World War 2 Modelling Zone

Some kind of advertising

2011-02-14T21:28:00.000+01:00

Two weeks ago I made an order at RBmodels. Its is a company based in Poland that offers metal barrels for tanks in 1:72 and 1:35 and some other stuff.

I needed 10 barrels for the T34/76 tank and some metal barrels for the Revell S-100 boat (if you could see my future projects list, it is sooo long), and after some research on the web, this shop was the one with the lowest prices.

I made an order on thursday and payed with paypal, the stuff arrived two days later what is my new personal record for ordering from outsde of Germany.

This is so WOW, that I wanted to share my experience with this shop/manufacturer.

Their website is: http://www.rbmodel.com.

(a picture of the ordered barrels will follow in the next days)

I always wanted to keep any advertising out of this blog but sometimes there are some shops worth to be mentioned. I do not receive any bonus for this.

Italeri ZIS-3 gun and AT team

2011-02-14T21:08:00.000+01:00

Pictures of the Soviet ZIS 3 antitank gun and crew from Italeri (#6097). It's a nice kit without flash and with only minimal mould lines.

The figures were painted in the usual Soviet scheme, the only additions of colors were GW Snakebite leather (#61-64) and Revell Aquacolor beige (#36314) for the winter hats, and Revell Aquacolor Dark Earth (#36182)  and GW Devlan Mud wash (#68-25) for the greatcoat. The gun was painted with Revell Aquacolor Seagreen (#) followed by a wash with GW Thraka Green (68-21), them I did a light drybrush with a light grey.

All figures and the ammo box are based on 1 cent coins.

The only negative point of this kit is that the barrel can't be moved up  and down, becaus the ZIS 3 gun was not only used for fighting tanks, it  was used as normal field artillery too.

Lots of informations and pictures about Soviet field artillery can be found in the Waffenarsenal journal about the Soviet field artillery (ISBN 3-7909-0540-2) that can be found for a low price at Amozon. 

And a view on the Italeri antitank team (#6131). All figures were painted my usual Soviet scheme, that can be found on this blog. Additional colors for hats and greatcoats can be found above.

The machine gunner got his cape painted in a snow camo style, I think that fits very good in a Winter setting. All these minis are based on 1 or 2 cent coins.

Great figures by Italeri, these figures mix very well with the Soviet Winter Soviets (#6069).

Orion AA Quad Maxim and DSHK updated

2011-02-13T14:13:00.001+01:00

Here are some pictures of the new Soviet figure sets by Orion, "Soviet Quad Maxim AA MG and Crew" (#72037) and "Soviet DShK AA MG and Crew" (#72038).

First the Maxim Quad, it can be used well for early war scenarios, the figures wear their field hats and are armed with rifles, the equipment of them is mostly light.

All figures are out of the box, the only modification was to base the lieing rifleman, he got a new base and is now shooting straight. The figures are painted in my usual Soviet color style, the colors I used can be found in this post.

The gun itself was a tough build, I can't remember that I ever used more glue on a gun than on this, and my personal carpet monster got a new sacrifice, that's why the gunsight is missing.

The DshK kit is more a late war set, all figures wear helmets and the gunners are equipped with the PPSh machine gun which depicted in the later war.

These figures were painted in my Soviet scheme, too.

The machine gun was build without any problems.

One of these two kits had a lot of flash and mould lines, but I can't remember which of them, but it made no fun to build the quad Maxim.

Update:
Booth sets contain 3 identical sprues each with 5 different figures and one gun. Pictures of the unpainted sets and sprues can be found on Plastic Soldier Review.

Contest ended

2011-02-13T13:45:00.003+01:00

A little late, and sorry for the long delay, but here are the winners of the first annual contest of the ww2modelzone blog:

The first price goes out to Tim (blog), his tip were 586 figures.

The second place goes to Mork with his tip of 450 (blog) figures.

And the third place goes out to the Eastern Funker (blog), his entry was 299 minis.

Thanks to all subscribers (3) and to all that did not win (0), I hope the next time there will be a little more involvement by you.

There were almost 2000 figures in the bucket, but that's only an estimated value, after counting to 586 I guessed the rest. The counting and the sorting took almost four ours.

It's still Christmas

2010-12-25T19:15:00.000+01:00

For me, Christmas is almost over, but it was great, good food, family and fun. I hope all your wishes came true, the best present for me was one of my alltime favorite movies, I got "The Red Dawn/Die Rote Flut" on DVD, which is great. I can't wait to see the remake when it is done.

The contest ended yesterday and tomorrow I will start to count the minis from the contest, the winners will be informed then.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T13:56:00.000+01:00

(the English version is geoblocked for German visitors, if you want it to watch it, follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_-55IJ_AoE&feature=related)

Merry Chrismas to all of you.

Best regards,

Cpt.

Fleamarket's discoveries (1)

2010-12-19T13:11:00.001+01:00

I love fleamarkets, there can be found a lot of useful and useless stuff, that's the shit I need. Whenever I hear of a fleamarket in my town, I try to visit it. I always wanted to write about my fleamarket finds since I started this blog and now it is the time to do it, I will not include any prices for it, but when it was bought, be sure it was cheap.

We have a big monthly fleamarket in the local exhibition hall and I visit it everytime, I think the best time ist right when it starts (8a.m.), there are less visitors than later and the best things (lol) are still available. Sometimes I make a second visit just before it closes, I think than you can get the best prices, most sellers are happy for every piece that they will not have to carry back home.

Let's take a look, what I found today:

- the great Body Count first debut album. Unfortunately the "censored" version, but I remember that this record was the killer when it came out.

- some comics, one anthology of the Freak Brothers that I previously owned before, but this copy will be a christmas present, I hope it will get to Austria before Christmas. And three issues of Judge Dredd (he is the law).

- 2 diecast cars and a diecast helicopter for a future project

and, last but not least, an old boardgame called Anno 4000, I don't know if I will ever find more players for this, but I couldn't resist when the seller told me the price.

I am happy with my new stuff, and on the way back I bought some fresh buns for breakfast. Can a day start better ?

Maybe the list will be updated, I will visit the market with a friend before it closes, I will see, how much I can drop the prices of some things that interested me.

Big annual contest - win, win, win !!!

2010-12-14T12:58:00.001+01:00

As I wrote in the last post, here it is, the big contest. Sounds pretty awesome but what is is about ?

Watch the picture below and guess how many minis are in the bucket.

How many Germans do you see here ?

Send your answer to my email adress, which you can find on the right side of this page. Please use as subject for your mail "ww2modelzone contest", everything else will be deleted. But only one try per user, please.

The dead line is the 24th december at 9 p.m. CET, the winners will be informed by email after christmas, and will also be mentioned in this blog.

