Commission Work: "Innocence Lost" Hitlerjugend

I was commissioned by a new client to convert and paint a unique platoon of Hitler Youth for Flames of War. The client requested an "innocence lost" theme by adding childish elements and intermixing female BDM (though dressed in the same Luftwaffe coveralls) into the unit. As such, I sculpted on longer hair to about 25% of the figures to represent the female BDM figures and sculpted on knit scarves, a teddy bear, and a slingshot. I also added a large German Shepherd from the US Marine Dog Team. To instill them with fascist fervor, I added a large Hitlerjugend flag bearer and bugler alongside the adult HJ officer.

The "winter coveralls" were done per the FOW website - Luftwaffe Blue/Black 50/50 mix for the basecoat, Luftwaffe Blue for highlights, and Secret Weapon Soft Body Black Wash. Many of the figures wear the standard HJ tunic over their coveralls and this was done with Reaper Amber Gold basecoat, Amber Gold/Golden Blonde midtone, and pure Reaper Golden Blonde highlight washed with Secret Weapon Sepia wash. The leather for belts and boots are Reaper Basic Dirt basecoat, Burnt Umber highlight, and washed with Secret Weapon Soft Body Black Wash. The HJ Officers wore a slightly different uniform from the boys consisting of a darker tunic, jodhpur-style pants, and jackboots. The dog was painted using a variety of tans, browns, and orange-browns wet-blended.

As the client did not ask for basework, the bases are left plain.

Commission Work: Orwell's Soviet Cavalry

I was contacted by one of my long-time clients to do a platoon of Soviet cavalry for Flames of War...but with a little twist. As an homage to Orwell's Animal Farm, he wanted to include some pigs on the stands - a clever in-joke and something right up my alley.

The cavalry itself is straightforward. Uniforms are Vallejo Russian Uniform, highlighted with a 50/50 Russian Uniform/Antique White mix, then washed with GW Green wash. Off-white/White isn't something I normally mix to lighten colors, as it tends to dull the base color. However, used sparingly, in a heavily worn military uniform it actually adds to the faded appearance. Skin is Vallejo Flat Flesh washed with GW Ogryn Flesh, kit is Burnt Umber, boots are Pure Black, sword hilts are Granite Grey with a highlight of 50/50 Granite Grey/Pure White, rifles are Vallejo Dark Brown with Pavement barrels.

The horses themselves are all ever so slightly different mixtures of browns, red-browns, tans, and greys. As I do more work painting horses, it's actually very interesting to learn just how different their coats really are, so I try to reflect that by painting each a little differently. Tack is a base of Pure Black, overcoated in certain place with Moss Green, then washed with Vallejo Olive Green wash. For the pigs, I attempted to do a dappled coat of a mid-tone grey mixed with patches of grey/pink, then washed with Vallejo Grey wash. 15mm pigs are hard to paint.

The client also asked for an upgraded IL-2 Shturmovik M to be painted identically to its basic cousin which I did here.

Commission Work: Soviet Lend-Lease Armoured Company

Here's my work on a very large commission project for Flames of War representing a Soviet Lend-Lease Armoured Company. This includes nine M3 White Scout Cars, four M4 halftracks, three BA-64 armoured cars, and sixteen (!) M4 Shermans with both 75mm and 76mm turrets. The pics don't show any .30 & .50 cal machineguns simply because they remain on the sprue during shipment to prevent breakage.

The BA-64s (being domestic AFVs) are basecoated in Testors Russian Armor Green, highlighted with a mix of 50/50 Russian Armor Green & White, then washed with GW Green Wash. Crew are painted in Vallejo Russian Uniform. One of the unique features is the White outlined wheelwells - a feature sometimes found on armoured cars in the early parts of WW2.

All the remaining Lend-Lease AFVs are basecoated in Tamiya Olive Drab, highlighted in a 50/50 mix of Tamiya Olive Drab & Olive Green, and edge highlighted with Tamiya Olive Green with a little White added, then the entire vehicle is washed with Vallejo Olive Green Wash. The Shermans were kind of a bear to paint, simply because they had part rubber, part steel tracks. All rubber (including tires) is Pavement washed with P3 Armor Wash. The Sherman command tanks each have a crew member, painted in Royal Blue with a heavy wash of P3 Armor Wash to simulate the dark blue coveralls of Soviet AFV crew.

Decals are a mix of BF and I-94. 

Another 15mm Soviet Commission

Continuing with this year's tradition of Flames of War Soviet commissions, here is (likely) my final one for the year. This time it's an objective marker diorama of some Soviet cavalry seizing a knocked out Sdkfz 251, a platoon of captured German halftracks for Spetsnaz commandos, and a Zis-5 Pioneer Truck. Minis are by Peter Pig, halftracks are PSC, and the Zis is from Zvezda.

