would fill these approximately 50/50 with Tamiya colour and X20. Shake to mix, then decant into the siphon bottle. Spray - NO clogging! not even once!  When I finished with one colour, detach siphon bottle, pour what was left back in to my plastic bottle, rinse out the siphon bottle, spray out the remaining colour with the siphon bottle detached, and repeat the process with the next colour.

Over this session, I used 6 main colours, 5 variations with added white, and it was absolutely trouble-free. This is how airbrushing should be!

You can judge the results for yourself, apologies for the photographs, but they were taken under artificial light.  And I can highly recommend https://www.air-craft.net/ whose customer service through all this was just great.

AFV, a blockhouse, hut and Malayan jungle des-res

Oh, and some more terrain - rocky areas, an oasis and some palms for desert games, on the left, MDF and clay making some paddy fields for my Malaya setup.

More terrain!

Ha Go in the jungle

As I have been putting together a Japanese force for Malaya, I acquired a couple of type 97 Chi Ha tanks from Warlord, one plastic and the other resin, in various sales etc.

Reading through accounts of the Malaya campaign though, by far the most common armour in use was the Ha Go Type 95 light tank. This model equipped the armour component of infantry divisions and was used very successfully by the Japanese forces in Malaya. As far as I was aware the only 1/56 Ha Go available was a resin and metal model from Warlord, and as I wanted to field at least two, at £18 each, that was expensive for a support option that might only get a stand-in role in one Chain of Command campaign.

As luck would have it, a chance conversation on Twitter with Garry, who runs Paint and Glue Miniatures, revealed that although not on the website, yes, P&G did a Ha Go, for the princely sum of £7. (plus postage).  Less than a week later I had two Ha Go on my desk, in a fetching shade of blue.

Ha! Who Go's there?

The print lines from the 3d process are minimal, the models very neat and clean, (I just gave them a quick scrub with a stiffish old brush to get rid of some wispy print residue). 

I am very impressed with the quality, price, and speed of delivery, so Paint and Glue are likely to be my go-to for support options from now on. 

So now I have four Japanese AFV to get painted, and the Japanese camouflage schemes are very interesting and appealing. I can see these playing a significant role in future campaigns. 

Here's their natural habitat:

In the jungle, the mighty jungle..

I'm not sure what more to add to these. In a real jungle, creepers and fallen trees, but I also want to be able to place figures, so these may be left as is, they have had two coats of dilute white glue to seal the ground cover, and some added flock and tufts, but not much real change. It's time to find a place to store these, till I get them out to play.

Finally, I am also experimenting with making trees for European settings. I have a bunch of the smaller Woodland Scenics plastic armatures, so I glued them together, twisted them into shape and glued some coarse chopped foam to them using rubber cement.

Trees, Mark I

Not very impressive..

The Mark II version used a strip of rubberised horse hair, cut into lengths, teased out and stretched over the armature, the foam was then glued to the horse hair and branches, again using rubber cement.

Trees, Mark II

Much better! I have given them a first coat of thinned white glue to seal them, and we shall see how durable they are. I am expecting some larger armatures to be delivered soon, as these are too short to be anything larger than ornamentals or fruit trees for an orchard.

It's all progress, I had better get on with painting some of the core infantry platoons now!

Jungle Boogie! - Building a Malaysian jungle.

Ok, I was going to make some witty reference to the Jungle Boogie lyrics, but thanks 'Kool and the Gang', it seems to be 'Get down' and 'Jungle Boogie' in various juxtapositions, interspersed with occasional noises.

I've been working away for a while on getting my terrain sorted for Jungle settings, primarily Malaya, but I suspect if I am not careful, at some point in the future, it could well be standing in for Vietnam (those Empress and Gringo Vietnam miniatures are very tempting), and the Pacific Islands, (if I ever add to my single squad of US Marines).

Lots of things have been put together, cheap purchases of aquarium matting and plants, plastic bamboo plants and palm trees, and a bunch of 3mm MDF. I've been watching the TooFatLardies build, and the scenery done by The Tactical Painter. 

For information, I used the following products: Palm Trees:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/332899683501 


Bamboo:   
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303332487410

The aquarium matting:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/263373954826

I also bought other bits to add, that haven't been added yet:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143457222199

etc.


So the last couple of days I finally started putting it all together. First step was to get a bunch of 3mm MDF sheets (cheap eBay purchase), and roughly draw out a bunch of random shapes, then get to work with an electric jigsaw. This was rough and ready.

There doesn't need to be any great accuracy, as I had to sand down the edges anyway, and that gave me a chance to deal with any dodgy cutting marks. I can't emphasise this strongly enough.. do this outside, wear old clothes and a facemask, the MDF dust is dangerous and incredibly fine and messy.