Check out the prices:

The best guess will be rewarded with two unbuild Churchill tanks made by Heller (maybe some missing parts for one of them), the second place will get all 14 different minis of the "German commanders" set by Odemars, and the third winner will get a sprue from the "Operation Antarctica" set made by Odemars.

Good luck to everybody,

Cpt.

Update: I forgot to mention that horses will count too (1horse = 1 man) , but bases and weapons (mortar,hmg) will not be counted.

Hooray, it's the first year anniversary

2010-12-13T22:52:00.001+01:00

As you read from the title, this blog has today it's first birthday. All started with an email to Mike "the Bunkermeister", which included a tip on modifying the StuG kits by Armourfast (http://bunkermeister.blogspot.com/2009/12/german-visitor.htmll) , shortly after that I decided to do my own blog starting with this post, thanks for the inspiration.

The blogspot statistics tool reports that in the first year I had about 10k visitors, and I think this is OK. The pages who referred the most visitors to me were the plasticwarriors blog, the miniaturezone , and (to my surprise) the page of Henk (Henk of Holland). Thank you for linking me, and to everyone else who linked this blog, whenever I saw that your blog linked me, I set a link to your blog, or as my father always said, one hand washes another and both get clean.

The most popular post was the post about foamboard buildings, and I promise that more buildings will follow (I am also experiencing with cork). More popular posts were my posts about the Armourfast Sd.Kfz. 251.

Some more statistics can be found, if you scroll down and click on the flagcounter graphics, this will lead you to my flagcounter statistics for this blog.

The last weeks no updates were made, the only thing you may have noticed, was that I added some new links, but there is a lot of stuff to report about, there are still a lot of Soviets that have to get some paint, and there are a lot of kits that have to be build, and when I see my unfinished project box, there is enough for another year of this blog.

A blog is kept alive by it's readers and commentors and that is why I have to send out a big thank you to all my followers and all readers, to all people who left comments and to everyone else.

Last but not least, in the next hours I will make a contest for all my readers and vistitors and there is something to win for you, stay tuned, the contest will start tomorrow.

Best regards,

Cpt.
Freedom for Julian

Back from the dead - here are the dead

2010-11-19T23:11:00.001+01:00

I did no ww2 modeling in the last few weeks except for some 1:76 kits (pics will be shown on the weekend),because I am concentrating on finishing my Undead army. There is still a lot to finish but I hope that my mate Olli and I can start a first game this year. (to be honest I don't think so).

We will play the Warhammer 5th edition or maybe the fourth edition, Olli has still his mid 90ies dwarf army and can play both editions with his army book. For the undead that I play I can have two different armies depending on which edition we play.

But all of this a big work in progress, there are a lot of minis to paint, a lot of words have to be read und understood before.

And we will test the new Mantic* tabletop "Kings of war", I am sure I will get a rulebook in the next time.

(*: Hey, if you have some Mantic points you don't want to use, I want them)

Here are now the first elements of my undead. They will be a mix of Mantic figures and old GW minis, I like the old GW minis more then their actual style.

The first picture shows, what I already finished, two regiments of skeleton warriors, bats and 2 heroes. The undead horse is a conversion of a claymore Saga horse and a skeleton horse, I think it is acceptable.

Only the bases of the troops need some more details, at the moment I think they look really boring.

The next step is to finish my Mantic Zombies, I already glued them and painted their skin, but there is a lot of painting and detailing before they are finished.

I mixed the Zombie parts with the parts of the Mantic Gouls to get a wider variety of poses but my Zombies and Ghouls now look a little similar. I had to visit a supermarket and ask for some bottlecaps, I did not had enough.

Before I finish the Zombies I will paint my first wolfes, they are crude mutants made from Clyamore Saga wolfes, skeleton horses, metal wolf heads and milliput but the will get their own post in this blog.

The last pictures will show my eternal enemy, all these dwarfs were painted arround 1995, at this time my mate Olli did not know washs and drybrushing, he will repaint some parts of them when he gets the time for it.

Finally a last question. Aren't we the undead ? I mean undead means not dead or am I wrong ?

Hong Kong Airfix Afrikakorps clones with helmets (updated)

2010-10-26T18:15:00.008+02:00

Today I received a figure lot from the bay and it included a great surprise. Among many other figures it contained  about 100 of Hong Kong clone figures of the good old Airfix Afrikakorps set. But these check out the picture below.

The pictures shows on the upper row some figures from the Airfix Afrikakorps set, the lower figures are their clones. Both look equal except for their headgear. The detail of the clones is not too bad, the details could be better, but these are cheap toys, the scale is like their origin's, more 1:76 then 1:72.

I've never seen these (clone) versions of the Airfix AK before, even when I played as a kid with toy soldiers in this scale and I had hundreds of them including AK clones. But mine weared all fieldhats.

Update:
A reader left a comment, that these minis are copies from the old ESCI hardplastic set of the Africakorps, and it seems that he is right. Check out this link to Plastic Soldier Review.

New Zvezda World War 2 Soviet figures (updated)

2010-10-23T13:19:00.004+02:00

I found this post in the Tiny soldiers forum. The linked pictures show the Maxim machine gun with crew, the other announced sets are listed too. 
The Russian producer Zvezda brings out a new series of Soviet and German soldier figures and equipment of the second world war in 1:72. As I read it from the post, they will bring out their own rule system for them. They started with the T34/76 some months ago, and today I found first pictures of the upcoming figure sets. 

Semms like they are available soon, CW toys has listed them but they are still not deliverable.

Update:
Paul left a link to more pictures in the comments. And I found some pictures and informations at the Henk of Holland site (here). There are also some more informations on the Zvezda homepage (in Russion but Google translations worked fine).

Armourfast Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 4

2010-10-21T23:16:00.002+02:00

I continued the work on my Armourfast 251's. I wanted to paint them in a generic 3 color camouflage with hard edges. For that I started to mask with tape, but the tape I use was/is not good for this. I made a visit to a local hobby store and bought some masking liquid, the shop owner told me that thau would work.

I painted the whole model in Aquacolor sand (#36116) after that I made spots with the masking liquid to the place that I wanted to keep sand colored.

After that the models got a layer of Revell Aquacolor fern green (#36360). Then I applied the next layer of masking liqid to mark the areas that I wanted to keep green.

The next layer of color was Aquacolor mud brown (#36180), I used it even when it is glossy, I learned some day ago that it won't shine anymore after the last layer of sealing matte paint.

After all the color was dry all I had to do was to remove the masking liquid to see if it worked as I planned. Watch the picture, it worked fine. It was tricky to remove all of the masking liquid (very sticky stuff), but when I was almost finished with it, I found out, that an old toothbrush was a good tool to remove the stuff.
I think this technique will work with normal brushes too, you do not have to own airbrush to use it. And the rmoval of the masking liquid (after it and the colors dried) could be easier if only one thin coat of it is used, as you can see on the first picture I took someting more then was needed.
But it worked :D
  

On the right 251 I took the antenna apart, it will be fitted later. The funker workplace was improvised without any sources and was scratchbuilt.  
I'm not sure what to do with the two 251s, but I tought about a new idea to apply wash. If I use now a good shiny clear color to seal it, a wash would only flow in the hollow (?) spots of the kit. I will use this method on an old toytank for a first try, if it works, that is something I will try before. You will read it here in this blog, but before that I have to finish some older projects.

