Manda (Amachan) goes to the Eastern Front

Well, let’s prevent this from happening or at least provide the tank crews a way to get their tanks out.

I found that on the Battlefront kits something was severely lacking from the Soviet tanks, logs. I got some bamboo BBQ skewers, cut them in bits and glued them on with a bit of superglue. Simple 15mm logs.

So I went in to fix the hats of the 2 I did earlier with some greenstuff. I think it went well, the silicone sculpting brushes I bought some time ago really helped doing this on 15mm figures. I am just going to have to smooth it out when it is cured tomorrow.

In Flames of War basic infantry teams consist of 4 models on a single base, so I prepped 3 more Cossacks to paint up and join the one I did today. Now, I did cut the hats a little bit too short I feel on these. I don’t think it is going to be a problem, but definitely something I am going to have to pay attention to next time.

As I was painting the Cossack and making pictures along the way, it was obvious my camera struggled to focus on something this small. So here is the Gerry shot, a blurry miniature and a sharp Gerry…..

So, here is the test Cossack going through the painting….. blender? Not sure where I was going with that, but here we go.

I started with a base coat of Vallejo Model Color German Cam. Med. Brown (70.826) applied with my airbrush. I then painted the rim of the hat with Vallejo Model Air Dark Sea Gray (71.053) and did the trousers and the shoulder loops with Scale 75 Scalecolor Cantabric Blue (SC-53).

Next up I did the metal bits of the rifle with Vallejo Metal Color Burnt Iron (77.721). The brush I use for my metallics isn’t as well pointed as my main brush, so the sooner I did that the better. Then I did the top of the hat and the stripes on the trousers with a bit of Vallejo Model Color Flat Red (70.957) followed by the wooden stock of the rifle and the handle of the spade on his back with Vallejo Panzer Aces New Wood (70.311).

The bag he was carrying I did with Vallejo Model Color Red Leather (70.818). I then started to do the cross and the dot on the hat with Scale 75 Scalecolor Sol Yellow (SC-40) and then the skin with Scale 75 Scalecolor Basic Flesh (SC-20).

All the equipment he is packing and his boots I did with Vallejo Panzer Aces Leather Belt (70.312) and then I did the hair and my attempt at a moustache with Vallejo Model Color Black Grey (70.862).

And that is the acrylic colours on the first Cossack of the 9th Guards Cavalry done.

I really enjoyed painting him, the size was not a problem for me at all and I may actually enjoy it more than painting 28mm models. Although you should ask me if I still do after I painted hundreds of them like this…..

As you can see in my reference on the top, not all them have blue trousers and not all of them wear the hat. The trousers that I don’t do in this blue will just be in the base colour I apply in the first step and the helmets will be painted using Vallejo Game Color Goblin Green (72.030).

My camera was stuggling way more seeing the detail clearly on these models than I was, so the quality isn’t always the best due to cropping and such.

I literally found a material I loathe working with more than GW failcast…… It is the Battlefront flexible thermo-plastic. Luckily it is only the German gun crews that are in this horrible stuff, but they all have a mould line right across their helmets….. Small mould lines in the clothing you’re not likely to see, but on top of the helmet…. All you can do is cut it, you can’t scrape, you can’t sand and with my hands I am not stable enough to cut the mould line clean off the helmet. So most of them are going to have little dimples in the helmet and mould lines in places where I just couldn’t get them off. I would seriously prefer GW failcast….

Since I am painting all the figures separately and then putting them on their base and then doing the base I need something I can easily put on for texture. Now I was first thinking of doing this straight up as I have always done, but I thought it might be too thick. So I went with the texture paste, but I’d still have to paint it. So I started thinking, can I thin this. For some reason I had not thought of this before, but it does say on the tub that you can, so I gave it a try.

I thinned it with just water and spread it over a base, the base on the right has a thicker mix than the left and I think the thicker mix is somewhat better, but I also think both will do fine. This means I have to be less accurate with my mixing.

So the plan is that I prime the bases, then glue the painted models onto it and then paint this muddy sludge on. After that all I have to do is make sure the rim is painted and the models are blended it with the base.

I am also going to have to add some tufts or rubble and stuff to it, I still need to have a think about what exactly I am going to do for that.

On a side note, I am also thinking that for all the tanks that I do for the Germans, not the tank hunters or anti-tank vehicles, I may want to do a different division. I was thinking of a Waffen SS Panzer division, but I may do a Wehrmacht one instead, I am not sure yet. If anyone has any good ideas that would fit this project, let me know.

I was cleaning this Panzergrenadier MG34 team and I started wondering, why is this guy carrying a baguette on his back?