Draconis: Spring Clean 2024 and onward

29th April 2024

Another weekend with little progress – but luckily I did get some work done in the evenings at the end of last week.

With the Madboyz stripped back and washed I then went ahead and cleaned up a lot (likely not all….Tim) of the mould lines. Then I sorted out some bases. I did debate putting them on 30mm round lipped bases, but in the end I stuck with the old skool vibe and sorted out some fresh 25mm rounds for them.

Next up it was finding suitable arms for them. I went through a process of trying out arms to see how they would work with the different torsos and angles, and eventually found pairings that worked, for most. A few I’m not super happy with, but just didn’t have enough suitable arms to do the job.

Then it was some gap filling. I always seem to think I can do this better than I can 😊 As well as the arm joints where needed I also filled the gaps in the slottas, to ensure that the base tabs were held securely in place. Followed by basing with sand/gravel and priming. Went for black with a zenithal overspray of wraithbone (thinking it would be warmer for the green skin tones)

The Zenithal was ok, but I felt that I needed to drybrush in some ivory onto some of the shirts and undersides of arms, so it has become a bit of an underpainting instead.

Finally I started to lay down some colour. They haven’t got very far along, but slow progress is still progress….

24th April 2024

I haven’t been finding much hobby time of late due to work etc. However, I found I had fun painting up the Deadzone Marauder – and while doing so I recalled that I had some old Ork Madboyz (somewhere).

I had some back in the late 80s, early 90’s but sadly they escaped me somehow (I still have quite a bit of my stuff from 1st ed Rogue Trader era on though). A decade or more back I picked up 9 madboyz from an online auction site. Now they were on my mind again I had to locate them – after much searching I found them again….

They all had a white coat of paint, in varying thicknesses….. Ten minis in total, nine madboyz and an interloper. One of the boyz was so mad he even had an arm on backwards 😊

So, into the Dettol they went. For a true spring Clean! Due to the fact I only had a couple of spare arms in my bits box I only risked one plastic arm at first – to make sure it did strip ok.

They cleaned up pretty well overall. Removing the white revealed that some of them had thick coats from previous paintjobs. After some careful scrubbing with Dettol (not water!) and an old toothbrush virtually all of the old paint came away. Some of the arms had to go in for a second soak as the white paint was really thick and still remained solid in some of the recesses. But I think they came up very cleanly.

A friend said that I should sell them now they are clean – however, if I did that it would mean that I don’t own them anymore, and that would make me a bit sad….. so they are going to get a paintjob. It may not be great, but I think that they deserve it.

19th April 2024

Well, here he is for review, derision or acceptance 😊 But I can say I did have fun at stages here while working on him, and coming up with some ideas.

Taking a ‘ummie name of Tom, He has his camo Hawaiian shirt to blend in, his two most stelff mode guns (double stelff is better than single stelff), his kunninly disguised not really bomz backpack, a clump of grass on one gun and some flowers sticking out of his hat.

There’s no way that the ummies will see through that disguise! Time to go scouting those ‘ummie d-fenzez…..

I may still change the hat tuft perhaps. Its only on with its own self adhesive base….

19th April 2024

Once sprayed I started out by laying down a colour for the basis of the Hawaiian shirt. I had decided that I would go with a vibrant blue, then add white markings on to it. I experimented with some basic flower representations, then tried a leaf.

Whilst I had my small brush out I also added one of his kunnin’ stelff ideas…. If he writes ‘not bomz’ on his backpack full of explosives, then when the ‘ummies read it they will see its clearly not bomz. Solid logic.

Happy enough with the test I went on to block in some of the straps, pouches, boots etc and add more of the flower markings (still not sure whether to risk trying to add leaves all over ) and start to add more details.

I shared the progress with some friends and they felt I should try to add the leaf patterns to the shirt as well, so I went for it.

Then it was on to working on the head (going for a pink stelff hat), the knife and all the other little details. Once I had painted the areas under the unattached arm I glued that, the head and the knife onto the main body.

Shoulder joints could have been a little better, but maybe its just deep seams on the shirt stitching 😊

Basing detail to be added and its nearly there.

Just need to decide on the last extra bits of stelff. I know I want to add a tuft to one gun. But I’m not sure between a tuft or a shrub tuft onto his hat.

18th April 2024

Another post covering the last few days….

Spring clean prompted me to look at my pending projects, odds and ends etc. One thing on my list has been to paint up more Deadzone Strike Teams. A lot of my stuff is from the first Kickstarter, so has a lot in the ‘resin plastic’ material that can be quite hard to clean up. But anyway, I grabbed a few of my marauder commandos and sent pics to some friends.

One friend said she thought this guy looked like he was having a great time, and could do with an Hawaiian shirt…… Even though I don’t think I can replicate an actual Hawaiian shirt I thought I’d just give it a go. It (likely) wont be the scheme that I roll out for the Marauders though (which will probably be in a separate project anyway I expect), so rather than being a test piece for the scheme it will just be a bit of fun.

I don’t have a name for him yet, that will come to me at some point I hope. However, he has had his combat coat made out of the same material that he has seen on documentaries about the ‘ummies, so that he can blend in easily. Also, he grabbed his quietest gun, for ‘stelff’. Then he had the kunnin’ thought that if one gun was stelffi then two guns would be double stelffi! So he grabbed his next quietest gun too! There will be a couple of other stelff things that I may try to add – just see how it goes.

Snipped off the cast on plastic base and got him sprayed up, ready to work on.

And here it is finished. Hopefully I didn’t go overboard with the weathering. At some point I would like to try out weathering powders, but have enjoyed the mud splatter and grime that I did add.