The two Armourfast 251 will go now into the "actual projects" box, they will be finished someday because I found some days ago some pictures of an other model of which I own a kit, and these were a great inspiration for me so, but more infos soon, the topic will be Panzer46.

And then I will take some time on my 28mm undead army, I hope tomorrow my new Mantic zombies will arrive,it's time to kick some dwarfs' asses. 

Armourfast Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 3

2010-10-20T20:43:00.000+02:00

I finished the construction of my Sd.Kfz. 251s. The fenders are a little too low, the wheels fit very closely, luckily I lost one of the wheels therefore I use the wheels of the ESCI 251 which are a bit smaller.

On the following picture is a comparison of the Armourfast, Revell and ESCI frontwheels.

One of them got the pioneer bridge of the ESCI 251 kit, and when I'm at it I will loot another ESCI 251 kit so the other 251 will get a frame antenna. I hope I can attach it without too big spots of glue.

Some tools and other stuff will follow, I have to search my spareparts box for pieces to attach.

Both Armourfast Sd.Kfz. 251 got their base color, is this case I use Revell Aquacolor sand (#36116). I will try to paint them in 3 color hard edged camo pattern, eventually I will do this tonight at least I will try to mask them tonight. Then I have to find some decals for them. 

Additional informations about this kit can be found in some older posts (here and here). 

Curse you, carpet monster

2010-10-20T15:56:00.000+02:00

Two (actually not) funny things happened today.

First, a painted wheel (sand, black) fell down from my desk. I have a dark carpet and I thought that I would find this piece as usally, but... nothing. I searched almost one hour and there is not much space to hide.

But gone, maybe for an visit to the twilight zone.


How can a sandcolored piece disappear on this carpet?

After that I continued the work on my actual project. The rest of the construction went without problems and I started to spray it, this went without bigger problems, too.

Then I wanted to clean my airbrush gun. I do this normally at a sink, and so I did it today. I dismantled the gun and then I heard a sound like "PLINK", I saw that the filter was NOT in the drain and the screw that holds the needle wasn't attached at the gun.

OK, I had to get my toolbelt, I don't have one but it sounds better, and to take apart the drainage, not a too big job but the screw that holds sink and tube together broke. And guess what I found, a missing part of my airgun. And a lot of dirty water.

Now I have to get to the local hardware, and it's raining like heck. At least the spraygun is complete and the sink too (in 2 hours!?!).

Italeri SdKfz. 234/4

2010-10-19T17:21:00.003+02:00

Pictures of my finished SdKfz. 234/4. The figure came with an Italeri kit and doesn't have legs because it was commander of another tank before wher he did not fit with legs.

This kit was build some months ago, I remember that all parts fitted very well. The construction went without problems, but on the next kit I will not glue the wheels before I paint it, this will make it easier to paint.

And I learned something new. I accidently bought glossy mud brown that I used for the camo pattern, but I recognized it after I applied it. That's why the brown in the previous post so shiny, I thought for alsmost 3 hours that the color was still wet.

But after the last layer of matte paint the brown spots weren't shiny anymore. Great, I didn't knew that before, I tought I had to repaint all brown with matte paint.

W.I.P. Italeri SdKfz. 234/4

2010-10-17T19:40:00.001+02:00

Some pictures of an actual project, this is Italeri's SdKfz. 234/4. This is the first kit that I painted with a "real" airbrush gun, the colors are still a little wet. The used colors were Revell Aquacolor Sand (#36116), farn green (#36360) and mud brown(#36180),  all colors were thinned with alcohol.

The camo pattern is not too bad for a first try and there are some spots where I will use a brush to finish the paintjob. 

The picture below shows my new airbrush gun and compressor, I bought the Revell Airbrush starter set (#39199) and I think it is worth its price.

Next week I will publish my videoreview of this stuff, the scenes are already filmed but the sound is too bad, that's why I have to re-record it.

The monsters of the World of Warcraft Boardgame

2010-10-15T16:34:00.000+02:00

Here is the rest of the WoW boardgame figures. In this post you can find the first part of the figures from this game.

British Infantry figures by ESCI (non WW2)

2010-10-15T16:27:00.000+02:00

British infantry of the Victorean era. These figures are from the ESCI set "British Infantry Soldiers" (# 212). Painted with Revell Aquacolor and Citadel acrylics. In my opinion the belts still look too clean, but I will try a wash on it maybe some grey.

 They could be used in a colonial setting, but they will fit in some Victorean Science Fiction Scenarios too.

The Heroes of the World of Warcraft Boardgame

2010-10-09T16:34:00.000+02:00

Some days ago I saw the WoW Boardgame in the window of a local secondhand store. Maybe these minis could be a supplemnt for my undead, therefore I searched arround the web to find some pictures of the figures that are included but I did not find any pictures of the figures.

Today I asked for the price, it was low enough for me to get this game, even when I`m not interested in fantasy stuff except for my undead forces that I am building up (hey Olli, they will kick your dwarfens asses ;D).

Check out these pictures, I know nothing about this WoW MMORPG stuff but it seems that all of the normal fantasy races are included, Elves, Human, Dwarfs .....

Last picture shows a comparison of the WoW Boardgame figures with some other 28 mm figures.

I hope these pictures will help interested people to make their decisision if to buy this game or not. Pictures of the monsters will follow, maybe tomorrow.
My copy of this game will serve as a perfect christmas present for my sister and her husband, I remember that I never mentioned this blog (and if I did, "Hey sis, please forget this post till christmas.").

Dead Soviets

2010-10-08T13:58:00.002+02:00

The figure above is from the Pobeda Set "Die in Stalingrad" (#72-101) which contains some resin figures and a vac-formed base.
The stretcher is made of steelwire and aluminium foil.

This pile of bodies comes from the same Pobeda kit. I think this is one of the strangest figures in my collection.

Booth Pobeda figures needed a lot of sanding, on the pile of dead I used some putty to fix the worst airbubble holes.

Hmmm, no comment. The figure is the dead one from the Pegasus Summer Soviets, the ladder comes from Airfix. The rest was built from scratch.

LW/Evolution Soviet artillery crew

2010-10-08T13:58:00.000+02:00

Soviet artillery crew by Russian (?) producer LW but also produced by Evolution. Sealed in a ziplock bag with a photocopied paper that contains the "box art". The bag contains 2 sprues, each with 7 crewmen and some boxes and shells.