The halftracks are all painted in similar colors and schemes to lend an air of continuity between the pieces (Soviets seize captured German vehicles and put them back into service as Trojan Horses). Basecoat is VMC Middlestone with soft-edge blotch camouflage done in VMC German Dark Camo Green and Testors Acryl Rotbraun, this is then washed with Reaper Umber Wash. Tires are Pavement with a P3 Armor Wash, tracks are Pavement base with a heavy wash of Testors Acryl Rust and a light drybrush of GW Boltgun Metal.

Russian cavalry figures are all VMC Russian Uniform, Wehrmacht figures are all VMC German Uniform; both get a liberal wash of GW Ork Green. Stahlhelms are done in VMC Brown Violet, Flesh is VMC Flat Flesh washed with Secret Weapon Flesh Wash (a surprisingly good wash which has a big problem settling in the bottle, unfortunately).

On the captured halftracks, an Testors Acryl Russian Armor Green is painted over the portions where there would have been Balkankreuz. This is done to much the earlier Russian Tankovy I completed for the same client. 

Last but not least, is the trusty Zis-5 Pioneer Truck. This is a stock Zvezda 1/100 Zis-5 with some stowage and barrels from the Battlefront Stowage sprue added to the truckbed. To differentiate this from the AFVs of the previous Soviet commission, I painted this a Brown Violet with a very heavy GW Ork Flesh wash for a very deep, mid-tone green. To simulate the effects of harsher weathering on the wooden truckbed, I heavily drybrushed this section with a lighter Brown Violet/White mix. The truckbed canopy is VMC German Dark Camp Green. Tires are my usual Pavement with P3 Armor Wash, headlights are done using Reaper HD Yellow and Pure White for a jeweled effect. The windows are Admiral Blue, with a Admiral/Cool Blue midtone, and Cool Blue highlight with Pure White jeweled effect.

Decals are all I-94, dirt weathering using Secret Weapon Dark Earth dry pigments.

Commission: FOW Soviety Tankovy Company

So, I just realized I didn't post anything here at all for the entire month of May....yeesh, sorry about that dear readers. My family has been hit by some pretty major setbacks and projects in the past month. While I may have welcomed the change of issues, it certainly wasn't a change of pace.

Luckily, I was able to pump out an entire Flames of War Soviet Tankovy company for a client this past month in between issues. Everything you see here is from scratch - I cleaned, built, primed, painted, and decaled everything you see here. The client asked for a Mid to Late War Tankovy company in the (somewhat rare) two-tone camouflage scheme of Russian Armor Green and Green (really Brown) Ochre, that was applied in the field by some companies in the mid-war period.

This was my first foray into building the Battlefront plastics and, to be honest, I didn't really enjoy the assembly. Granted, the ISU was pretty much a breeze but the SU and T-34s have some issues that made it difficult to assemble them (floating barrel attachments, lower turret pieces not fitting correctly, and easy-to-lose separate exhaust pieces). The new plastic fenders are pretty spectacular in comparison to the old metal ones, which constantly chip and fall off my old T-43 Tankovy Co.; so I won't complain too much. The ISUs are missing their DshK AA MGs which have not been glued prior to shipping in the pics below.

Also, not pictured are the T-34/76 turrets I did for each tank as well

Base color is Testors Acryl Russian Armor Green (first time using this color and I love it!) with VMC Green Ochre stripes; detail washes with P3 Armor Wash and GW Green. Tracks are my usual Pavement Grey, washed with Testors Acryl Rust, then drybrushed with GW Boltgun Metal. Gunmetal parts are Pavement Grey, washed with P3 Armor wash, then highlighted Slate Grey. Tank crew wear my custom Telo Mimetico Blue, washed with GW Blue Ink; fleshtones in VMC Flat Flesh, washed with GW Ogryn Flesh.

Decals are either BF or I-94. Very slight weathering applied with Dark Earth Pigments.

A huge THANK YOU goes out to my always patient client on this one. Hope you enjoy it J!

Hungarian Tigers, 1944

Finished the first of my 15mm Hungarians yesterday. I had actually painted the majority of these minis this past fall and completely forgot to finish them! Initially, these were all assembled and painted as part of my German Tiger Co. I had finished a few years ago (and then repainted again as part of KG Bake), but as time went on, I found myself turning to mixed panzer groups that relied less on Tigers and more on Panthers/Jagdpanthers. So I stripped them all down and repainted them as former 503rd Sch.Pz.Abt Tigers that were gifted to Hungary in 1944.

