Paint Queuemas Day 6: US Army in MOPP Gear

"On the sixth day of Paint Queuemas..."

Today's entry is another group of Eureka Miniatures - some 28mm US Army in MOPP Gear. This is a great range of figures with a lot of variety beyond even those I have here. If I had one criticism, it's that the mold lines are kind of tricky to see and remove because they often run along seams, pockets, etc.

This is another bunch of miniatures I've done using zenithal priming and glazing. The fatigues are done by painting one coat of Dark Green ink, then a coat of GW Camoshade, and then I applied blotches Vallejo Medium Brown and Medium Olive, then did a final wash of Camoshade to tone the transitions down and blend it all together. Yes, I know this isn't true US Army woodland camo as it lacks black but I decided against including it since it didn't look nice and took away from the shading. All the webbing is Reaper Worn Olive, washed with a coat of GW Camoshade.

Doing the flesh was surprisingly easy, as I opted to simply paint the brows and cheeks with Vallejo Flat Flesh, and then washing it with a heavy application of Fleshshade and Sepia. Once I filled the lenses with Testors Canopy Glue after sealing, it gives the effect of deeply sunk eyes inside a hood. Gunmetal was done with basecoat of Dark Grey and a coat of Black ink.

As I wanted to go with a post apocalyptic "Twilight 2000" vibe, I kept the bases very sparse of vegetation, opting solely for rocky soil using a variety of craft paint. I did not include much dirtying of their fatigues, as I wanted to give the impression that they'd just been deployed or airdropped somewhere.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post!

1/64 scale "Orange Crush" tank

Now that judging for the Brush Beast painting contest is finished, I can share my 1/64 scale conversion of Matchbox's Fire Stalker into a post-apocalyptic tank. I call it "Orange Crush".

I removed the wheels and boom crane, replaced the chassis, added tracks from Rubicon's 1/56 scale Hetzer, and added improvised armor with corrugated plasticard. The turrets are from Battlefront's 1/100 scale M113, with spikes and hatches added, and a 1/60 MG34.

 

Fast & Furious Gaslands Commission #2

Two years ago I did a rather large commission for a client using the slightly larger 1/60 scale Fast & Furious cars as a base. The same client approached me again to do another team using similar cars i roughly the same style and I was happy to oblige. With the exception of the Halo buggy and Maisto rig, these are Mattel's larger F&F branded cars which make a nice basis for conversion.

As with last time, these cars were fully disassembled, stripped of paint, and converted using plasticard and bits. This time the client used Anvil Industry's fantastic set of Gaslands bitz which, after dealing with the poorly cast Ramshackle bitz from last time was a welcome relief. Painting and weathering are the same as the last project (a black base with rust and bare steel chipping effects) but the client asked for something to make these "pop", so they don't get mixed up with the older vehicles, so I decided to add turqouise blue to offset the orange rust (a very popular combination in marketing the last few years, especially movie posters).

And that's about all there is - a pretty straightforward project with the most time-consuming process being paint stripping.

 

Gaslands Misc. Vehicles

To finish off this week's series of completed Gaslands vehicles from my workbench, here are the last miscellaneous ones that just didn't fit into 'cars' or 'trucks' - a gyrocopter, 2 buggies, and 2 tractors.

Matchbox Tractor Plow with armor plates, 'teeth', running boards, and new exhaust/smoke dispensers

Matchbox Tractor Shovel with armor plates, gun ports, and stowage

Hot Wheels Corkscrew Buggy with a 'suicide seat', pintle-mounted MG, and wheel swap

Greenlight 'Rat Rod' (that came as a set with the flatbed truck) with skull, caged roof, and spare tire cover added

Hot Wheels Sky Fi (this is probably my favorite vehicle of the entire batch) with a GW flying base 

Gaslands Cars

Hot on the heels of yesterday's Gaslands trucks post, here are my completed cars. These are painted and weathered in the same way as the trucks. Taken in total, I like this batch the most - just a lot of unique looking cars.

The "Dia De Muertos" car - pretty much a stock Hot Wheels Baja Shaker with new wheels and stowage

A Hot Wheels car that was apparently a McDonald's exclusive back in the day, with rear wheels switched out and nitro canisters added

Hot Wheels Aristo Rat, again with wheels changed

Hot Wheels Fast and Furious Offroad Charger with a pintle-mounted MG added (the barrel unfortunately broke just as I took the picture!)

Hot Wheels Spectyte with wheels changed

Hot Wheels '57 Roadster (stock)

Hot Wheels Payback with a wheel switch, nitro tanks, and rear bumper added

Gaslands Trucks

 Over the next few days, I'll be posting some 1/64 scale vehicles for Gaslands. These were actually completely painted last year, all that was left was the weathering, but with COVID and the move, they didn't get finished until now. Better late than never. 

I really just wanted a plain paint scheme that I could quickly complete in a week or two, so I went with plain black with dark grey "damage" and some various accent colors. The most involved painting was doing the gem effect on the armored truck below. For decals, I just used whatever was at hand and looked good. Unfortunately, since many of the decal sheets were old, there was a lot of silvering throughout. Sometimes that just happens. Weathering was pretty straightforward - some passes with the airbrush over lower chassis for dust and some application of Vallejo mud.

Group shot to start with:

Matchbox excavator truck with the excavator removed and replaced with a Katyusha MRL

Matchbox armoured truck with a M113 flamethrower turret added

Matchbox Land Rover with an M113 minigun turret added

An incredibly old Hot Wheels Jeepster (from when I was a kid) with a ram and mortar 

Greenlight flatbed truck with stowage and armor plating