As you can see, this figures were not sculpted by LW/Evo. They are only modified figures of the ESCI set "Soviet Infantry", but the modification was well done.

The figures were based on 1cent coins, panted with my standard Soviet color scheme and will serve on the 122mm or the 152 howitzer, I have the PST kit 72030 and you can build each of them.

Partly scratchbuilt Soviet recovery tank

2010-09-17T12:57:00.004+02:00

I found this interesting article on the website of Henk of Holland (first part can be found on his website, too) and suddenly I knew whats to build next. Actually the this mod was for an Tamiya SU-122 kit in 1:35, but I used my kit of the SU-100 from AER, ~~or was it PST?~~

Here are some pictures of the almost finished model. There are only some smaller parts to attach, then the kit will get its sealing.

Almost all parts are from the SU-100 kit, the tracks and the saw are from the Revell T-34, the other small parts (pickaxe, cable eyes, hatches) came from Pegasus. All other parts were build from scratch.

I had to correct the positions of the roadwheels, you can find more about this big fault in the kit in the AER T34 kit review at On the way models.
The crane is made from 1mm steel wire, booth parts were connected with heat shrinking tube. The steel wire is actually made of copper wire and the winch is made from plastic card.

I used the same color scheme on this model that I used for my ISU-152.

The last picture show the model while constuction.

Offtopic:

a) I wanted to rework my links and give them an own site but it does not work as I want it, so this operation is moved to the future.

b) This new Blogspot editor sucks. ~~I have some problems with sizing the font. In my view, the option "small" is too small but the option "normal" is too large.~~ I managed it to get the fontsize that I wanted to have.

If the text is too small to read it, you still can use [CTRL] and [+] or [-] to change its size.

Faces of war (2)

2010-08-27T14:31:00.006+02:00

More pictures made by my grandfather during the African campain of the second world war. The pictures from the first post can be found here.

I already started another blog for this pictures, but at the moment it is still work in progress and nonpublic. You will get informed when it's done.

Great stuff from ebay

2010-08-26T12:20:00.004+02:00

About 1 1/2 weeks I found this on the bay.
Hm, I think I've seen the sprue with the figures on the picture somewhere else before and after some search on the web, I decided that I must have that stuff.

Today it arrived. And what a surprise, I got the ESCI Wirbelwind manual that was not included in my Wirbelwind kit. The auction also included an old Fujimi BMW motorbike and some spare parts. Great, I like the old Fujime/Nitto kits, even if the are harder to get than the usual Revell/Italeri stuff.

But I did not bid only for the BMW. Maybe, if you watched the first picture, you already have seen what made this auction so interesting for me.

So here it is, I got my (first?) ESCI Nebelwerfer kit, hooray for that. Since I started with modelling I wanted to have one of these kits. And now I got it. For an unbeatable price, in my opinion. I don't think 5,55 (p&p included) was not too much for this stuff, or do you ?

By the way, I will re-structure some elements of this blog on the weekend, also the link list. So if you want your site or blog linked, please leave a comment or send me an email, the adress can be found below the links on the right side.

Even more Soviet tank crews

2010-08-19T13:24:00.005+02:00

The first figure on the first picture is from Orion, the rest of the figures is made by LW. After all these minis are painted, now it's time to continue to finish some other stuff that I already started with.

The third picture shows all tank crew figures in a group photo.

More Soviet tank crew figures

2010-08-16T13:22:00.004+02:00

I continued the painting of my Soviet tank crew figures. This weekend I painted some figures of the Russian manufacturer LW or maybe Evolution, I can't find the box right now, but the figures are the same in both sets. The used color are still the same that I use for my other Soviet figures, you can find the list of them here. One of the figures was slightly modified, the guy waving with the bottle got instead of that a new hand with a revolver.

By the way, Plastic Soldier Review has the first pictures of the new Soviet infantry figures from the Plastic Soldier company, you can find them here.

Soviet ISU-152 and crew

2010-08-13T15:19:00.009+02:00

After two busy weeks I had some time to continue with my hobby. I finished these Soviet heavy self-propelled gun tank ISU-152. The numbers 61 and 62 are fastbuild models by Pegasus Hobbies, but they do not lack as many details as the fastbuild kits from HÄT/Armourfast. The tank with the 60 is a model kit made by East European producer PST, I did not use all parts for this kit to make all three tanks look equal.

The colors that I used for this tanks were Revell Aquacolor Sea green (#36148), mixed 2 parts color and one part alcohol via airbrush, after that I did a wash with Citadel Thraka Green wash (#68-21), then I drybrushed the tanks light with a bright grey color. I sealed them with Revell Aquacolor Clear matte paint (#36102).

The turret number decals were applied with the help of Agama Adhesol. They were included in the PST kit, the propaganda writings on the # 62 came from Peddinghaus Decals, the other decals came fron the spare box.

The track of the tanks were altered with some selfmixed mud, made of white glue, water, coffee and Busch Pine Forest ground cover (#H0 7259). This mix hides the not so detailed tracks very well.

I also managed to paint the Soviet tank crew figures by Orion that I showed in a previous post. Two of the figures were modified, the guy with the flowers got instead of flowers a piece of plastic, looks almost like a gun. The second modification was made on the strange runner. He got a new hand with a revolver from an old Airfix cowboy figure.

The colors I used for this figures were almost the same that I used for my Soviet infantry troops. All I have to do for these guys is to get them a better decorated base.

Update:
Instead of ISU 152 I called this tank ISU 155. I changed the numbers to delete this mistake.

A small view on the Mantic Games 28mm Undead catapult

2010-07-30T12:33:00.010+02:00

After a short break here now something completely different...
Some weeks ago my Undead warhost from the British manufacturer Mantic Games arrived. It contains 52 figures (not 50 as it is written on the box). I did not want to make a review on this because you can find enoughreviews arround the web. As you can read in the reviews for this figures, they are nicely sculpted and you can get them for a good price in comparison with other 28mm fantary figures.

Here is a quickview on the catapult that can be found in this set:

Front side

Back side

Some detail shots

The catapult looks good. But there is no instruction sheet included (find it at Mantic here). It has a crew of two skeletons, the crew sprue offers the loader as simple two part figure.  The commander can be build in different variations, if Mantic had included one more part of legs this weapon could have a crew of the skeletons.
Pictures of the painted catapult can be found here.
Seems like this is a great kit. When it is build in the future, before that there a lot of stuff that I have to finish, you will find some pictures of this im my blog.


Here is a comparison of different figures. The Mantic minis would fit well to the Lord of the Rings tabletop game but compared but the Games Workshop skeleton warriors are bigger then the Mantic skellies. But I think the will still fit in any Warhammer session.

