Grasshoppers and Elephants

Making a start on the Ontos model by empress miniatures.

The ontos was a light armoured vehicle armed with six recoiless rifles that will put a downer on anyones day on the receiving end of it.

the ontos was designed to be a light and mobile firing platform and was used by the US marines in vietnam.

every army with a tank that i build tends to have a vehicle based in some way in kellys heroes (the best ww2 heist movie ever)

What better vehicle than a tank with six big guns for oddball to be in command of complete with a crate of gold straped to the front and with moriarity fiddling with the gubbins making it go.

the model is mainly resin but the rifles are metal which did lead to some balancing issues when building.

the loud speaker was made from the bit if a Tau gundrone that holds the pulse carbines together with a greenstuff cone.

Thought that the Some fire support would be useful for the NVA.

The 50mm light morter and the sniper are from gringo40s and the anti aircraft gun is from empress miniatures.

Just need to sort out some transfers, the transfers in the set will not work for this huey.

I need a unit badge for each side and the aircraft number for the doors like the VT-5 in the picture posted earlier.

The door gunners were stuck lightly to bases so i could paint them easily.

they were undercoated with grey seer.

they have russian uniform clothes, the helmets are brown violate.

they have mornfang brown gloves abd german grey boots.

they were washed with watered down badab black.

then highlighted by adding vallejo buff to the base colours.

Once they were dry i gave them a matt varnish.

the last bit i had to paint were the visors which i painted blue with gloss varnish on top.

Before sticking the door gunners in i wanted to try out some mud pigments, i used a mix of kromlech dark earrh weathering powder and secret weapons terracotta earth.

i kind of mixed some into a gloop with a bit of lahmium medium then plopped it on and removed the excess with wet cotten buds.

Next i had to paint the struts on the clear plastic canopy, green outside and grey inside.

i glued them in place being very careful nit to get glue on the clear parts

It was after a long day at work that i thought sticking the crew in before painting would be a good idea….

turns out day off me is not as exited about the idea.

anyhow, i base coated the helicopter with mechanicus standard grey.

The pilots were then painted vallejo russian uniform with briown violate helmets also from vallejo.

the flesh is then painted with cadian flesh.

the interior of the model including the seats was then given a few coats of grey seer.

i think the interior was a darker grey than this but i have found darker greys a little muddy and hard to differentiate from the green on 20mm models in past projects.

any straps were painted vallejo khaki with buckles picked out with lead belcher.

once it was all dry i gave the interior and crew a 50/50 wash of badab black and lahmium medium any excess was mopped up with a cotten bud.

i did this a couple of times then did a light wash of agrax earthshade into the recesses.

the pilots were then highlited with russian uniform mixed with vallejo buff.

im now working on the exterior using russian uniform.

I took these photos when visiting the war and peace show.

i can use them as a reference when building and painting the kit.

The Huey is being rebuilt by a team of enthusiasts its cool to see how the Bird 18 changes each year.

last time i went to the show the rocket pods had been fitted.