Grasshoppers and Elephants
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About the Project
This project is my way of trying to compile and complete my growing collection of models from Vietnams resistance war against America era miniatures, rather than having a box of dusty lead it will be rather cool to have a box of painted miniatures. This project has been ongoing on and off for a few years now. It started off as a collection of books on my Kindle about the vietnam war then i got into 15mm with battlefronts tour of duty that i first tried playing at a demo game at the grumpy gamers convention at wayland games. Then i started collecting 20 mm vietnam miniatures for use in FNG, force on force ambush valley and the lard's charlie don't surf rule set. i found the 20 mm miniatures by chance wandering round salute i came across the grubby tanks stall they have a huge range of us and NVA and VC in metal as well as a very swish resin firebase and resin huts, This project will cover mainly my 28mm collection and maybe dip into my 15mm and 20mm collections at some point. I plan to collect and paint as many of the Gringo 40s range of figures that i can for both the Vietnamese and Free world forces. Im going to use the painting guide from the flames of war tour of duty book as much as possible as i am colour blind and brown and green can be awkward to work out. This can lead two some interesting colour choices.
Related Genre: Historical
This Project is Active
ARVN ready for the table
These minis were great fun to paint, the detail in them is superb.
some have hammocks rolled up tightly and wedged into the web gear and the selection of ammo pouches fits the weapons the figure is carrying.
Doh just realised i did not paint the neck scarfs will have to go back and do that.
“Huzzah” New toys from salute
Salut was a grest day, i had a chat with Ged on the gringo40s stand and picked up some nee bits to add to the collection.
The resin tank is awesome and i cant wait to get started on it. I have a few ideas for some conversions that may involve me cracking my 3d printer out.
I also picked up some more of tye superb ARVN minis.
these include a rto, a female officer and a dude with a shotgun as well as a group of carbine armed infantry and a superb nco with a thompson machine gun. As always the sculpts are crisp and clean and full of character.
cant wait to finish work today so i can splash some paint on them.
15mm NVA
15mm NVA from the flames of war and peterpig vietnam rangeThese little dudes have been painted the same way the larger NVA were but they looked very dark on the table top so i went back and re highlighted them with the base colour of vallejo russian uniform mixed with increasing amounts if vallejo ivory.
Building a magnetic game board
Using cork tiles i worked out the basic size i would need.
Then i covered it in a magnetic sheet
This was then covered in pva glue and paper.
I made 4 of these magnetic sections and painted them brown and green before adding the squares with a black sharpie.
The board coming together, just need to paint the figures now.More 15mm scenery
These little bits of scenery were built up on magnetic bases.
the trees are some that i had left over from another project that i attatched to the bases with putty with some clumps of vegetation made from an old door mat.
the rocky outcrops are made from bits of rock milliputted together.
luckily working in aquatic retail i can always get cool small peices of rock that are in the bottom of the crates when the decorative rocks are delivered.
i also made some muddy rice paddys from some old bits of a non slip rug.
these were blended into the base with milliput that was then covered in sand and then painted brown and drybrushed.
Painting the huts
The houses were undercoated in gw wraith bone, the bases and floors were then painted with a burnt umber acrylic paint.
once that was dry the cocktail sticks and walls were painted light brown.
the whole model was then covered in gw contrast skeleton horde.
once that was fully dry i gave them a drybrush of vallejo buff.
i then watered down some snakebite leather contrast and painted over the wooden parts and some of the lines on the roofs.
once everything was nice and dry i picked out some of the lines on the walls and roofs with a fine liner pen.
Living the dream
This evening i was living the dream, clint eastwood movies on tv and bits of plasticard and cocktail sticks for building some 15mm scenery
I cut out some pannels for the walls from plasticard scraps
I then arranged them on the magnetic base. And chopped some cocktail sticks up to make supports
The next step was to make a roof that can be removed easily 
The last step is to cover the plain walls and roof in strips of paper, hopefully this will give a nice natural material effect once painted.