Finally some words on their bases. The have the standard size od 20 x 20 millimeters. In contrast to the bases of Games Workshop the do not have beveled sides and have a hole on one side which fits the bases of their figures.
You can find all of this undead stuff from your modelstore, if not you can order them directly in the Mantic onlineshop, soon there will be more undead minis of them. 

Soviet Tank Crews 1943 - 1945 by Orion

2010-07-16T12:44:00.008+02:00

A new addition to my growing collection are the Soviet tank crew figures by Ukrainian manufacturer Orion. I read some time ago that they would appear on the market in the near future and now they are availabe on the market. I think they are a must-have for me (arrgh, more Soviets to paint), and when I found them at the bay on Monday I bought a set of them.
Today the set arrived, therefore let's take a closer look at them.

The box contains three sprues with total 39 figures in 13 different poses. There is almost no flash on the figures and no moulding lines except for on the bases. Three of the minis have no base attached.
The sculpting is very good and the theme is great, before these came out the only other Soviet tank crew figures that were available, were the LW/Evolution set (PSR review) and the Soviet Tank Crew figures of Preiser (On the way review).
There are two poses in this set that I do not like so much, it's the running mini in the first row (the man in the middle), he does not look natural. Second is the third figure in the second row. Why does he hold his gun to the side like a gangsterrapper?

All of the figures wear the standard tank crew helmet and most of them wear overalls, only three of them wear trousers and jackets. As you see on the picture above I splitted these figures into three different groups:

Maintenance poses:
A guy in running pose (could be combat,too),  man with a big crowbar,  a man running with a canister, and  a guy with a wrench.

Combat poses:
A binocularist, a kneeling fig that fires his pistol, another  kneeling fig with pistol, two crew men armed with PPsH, and a crewman with a pistol.

Parade/victory poses:
A fig leaning against something, a fig in parade pose for the tank hatch, and a mini that is waving a bunch of flowers.

The   last picture shows some of the Orion figs compared with the tank crew  minis by LW/Evolution. The LW figures are nice but in an ugly color,  that you hardly see the details. For a closer look on the detail of the  LW minis, check out the PSR link in the text above, they got their minis  in black plastic where you can see some more.

Orion did a fine job  with these set. There are only a few Soviet tank crew figure sets on the  marketThese minis are a welcome addition to our hobby. They will look great when they get painted. But even the LW minis will look good when they get a good paintjob. But not in the next weeks, it's summer and I don't paint anything because in my hobbyroom it is alltime almost 30 degrees (Celsius).

However I have still a lot of fresh stuff lie arround that I will do some more small reviews for you. A little lookout for the next post, I will write some lines about the new 28mm figures of British manufacture Mantic.

Captain does airbrush

2010-07-08T17:10:00.011+02:00

This is my 50th post in this blog and for this I have something special. Und alle so yeahh.

Since I started with modelling in winter 2008/2009, I wanted to have an airbrush gun because it would make the painting of models much easier especially camouflage paintings. One day I got an old airbrush gun and an almost empty bottle of Revell airbrush gas. But the gun was broken and landed in the trashcan.
I kept the gas to use it in the future and last week I got suddenly a new gun.Today it's so sticky and hot outside, that I decided to stay at home and share my first airbrush experiences with you.

The tools are ready.

The following stuff was used for it:
- my new Revell Starter class airbrush gun,
- an old bottle of Revell airbrush gas,
- color, I use Revell Aquacolor acrylics,
- alcohol as paint thinner,
- syringes to mix the color,
- a "third hand" tool to hold the model (like this),
- a newspaper for covering,
- a cool drink (it's summer),
and, of course, the model that will be painted.

The color is ready.

For this first try I made a mix of 2 parts paint and 1 part alcohol as thinner. I had no idea how to thin it until I found in some internet forums some infos about using Revell Aquacolor for airbrushing. Most of the users there said that Aquacolor matte paints should be mixed with 30 to 40 percent thinner.

The model is prepared.

For the first test I used a model of the WW1 Mk1 tank by Airfix, it came with a lot from ebay but the tracks were broken. But I builded it to use it for some painting experiments like this.
I fixed an small screwdriver with some hotglue on the ground of the tank where it won't be seen when it is finished an found its way to a diorama or something like that. When the glue is taken away this small spot will be painted with a brush.

The model after the first layers of color.

As you can see on the picture above my first attempt does not look too bad, I was positive surprised about the result, it looks good. But I ran out of color and the gas bottle is now total empty. The gun is very good for giving a base coat to models but I do not think that it can be used for camo pattern, maybe with masking tape and/or stencils. But that will come later.

A closer look at the result

The picture above shows a enlarged view of the picture before. The color is still wet and some places got no paint but I am satisfied with the result of my first try. Sure it could be better, but you have to remember that I used low budget gear to get this result.

The color is dried.

Airbrushing is great. It does not cost as much time as painting with brushes and the paint is applied uniformly. I got a new bottle of gas and when it is empty and I made some progress in airbrushing, I should think about new equipment.

The only contra that I found was that it is a big waste of paint, I used 3 ml paint (+ 1,5 ml thinner) for this one, I think I could paint up to 3 tanks with the same amount of color, but with an other (better) airbrush gun the rate of consumption will sink.

I hope you liked this "Airbrushing for dummies", it made a lot of fun for me.

10 percent discount at Smallscale.de

2010-07-08T13:13:00.004+02:00

Smallscale.de gives to all his customers 10  percent discount on all orders until the 31st juli 2010. It has a big  sortiment of plastic model kits in 1:72 from different manufacturers like Revell, Airfix, MAC, Italeri, and many more. Beside that you can find a lot of multimedia kits, even some rare FSF kits are listed.
The prices are very  fair and sometimes you can find some real rarities in his shops.

To get your own discount you must only write "HAPPYSUMMERSALE" in the comment after you checked out your basket. Check out the great sortiment at Smallscale.de and make your order.

Armourfast Sd.Kfz 251/1 Part 2

2010-07-07T21:30:00.007+02:00

Soccer sucks...so here's part two of my small review of the Armourfast(HÄT) kit of the Sd.Kfz. 251. It is available via online shops and/or in your local model shop. I paid 13,5 Euros (postage included) what is a fair price.

The upper hull,from left to right:

Armourfast - ESCI/Italeri - Revell

It seems that the Armourfast hull is not as wide as the other manufacturer's hulls. After I measured the 3 hulls I can say that this is true. The Armourfast part is 30mm, the ESCI/Italeri part is 31,5mm and the Revell part is 31,3mm.
The wiki article about the 251 says that it is 2,1meters wide, divided with 72 give 29,17mm what means that the Armourfat kit is the most accurate kit or at least the width of it's hull.

I built some storage boxes from plastic card.

The Armourfast 251 with the rocket launcher
of the Revell Sd.Kfz. 251/1 kit.

It's a great kit, and with some time and little work it will look great. I'm looking forward to the future, Italeri will release a fastbuild version of the Sd.Kfz. 251 this year, that's why I will wait until I can make a direct comparison of both.