Konigstiger In Der Gotterdamerung, 1945

This will be the last of the 15mm German AFVs I work on for myself in the foreseeable future and it's quite a fitting end - this time a late production Konigstiger in Hinterhalt camouflage. It's inspired by no particular tank, though I had been reading Wolfgang Faust's excellent book The Last Panther, so was ruminating on the KTs that ran alongside his Panther in the final days of 1945. If you haven't read it, I thoroughly recommend it as it captures the utter futility of these final moments and the horror of many Germans as the Soviet tide washed over eastern Germany.

The Hinterhalt ("Ambush") camouflage scheme was surprisingly easy to do, once you figure out the "trick". Lay down initial color, mask for the hard-edged swathes of Rotbraun and Lichtgrun and paint. Once dry, use a small diameter piece of plasticard rod to dip in the paint and apply alternating colors of dots in each swath, as necessary. The "trick" is to lightly dab the rod on a spare piece of paper or cardboard to remove excessive paint. This keeps all the dots a relatively uniform size/shape and avoids the "bumps" that excess paint cause to the finish.

I enjoyed this scheme so much, I'll probably pick up a 1/56 late war German AFV to do it with. Auf Wiedersehen und danke für die Fritz!

Italian Beutepanzers & 10.5cm Artillery Battery

I'm coming up on the last few German platoons for Flames of War for the foreseeable future. This time it's a platoon of Italian P-40 "Heavy" tanks in Wehrmacht service. After the Italian armistice, the P-40's production facilities were taken over by the German authorities, who pressed this tank into service as the Pzfw. 40 737(i) in the Italian theater of operations. Unlike most other Italian tanks, the 737(i) performed reasonably well and was well-liked by panzer crews. Had it been developed earlier in the war, it may have provided the Italian tankers with a moderately successful medium tank design. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late for both the Italian and German armies.

I also re-did the 10.5cm Artillery Battery I had initially made to support Panzergruppe Guderian in Early War battles. While reasonably priced and versatile, I found myself rarely using it, opting instead for more AFVs in my lists. So I repainted the guns and added a Kubelwagen for use with my Grenadiers in mid- and late-war periods.

Jagdpanther Kampfgruppe

As soon as Nachtjager was announced, I've been working on this little KG focused around three Jagdpanthers. JPs and Wirbelwinds are BF minis, Halftracks are PSC. 

The Jagdpanthers are the second production line BF made, having resin hulls and plastic tracks/accessories. I converted these to Late Production Jagdpanthers by adding PSC Panther G exhaust fans, mufflers, and ridged front fenders. I used GS to sculpt the reinforced glacis plates, as well as some stowage. The umbrellas on the command JP are made from GS, using an archival photo as inspiration (scroll to the bottom).

The Wirbelwinds and halftracks are pretty much stock, except for some tarps I sculpted from GS. I also added a plastic ladder from a Faller HO kit and some metal BF guns to the Sdkfz 251s.

Painting is my usuall (new) Dunkelgelb mix, with soft-edged camouflage of VMC German Camo Brown and German Camo Green. The Jagdpanthers have a somewhat different look as I tried to drybrush a little DG over the finished camo scheme, like the camo paint had been worn down from the crew climbing on the tank and the Zimmerit flaking away.

"Just Stalkin' Shermans In The Rain...."

Panther Reinforcements

Added an additional three tanks to my Panther force, so that I now have a complete company. For the most part these are stock BF Panther miniatures, except for the "012" Panther Ausf. G to which I added anti-aircraft armor over the turret and engine deck. This was actually really easy to do - I simply used .40" plasticard cut to shape.

These are painted with the same new Dunkelgelb mixture I used on the Stuka Zu Fuss conversion earlier in the month, with Red Primer and German Camo Green hard-edged camouflage patterns.

Luftwaffe 88mm Battery

This unit probably takes highest honors for "amount of time sitting on my workbench half-complete". I've been working on it in sporadically since before our move, something like building it around August of 2014 or so. It's long overdue, considering I've needed this unit in various incarnations from my Early War Mittlere Panzer Kompanie right up through my Late War StuG Batterie, so that's at least a couple of years' time.

Minis are Battlefront mounted on special lengthened plasticard bases to accommodate the unlimbered Flak37s. After reading Erhard Raus' excellent book Panzer Operations, I wanted these guns to look like they had been quickly brought up to the front to deal with heavy Allied AFVs, like the KV-1. 

These are painted using my usual Testors Acryl Panzershweregrau with a little bit of Royal Blue craft paint added. I know this is a little too blue for some modelers but I really like how this color pops at this scale. I wouldn't use this same ratio in 28mm. The Flak37s are soft-edged camouflaged using Testors Lichtolive. Details are painted using Vallejo acrylics.