Hot on the heels of yesterday's post, here's my (mostly) scratchbuilt Opel Blitz with 20mm Flak truck. The idea grew out of a few different sources I found in books where troops had stripped down a regular Blitz truck by removing the cab roof, bed sides, and often the windshield and doors. I couldn't find much information on why this was done, but my hunch is that the crew wanted a vehicle with wide-open fields of fire that they could move about quickly.
The base was an old, miscast Opel Blitz chassis from Warlord Games I chopped down and then rebuilt. The front license plate, notek light, running boards, rear of the cab, driver's seat, dashboard, and gear shifts are all plasticard. I added a steering wheel from an Sdkfz 250 kit spare, the headlamps from a 1/35 scale Lee kit, and the tires are from a Rubicon Opel Blitz kit that I had used for my Berlin barricades. The truckbed was taken from an old O gauge plastic train car floor, cut down to size. I really like the texture on this and it was much easier to paint and weather than a basswood or balsa floor would have been. I then added bracing and struts to the underside, as well as a small stowage box, from plasticard. The 20mm Flak and crew are from Warlord Games' 20mm DAK blister pack.
The base was an old, miscast Opel Blitz chassis from Warlord Games I chopped down and then rebuilt. The front license plate, notek light, running boards, rear of the cab, driver's seat, dashboard, and gear shifts are all plasticard. I added a steering wheel from an Sdkfz 250 kit spare, the headlamps from a 1/35 scale Lee kit, and the tires are from a Rubicon Opel Blitz kit that I had used for my Berlin barricades. The truckbed was taken from an old O gauge plastic train car floor, cut down to size. I really like the texture on this and it was much easier to paint and weather than a basswood or balsa floor would have been. I then added bracing and struts to the underside, as well as a small stowage box, from plasticard. The 20mm Flak and crew are from Warlord Games' 20mm DAK blister pack.
Painting was very similar to the Panzer IIIs I posted yesterday. I primed the truck and 20mm in Panzer Grey, applied hairspray, and then basecoated everything in a 75/25 mix of Tamiya Desert Yellow and Yellow-Green. After chipping, I did some detail painting, most notably the "ambulance parts", as I wanted to instill the idea that the crew had cannibalized other Opels that had broken down to keep theirs running. To get a weathered appearance on the wood bed, I basecoated in a mid-tone Gray ("Pewter" I believe), then used a Biege, mid-tone Brown, and Red-Brown mixed with Vallejo Glaze Medium and did a kind of heavy wash, focusing on one or two boards at a time, applying the colors unevenly. Once that was dry, I drybrushed some Vallejo Ghost Grey and a very small amount of White perpendicularly to make the texture "pop".
The crew are painted in Vallejo Sand Biege and Olive Green uniforms, with a light wash of GW Agrax Earthshade and Camoshade. I wanted the crew to have a slightly sun-burnt appearance, so I basecoated their skin in Vallejo Old Rose, highlighting by mixing in successive concentrations of Vallejo Basic Skintone, with the final highlight in Basic Skintone only, and then washing with diluted GW Skintone.
After decals were applied and it was given a clear coat, I weathered using oils, mostly a pin wash of Raw Umber and some oil rendering with White and Yellow Ochre on the upper surfaces to make them appear sun-bleached. I then glued on the Flak gun, crew, and stowage and did a final weathering with dry pigments.
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