There are some parts that I changed or will change, the passenger storage boxes (see picture), a Notek light, a new trailer coupling and some minor things. Maybe I will drill out the holes of the roadwheels as I did on my StuG42 kits.
And then I will make my first experiences with airbrushing, I got the simple beginner pistol from Revell, it can be seen on the second picture. But before I do I have to finish some projects.

Armourfast Sd.Kfz 251/1 Part 1

2010-07-06T12:13:00.011+02:00

Here are some detailed pictures of the Hanomag Sd.Kfz 251/1 made Armourfast(HÄT). This kit was announced some years ago, I remember that there was almost every second week a post in the HÄT forum which asked for the release date of this kit.

Let's take a look at this kit:

Front look at the sprue.

All parts are casted well without any mould lines or sinkholes except for the passenger seats. But why they didn't use the tan color of their other kits.

Back of the sprue. 
I think it is the C version of this vehicle.

Some close look at the details: the rivetted hull, the front wheels
the machine guns (without handles, strange) and the tracks

The construction manual at the back of the box.
Note that some parts are not mentioned.

A first look at the kit shows that it is simple but has a lot of hidden  potential. With some simple modifications this could be a fine wargaming model.

Pak 40 by Airfix and Matchbox in 1:76

2010-06-22T00:52:00.007+02:00

Pictures of the Pak 40 antitank guns made by Airfix and Matchbox. The gun on the left side is made by Airfix, it came with the Opel Blitz. The gun on the right side is made by Matchbox and came with the Sd.Kfz. 11.

I used the same colors as on the vehicles on below. No more text today because...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjhlhwW9d4A

Matchbox Panzer III L in 1:76

2010-06-22T00:51:00.006+02:00

Some informations about this model will follow soon.

Decal storage

2010-06-18T14:26:00.004+02:00

This is a good idea and I wanted to write about this in the next days, but the guys at Modellversium were faster. Check out their small article about storing decals in albums for stamps.

Matchbox Sd.Kfz 11 in 1:76

2010-06-18T00:26:00.005+02:00

The Matchbox Sd.Kfz. 11 kit was build out of the box, no great changes were made to it, the only thing I added was a windschield. One of the tracks broke and I had to use cyanacrylat glue to fix attach it. This had some negative effects to the paint of the wheels.

I painted it in the same style that I used on the Opel Blitz. It was first painted with Revell Aquacolor Africabrown (#36117), then it got a mild wash with Citadel Badab Black, after that it was heavily drybrushed with Revell Aquacolor Beige (#36314). The tracks were painted with Revell Aquacolor rust and the cover was painted with Revell Aquacolor Beige (#36314) then i drybrushed it white.

Airfix Opel Blitz with Nitto Flak 38 in 1:76

2010-06-18T00:11:00.006+02:00

The Airfix/Heller kit of the Opel Blitz in 1:76 supplied with the 2cm Flak 38 made by Nitto/Fujimi based on a simple diorama base which is made of an old cdrom, PVA glue and birdsand.

Some little changes were made to the Truck, I had to replace the frontlights because the old were used somewhere else. In addition I changed the loading area.
It was first painted with Revell Aquacolor Afrikabraun (#36117), then it got a mild wash with Citadel Badab Black, after that it was heavily drybrushed with Revell Aquacolor Beige (#36314).

The Flak 38 was built out the box, the only parts that I did not use were the supports for the shield, I could not figure out where to use them because I had no real construction plan for it. It was painted with some selfmixed grey, after that I drybrushed it with Revell Aquacolor Afrikabraun (#36117) and Revell Aquacolor Beige (#36314).

Giant American infanry toy soldiers

2010-05-31T13:51:00.010+02:00

Some months ago I wrote about the German infantry figures made by Giant. Last month I got some more Giant figures from the bay and the lot included not only German figs but also American infantry figs. According to Mr. Eric Yin, check out his two blogs, these figures are downsized copies of old Monogram figures.

This set contains some usual poses, a handgranade thrower, a guy with his rifle, a binocularist and a soldier with a flame thrower.

A mortar, a kneeling gunner and a soldier with a mine detector.

Some more standard poses, a lying rifle man and a lying heavy gunner.

My favorite pose of this set, a guy with a bazooka with the loader.
Why do the major companies not add a bazooka loader to their sets ?

The Giant figures compared with other US WW2 soldiers. The second figure from the left comes from the ESCI US paratroopers set (#209), the second from the right side comes from the ESCI US soldiers set (#202), all others are Giant figures.

All figure bases are marked with "Giant (R) Made in Hong Kong".

As little bonus I added a bigger picture of the great artwork of the label.

Lazy Bxxxtard

2010-05-31T12:58:00.007+02:00

Ups, almost 2 months without any post by me.
But why ?

First my I-net went down, then my computer decided to blow up. Now my new hardware is installed, and it seems like that my I-net is working fine. And yes, I'm still in modelling, but I did not build or paint much in the last weeks because I am soooo lazy. This does not mean that I did not buy new stuff, I got so much great stuff from the bay.

Check out the picture below, I will post about all that stuff in the near future.

Best regards,
Captain

Scratchbuilt handlebars for the Pegasus T34/85

2010-04-03T22:29:00.004+02:00

The T34/85 made by Pegasus with some handlebars added. They are made from plastic bristles of a broom. These are easy to bend and gluable with any polystyrene modelling glue,at least the ones I got.
It took about 20 minutes to equip four tanks with these bars.

More painted Soviet Infantry

2010-03-23T22:48:00.008+01:00

I continued the work on my Soviet Infantry forces. The colors are still the same that I showed in this post with one little addition. My local toy store has now the Revell Aquacolors in its sortiment.
For the officer's hats, their jackets and the rolled coats of the normal infanterists I used Revell Aquacolor Dark Earth (# 36182).

One of my six mortar crews.

From left to right:
converted officer (see here), a Revell figure with a Preiser (?) crate and the Italeri mortar gunner with a new head.

From left to right:
Airfix officer with the head of the Pegasus Russian Summer infantry, Revell LMG soldier with a new head and new legs, Revell grenade thrower with the arm/rifle of the Italeri Soviet grenade thrower and the sniper of the Revell Soviet infantry box.

From left to right:
converted officer (see here), Dimestore binocular officer, Airfix Soviet grenade thrower with new head and new grenade from his Italeri comrade and a Pegasus Summer Soviet with a new head.

This is what I already finished.

This is what I still have to paint.

I am waiting for some more figures that I ordered but his will take two weeks until they arrive. And off course I am still waiting for the new Soviet infantry figures of The Plastic Soldier Company that will appear on the market in the next weeks.