So the bases are cut and chamfered..  you've cleaned up several kilos of zombie sawdust...

The next step is to drill out the holes for pegs on which to stick the aquarium matting. I have two drills set up, one for the pegs, and one for holes for the palm trees. It's much easier than having to swap back and forward, or mucking about enlarging holes.

Some of the bases with the pegs inserted, and turned upside down to dry.

Quick and dirty - I have a pack of bamboo skewers, dip the end into white glue, twist into holes, then snip off with heavy duty wire cutters. By using the cutters with the cutting edge facing upwards, and the jaws flat against the surface I was able to get the pegs to a more or less consistent height.

One of my bamboo bases, showing what the mat foliage looks like pressed down onto the pegs.  

Stuff..   for adding to bases

Trimmed rocks form the aquarium plants

Aquarium mat, each one about 90+ individual tufts

All your bases..  S for secondary jungle

After an exciting night with gravel, a hot glue gun, paint and sand

Add trees

Added aquarium mat plants to the bamboo stubs.

I'm relatively pleased with progress, I have ideas about adding tree roots, (string dipped in paint), creeper (string dipped in green paint) - plus there's the 'Herb d' Provence' to add for the leaf litter.

The madness continues..  no creepers, but a good session with the airbrush, several pots of Tamiya paint, and a bucket load of white glue and Herb d' Provence. Tomorrow, it will be sealed with a spray mix of watered down white glue, and final highlighting done. Phew. It's been a big build.

Out of Control - and JOP

OK, this is getting silly, I now have 4 vehicles needing weathering, and another dozen of all kinds, awaiting airbrushing. Unfortunately for me, I need the extension cord for my airbrush, and that has been attached to the Christmas Tree lights, so I have been waiting patiently for the time when the Christmas Tree can be taken down. Today! All Christmas packed away.

So this week will be the great airbrushing. My Japanese infantry are all assembled, based and undercoated, and they will be getting airbrushed too. So hopefully this week I will have a big session and get things moving again.

Anyway, to make sure something got done while I couldn't airbrush, I have been working on the Brits for Malaya, and for the Japanese some Jump Off Points. Fairly pleased with how these turned out.

Rolled out Green stuff, spares from the bits box, boxes and drums from Anyscale Models, basil for ground cover, and Christmas Tree off-cuts for jungle plants.

The Christmas Tree we have is an artificial one, and this year, one of the little sub branch thingies dropped off, so I managed to scavenge that to create some greenery for the bases. I am pretty happy with the look of these. The partner, who is a Christmas tragic, is probably quite lucky the tree got put away before I realised the branches could be re-purposed.

Incidentally, one of the AFVs I built recently (today) was the Soviet IS-2 from Warlord Games, in plastic, and my goodness that's a big beast of a tank. Having being building mainly Early War stuff for a while, the size of the gun alone is a shock. But it was 50% off in the manager's special - so along with some plastic Fallschirmjäger, the Fallschirmjäger support pack and the plastic Chi Ha, it was too good an offer to pass up.

All purchased in 2019, as well as a Perry Miniatures 2lb gun that is yet to arrive, so I am still lead/plastic free in 2020!  I will need some green paint, some more basil though!

A New Hope

Or a New Year, but I just like the Star Wars reference. I managed to fit in a last minute splurge with Warlord's Bad Santa sale, and the local hobby shop had a 1/56 Soviet BA10 Armoured Car from Rubicon, so it would have been rude not to help them free up the shelf space.

Overall, this year has been pretty productive. I haven't managed to play as many games as I would like, and I have pretty much exclusively played Chain of Command, but I have got a fair amount of painting and terrain building stuff in.

I do think I should be better at not getting distracted by support options, specifically armour, as I just enjoy building and painting them. Looking at the painting queue, there are currently 11 AFV awaiting paint.

For projects, I finished (ha!) my Early War German & French forces, I completed my Soviets, and I am a good way in to the forces for Malaya.

Next steps - finish the Malaya forces (Japanese, and Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders). Then kick off the terrain for this campaign. I think I have all the terrain components I need, they just need to be assembled.

Then there's forces for the forthcoming 'Infamy, Infamy' from the Too Fat Lardies. There's Kickstarters on the way from War & Empire 15mm Dark Ages, plus the Flags of War Hanoverian forces for the 1745.

And the various platoons for Chain of Command, Italians, US, Fallschirmjager, US Airborne, British Airborne etc..

But first things first - my main priority is to repair the shed. Not much use painting all this stuff if it ends up under water...

So Happy Hogmanay, 'Lang may yir lum reek' and have a glorious 2020.