Plus here it is alongside the Cromwell. They are slightly different scale, but…. Near enough.

13th April 2024

Now it was onto further weathering. I started out by sponging on some of my lighter green (Russian Uniform) followed by sponging on some contrast Wildwood.

With that done I added a small amount of the Vallejo Brown Splash Mud effect paint.

This was followed up by painting the details of the tools etc on the deck, and then adding some streaking grime.

Then I went back in and added a small amount more of my ‘flicked on’ thinned peaty brown with the turret in place. This was to tie in the piece, and tidy up where required.

13th April 2024

After the basecoat of the Firefly I laid down a drybrush of Russian Uniform as I did on the Cromwell.

Then I went on to add transfers.

For the tracks I decided to try a different process than what I used on the Cromwell. For the Firefly I painted the tracks with a mid/dark grey basecoat. This was followed up by a wash of ‘Peaty Brown’ and old paint from Foundry (an earthy brown colour). This same colour was then used to add mud splatter around the suspension and the hull.

When that was dry I then drybrushed the tracks grey again, followed by a very light drybrush of gunmetal.

Next came further mud splatter applications, using various shades of brown and beige. All thinned down then flicked on using a reasonably large brush against an old cocktail stick.

I also washed on small areas of the lighter shades in some areas of the tracks to add a little variety.

At this point I could screw the two hull sections together, and apply the first wash stage. I also added the gun barrel ‘camo’ marking to make the 17pdr look like a standard barrel.

9th April 2024

Just a quick one here.

I have managed to find enough time to get the firefly base coated with AK Bronze Green via my basic airbrush.

Thinned it a bit this time and it did seem to spray a little better.

Not sure when I will be able to work on it further but I will update when I can.

9th April 2024

I actually finished this several days ago, but just haven’t had a chance to post the update.

The next stage carried out was adding transfers. In the Sherman Firefly kit I have it has transfers for a few versions. I had already used some on another model a number of years ago, but I still had enough spare that I could put some onto the Cromwell. I don’t know the appropriate markings, so just used a group from the sheet. They really do add a good visual impact once applied. To seal them I added a coat of matt varnish once they had dried.

With the transfers down it was time to wash the main hull using the same method as for the turret. However, I did thin the strong tone wash a little more this time.

Then it was onto the tracks. Wasn’t sure how to handle these though. In the end I went for painting them in a red brown colour all over. The thought on this was that it could represent either mud or older rust perhaps. This was followed up by a drybrush of a dark silver, a wash of army painter dark tone, some matt varnish and finally some spotting of rust colouring.

Chipping came next. I used the same sort of chipping process as that for my Deadzone terrain – sponging on some Wlydwood contrast paints. Followed up with some metallic for some of the chipping and edges. I tested it on the turret first, then rolled it out to the hull.

Finally I added some minor weathering. I had purchased some Vallejo ‘splash mud’ effect so tried that out alongside some streaking grime. I think perhaps I would prefer some dried mud effect, but the splash mud looks ok.

4th April 2024

So, my paints arrived – and the two Bronze Greens are slightly different colours (Vallejo, and AK Air). Also, neither seems quite right for what I needed.

I spent further time researching, and found conflicting answers for what the correct green should be.

As such, I decided just to paint with what I have and see how things come out. Started out on the Cromwell (as that had already been stripped before anyway). I found the AK air paint to be a little thicker than I expected, but did manage to get an airbrush layer down.

I then drybrushed it with my Russian Uniform colour. However, I think perhaps it was a little too lightly.

In order to change the colour further I went back and tried a heavier drybrush over one half of the turret. This gave me more of the tone I was looking for.

Rolled that out to the whole turret, then added a thinned wash of army painter Strong Tone, to tie things together and give a slightly grubby filter to it.

Next up it was rolling out the drybrushing to the whole tank…..

That’s as far as I have got for now.

Next up will be adding some transfers from the Firefly kit, washing the tank hull and then into the tracks and detailing. Then I will try some weathering out….

1st April 2024

My friends and I are planning to try out Warlord games new tank game, ‘Achtung Panzer’ – but plan to try to play it co-operatively.

We recently played through the Star Trek Attack Wing coop campaign and had great fun. One friend is a big tank fan and already has some for Bolt Action. I have a few made (Shermans and Panthers from the previous Tank war game – I am also a big tank fan 😊 ), but have had some waiting even longer to be done.

Many years back, when playing a Weird War 2 game called Secrets of the Third Reich I picked up a 1:48 scale Tamiya Sherman Firefly…. But never got around to putting it together. I also have a Warlord (1:56?) scale Cromwell that I sprayed green, but clearly didn’t clean it properly first. And most of the paint flaked off.

So this first stab at spring cleaning will be to build the Firefly (may be a little large, but since we are playing coop should be ok, and I think it deserves to finally be built), clean up the Cromwell, then paint them both. No problem….. 😊

The Firefly build started out ok – gluing some bits to the diecast chassis. Then came the difference between a model kit and a wargaming kit – the sheer number of components, often very tiny, that go to make a more realistic model!

However, as it went along I actually enjoyed the process (apart from the searches for tiny components that somehow jumped away from me to hide on the floor…). But, I got there in the end.

After scrubbing the Cromwell in warm soapy water, sanding parts back etc I have sprayed them both black. But, I am currently waiting on some paints that should have arrived on Saturday. Needed to order the correct colours for them. Once they arrive and I can get the time I will spray them both with my airbrush (hopefully that goes ok) then try to work on some weathering to add visual interest.