Italeri JS-2 Tank

2010-03-23T22:18:00.006+01:00

I just finished my first batch of Soviet hardware. The upper picture shows 2,5 of the tanks of the Italeri fast-build kit of the JS-2 tank, which contains 2 easy to build models. I found them at MACO Modellbau for a great price.
In the background you can the the AER model of the T34/85 with che commander cupola of the Pegasus T34/85 and an Aber Aluminium barrel. That kit is a mean bitch which needs a lot of putty to fill all gaps on it. More on this kit soon when it's finished.

The colors I used were Revell Aquacolor Sea Green (#36148) for the upper structure followed by a black wash. The tracks were painted with Tamiya Metallic Grey (XF-56), then I used a selfmade wash (made of Revell Aquacolor Rust (#36183), GW Chaos Black (# 61-51) and, of course, water) on them.

I did only two minor modifications on it, the first was to drill the muzzle of the barrel. The second modification was that I made three handbars of 0,5 mm steelwire on the tower.
All tanks were sealed with a coat of Revell Aquacolor Clear Matt color (# 36102).

In the next days I will order these decals at Peddinghaus that will be applied to them.

Mini review: Toolset by MACO Modellbau

2010-03-10T14:48:00.007+01:00

Some great additions for models come from MACO Modellbau. MACO Modellbau offers the tools on the picture above as a limited edition. This toolset contains an axe, a shovel, a boltcutter and a pickaxe ~~(don't know the English word for it)~~.

A closer look to the tools. They are a great addition to the simple wargamer kits of HÄT and Italeri, and the price is not to beat. You will get 10 sprues of the toolset for only 2 Euros. If you want to buy them you have to be fast because it is a limited edition.

Check out the website of MACO where you will find all other excellent model kits made by MACO and from a lot of other companies, too. You can find the store at http://mc-modellbau.de/ .

Pegasus German trucks

2010-03-09T21:46:00.005+01:00

Not much text today, I had a little accident at work which made me a big headache. An empty beverage box, I remember it was a Coca Cola box, felt on my head from 3 meters height. It caused no blood but made a lot of pain.

Used colors:
When I got them I painted them in grey, can be seen inside the drivers cabin. But I was not satisfied with that. So I repainted the trucks with the following colors:
Revell Aquacolor Sand plus Seagreen and Citadel Bestial Brown for the camo pattern, then a mild black wash. Citadel Chaos Black for the tires and Citadel Catachan Green and Citadel Thraka Green wash for the cover.

Modifications:
- added Headlights from the spare box
- a scratchbuilt Notek for booth trucks made of plasic card
- driver mirror made of steel wire and plastic card
- a windshield made of clear plastic
- build spacers, I hope it is called spacer, of steel wire. The balls at the end are drips of pva glue

There are still some little spots I will have to rework (what I actually wanted to do today) and add some decals but the two trucks are almost finished (for today).

Some Soviets based

2010-03-08T23:28:00.008+01:00

Beside I was a little ill last week, I think it was some kind of flue, I was very, very lazy. But here're some pictures of the progress I made on my Soviet forces. In one of my first posts in this blog I showed some pictures of the figures, but now they got the final matte varnish and are glued on their bases.

Heavy machine gun support, a DSchK 12,7mm machine gun. The figures are from Mars, the bases are pokerchips. I changed the positions of the gunners arm because it looked poor in its original pose. The structure of the base (and all other bases) is made from a mix of birdsand and pva (white) glue.
I have alternative hmg teams on the workbench, some Maxim guns from the ESCI/Italeri Soviet set.

Some antitank rifle teams. These figurese came from Mars, too. I took the barrel of the at gun from the Revell "Siberian Riflemen" antitank gunner, the handlebar is made of scratch plastic. The base is from some plastic card.

More figures from Mars, this time a 60mm mortar. The legs of the mortar were made of 0,5 mm steel wire. There is a small bag with mortar ammunation for every mortar which I can't find anymore. When they are found they will be added to the base, too.

Some mortars. The smaller mortars are of 80mm calibre, they come from the ESCI/Italeri Soviet Infantry kits. The two larger models are from the Airfix Soviet Infantry set, they shall be the heavy 120mm mortars. I added some static grass to their bases, I still have to do this on all other figures in this post.

Light machine gunners, the are from the ESCI/Italeri Soviet Infantry kit. Every rifle squad has a light machine gun for fire support.

The color that I used were:
Skin:
Citadel Bronzed Flesh, then Citadel Ogrin Flesh wash
Uniform:
Citadel Desert Yellow, then Citadel Devlan Mud wash
Helmet:
some Hobby Color green mixed with a little part of white
Equipment:
different brown tones of Citadel, Vallejo and Hobby color
Boots:
Citadel Chaos Black
Heavy weapons:
Tamiya XF 5 Flat Green
Other colors:
Citadel Burnished Gold, Citadel Blood Red, a selfmixed dark silver/steel tone, and some more colors I can't remember.

Now I'm almost finished, only 120 figures more to paint, and in the last days I had not much desire for painting figures.
And then there are some tanks, I think there are 6 T34/85, 4 JS-2 and some support vehicles waiting for glue, paint and decals. There is still a lotta work waiting for me.
But there are some old projects finished, tomorrow I will post some pics of my Pegasus German trucks and my scratchbuilt Bergepanzer III.

Del Prado Leopard 2 A5 color comparison

2010-02-28T16:03:00.006+01:00

In my last post I wrote that the green color used on the Del Prado Leopard is too bright. Today I made some photos of real Bundeswehr equipment to show that this is true.
On the left side of the picture you can see the model, on the right you can see a Bundeswehr transporter. You can see, the colors that Del Prado used are not authentic, they are way brighter than the colors that are used on the real model.

By the way I got today my first two books about the Eastern front of WW2 at the monthly fleamarket. They include a lot of pictures and some informations, I did not have the time to check the text, I just watched the pictures in it.

When I have read them I will write something about the books. I bought the following books today:

Guido Knopp "Der verdammte Krieg / Das Unternehmen Barbarossa"
ISBN 3-570-01229-8 for 3,5 Euro and
Laurence Rees "Hitlers Krieg im Osten"
ISBN 3-453-17289-2 for 4,5 Euro

But now I have to recover my strengh, today I had a lot efford. Maybe I will post later in the evening something more, but at the moment I just want to get off my wet clothes, eat something and just chill out a little.

Offtopic:
I found out where Lost & Found Records got the covers of some their bootlegs they released in the early ninties, check out the following picture comparing my "Siege" CD (I own this great CD for almost 20 years now) with a picture from the G.Knopp book.

Del Prado Leopard 2 A5

2010-02-26T21:11:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I saw a tv commerical for a new 1:72 tank collection by Del Prado. I said to myself, let me check this out. Today I got it from the supermarket, it costs 3,99 Euro.

At the first look it looked well, except for the tank in a clear try I got a little magazine with some little general informations about tanks and some informations about the Leopard 2. And a lot of advertising for this collection.