Off to Singapore - well, not really

Despite the intrusion of real life, such as job, family, medical issues (sigh!) I have been making fairly steady progress on the next major project, forces to fight the Malaya Campaign using Chain of Command.

I am choosing to build a generic Japanese infantry platoon, and a platoon from 2nd Battalion, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders; of course, some support options plus, more intimidatingly, the terrain - jungle, roads, paddies, buildings, etc.. The two Chain of Command lists for the campaign are linked from the Too Fat Lardies blog. My only modifications will be to not rate the ASH as 'Elite' as this should be highly restricted, and while they were certainly a better jungle trained and hard-fighting unit, it would be difficult to justify Elite status.

For supplementary information and ideas for replicating the fighting in Malaya, I would highly recommend the Pint-Sized Campaign in the Lardies 2015 Christmas Special. It is focused on the Australian effort, but the background and content apply to all the forces fighting in Malaya.

I confess, I do feel somewhat guilty about the 28mm Italians from Empress, languishing in the shed, but each time I haul them out, I think about whole new sets of terrain, plus the vehicles and so on. I can comfort myself that I have finished an AB41 armoured car:

And I still haven't got my 3d printed M13/40 from a bloke at work..  etc. Ok, I confess, I'm a little intimidated by the quality of the sculpts and I want to really make them look good.

One recommendation from 'Setting the Scene 2' - a terrific modelling guide, and one of his guest painter Nick's, aka (Moiterei)  tips, was to use the Andreas colours Field Grey set as one of the base colours for Italian uniform, and so I tell myself I have deferred painting the figures till I can justify €18.5 for the colour set.

Enough excuses. Progress on the Malaya Campaign kit. So I have now assembled and undercoated some Warlord bargain vehicles, (Lanchester, Universal Carrier and Type 97 Chi-Ha), and I have a Vickers VI Light Tank (Blitzkrieg) that will do double duty as an India Pattern Light Tank, yet to be assembled. I still want to get a Type 95 Ha-Go, as these seem to have been a staple of the Japanese campaign, but in reality, I suspect I would need to get a couple of them. I am still looking for a good cheap source for these.

All my aquarium plants have arrived but I need to get a clear day with a few hours to do the MDF bases cutting, chamfering and cleaning up required...  so in the meantime I have been focusing n the infantry..

2 Batt, A&SH, after cutting and head swaps

These are the Perry figures, with Woodbine head swaps on a select few. Standard British platoon organisation of three squads each led by a corporal, with a Bren team and a rifle team, platoon HQ is 2nd Lieutenant, plus platoon sergeant, Boys AT rifle team and 2" mortar team.

'Goop' a mix of Mocha paint and Grout

Just add Goop!.  ok, so first layer of goop, sprinkled with grit (kitty litter), undercoated with car spray primer, and a second layer of goop on the bases.

Voila!

And now it's on to assembling (literally!) dozens of plastic Warlord Games Japanese that I picked up in their sales. I ended up with a box and 5 sale sprues, giving me a total of 60 figures. A Japanese Platoon is 3 thirteen man squads, a knee mortar squad, plus platoon HQ, so a total of 54 men. I also picked up some TAG Japanese supports (MMG on tripod, flamethrower and sniper teams) during their recent sale.

Steady progress

These guys should be assembled today. I have glued them (using Tamiya Extra Thin Cement) to Perry bases from their Africa Corps and Desert Rats sets, as this gives a pretty sturdy bond, and then the Perry bases will go on to my standard 2p coins for weight.

I am still thinking about how best to do 'jungle' basing on figures, I suspect involving herbs, so if anyone has any bright ideas, pass them on in the comments section!

   

Action in the Ukraine

So I finally managed to get out the Eastern Front toys for a game of Chain of Command at the club today.

Pretty simple scenario, with the huge encirclements of the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa, a Soviet platoon is trying to evict the German defenders who have captured a critical rail junction.

Funky dice trays, courtesy of a very cheap deal from Wayland Games.

Sleepy quiet, on the left Soviet scouts push forward

What's this - a KV1? 

Making short work of the wire, in the background a firefight between Soviet and German squads

The view from the Soviet end of things

Soviet Maxim guns plus another squad follow up.

The KV goes manhunting!

The other flank, and shots are exchanged

Oops..  Scratch one Pz IV

A good fun game, and looks like at least a few Soviets made it out of the pocket. In my lists the KV is a list six choice, which seems absurdly cheap for something virtually indestructible in period. I think I am going to have to staff up some BT fast tanks, and T26 light tanks, as there is nothing in the German 1941 lists that can touch the KV.

Steve's Force Morale hit 0 though surprisingly for us, leader casualties were quite light. I'm looking forward to another Eastern Front game, but I will need to work on more scenery.