The tank in a clear case. In the back there is a picture of a Leopard 2, on the back of the picture are some informations about this tank like the size, the lenght, the motor and some other.

The tank guided by some modern German Infantry made by Revell.

A front view of the Leopard 2 A5. I have no idea on whose manufacturers model this tank is based but I am not interested in post ww2 tanks, that I will not do any search for this.

The lower parts of the tanks are mode of plastic, the tracks are made from rubber and the upper parts are made of die-cast metal with plastic parts for the details. The level of detail is not as good as promised in the advertising, but  I did not expect more. The quality of a Dragon or Revell kit is much better. And if you know the "Easy Model" models, they are a lot better (they base on Trumpeter kits).

The paintjob on this model is fairly good, but I think the green is too bright. At a gas station near my home are always some Bundeswehr trucks standing, tomorrow I will do a picture of them just to compare the colors of the camo scheme.

The next three announced models are the Tiger, the Elephant (Sd.Kfz 184) and the Jagdtiger, these kits will cost the regular price of 11,99 Euro, if you subscribe you will pay "only" 10,99, and you will get some goodies like a display case and a Sd.Kfz 9 Famo with a Sd.Ah. 116 tank trailer. That's the only positive I found so far.

My personal opinion is:
For the low price, this model is OK. It might be great for wargamers but if you want a good model of a Leo 2, you should buy a model kit and build it for yourself. Maybe I will subscribe to get the Famo + trailer but then I will quit the subscription.
For all other people who want to subscribe, I do not want to use the term rip-off, that's why I quit writing this post.

Soviet officer conversion

2010-02-23T21:55:00.010+01:00

Two weeks ago I asked my readers for some help and I am glad to say that I got it. The postman brought me today a letter full of the needed figures.

I have to send out a BIG CHEERS to Hugh from the UK who helped me out with some dimestore figures. Please take a look to his interesting blog about his toy figure collection.
I needed them to strenghen my soviet mortar groups which lacked of officers.

These figures were used to build a kneeling officer with binoculars:
- a cheap Airfix clone soldier with binoculars (upper body),
- the kneeling gunner from the Airfix WW2 Soviet set (lower body), and
- the stupid runner of the ESCI/Italeri WW2 Soviet set (gun and spare magazine).

Sorry about that but I think the ESCI figure is one of the most useless figures that I have, beside the dull ESCI German paratroopers set.

New figure front view

New figure rear view

There is still some flash on the figure but I think I will keep it because it is nearly invisible at this scale. Eventually I will add some more equipment to the figure, I have some sprues of Preiser's German equipment. I have to build 5 more of these figures, then I have all figures I need and I can start with painting at the weekend.
I hope I can animate a frient of mine to help me with painting, he told me that he thinks he can't paint figures in this scale, but I was thinking that too before I made my first tries.

Thank you Hugh, your were a great help for me :D .

Small update picture:

Faces of war (1)

2010-02-22T22:02:00.009+01:00

These pictures were made by my grandfather who was in the Afrikakorps during World War 2. I had never the chance to ask him about his experiences he made, he died when I was a kid. My mother found them in the back of a cabinet while she was cleaning up.

All these pictures are presented to the public for the first time. Please excuse the bad quality but I had to photograph them because my scanner is broken. When I get a new scanner I will scan them. I give my permission to use them on other homepages, for uncommercial purposes only. If you want to use them please send me a note, you can find my email adress on the right side of this page below the links.

Factory hall made of foam board

2010-02-22T00:50:00.013+01:00

I finished my first foam board building just one moment before but now it is late and I am tired  of this weekend that I will not write too much about the built. I hope the pictures are self-explainig.

Here is a step by step report of the built.

The tools I used.

All windows and doors are drawn in.

This is how it looks after I cut it all out.

The building glued on a base.
The edges were cut to give it a ruined look.

The first paint progress.

I forgot to work on the corners before I started to paint it.
The corners are made of matches, I filled the gaps with acrylic putty.

The building is finished.

I used grey as base color.

After that, my selfmade wash was used to give it an used touch.

I think it looks good. Tomorrow I will build the next buildings for my little "Papergrad".
(This post was powered by Krombacher)

German Infantry in camouflage

2010-02-19T23:45:00.005+01:00

The second post for tonight. These are pictures of my first attempts of painting figures. I painted them in the summer of last year. The figures are from the two Pegasus SS sets, the Hät machinegun team set and the Hät IG 18 infantry gun kit. The Panzerschreck bazooka comes form the "German Infantry" set of Hasegawa and was supplemented with a scratch built shield and a carrying belt.

I used Tamiya acrylic colors according to the instructions on the back of the first SS set of Pegasus, but I did not any shading or washing on it. The bases are from Games Workshop. 
Some more detailed pictures of the IG18 gun can be found in my contribution on Hät's "Everything Toy Soldiers" website following this link.

Hen Long RC Tiger minus RC

2010-02-19T23:11:00.008+01:00

Remember this post with my Hen Long RC Tigers ? 

I wanted to start a little tank battle with a friend, but I had to determine that only one of them functioned, all other Tigers did not work. That sucked. So I made my thoughts how I could recycle them.

The first step was to open them and take out all electronics and gears. Then I used Milliput to close all holes of the leds and switches. After the Milliput was hardened I used a hobby knife and some sanding paper to smooth the surfaces. I took some little plastic pieces for detailing the hatches. The next step was to clean all roadwheels from excess plastic (hm, sometimes I wonder about my English), what took a little more time than I tought.

After glueing all parts together I started with the paint. The base color is GW Codex Grey (#61-52) darkened with black, a fresh pot of grey plus 4 or 5 ml Black, that gave me a fine dark grey. Then came a wash with some selfmixed black ink. The drybrushing was done with Hobbyline Grey (#27) and then I painted some details as the ropes and tools, all with different GW colors.

There are only a few things to do, the tracks will get some color, all tanks will get some decals, and last but not least I have to seal the paint with matte varnish. A friend suggested to give them a winter camo, maybe I will do this.

T34 Tank by Zvezda

2010-02-17T23:23:00.006+01:00

(picture with friendly permission of Modellversium)

This picture from the Nürnberg Toy Fair shows the coming T34 kit of Zvezda. I am no expert, but I think it looks like an earlier version of the T34 tank.

Russian producer Zvezda has announced some 1:72 WW2 kits for 2010. Beside this kit, which looks great, they will bring some more interesting WW2 kits this year. I do not know when they will be on the market but I am waiting for the following kits:

5001 T34
5002 Pz.Kpfw.VI “Tiger”
8077 Soviet Infantry
8078 German Infantry

I hope these kits will be soon on the market, I can't wait to integrate the new infantry figures in my Soviet army.
A big thank you to Tim of the great German modelling site Modellversium who gave me the permission to use this picture in my blog.

Buildings from foam-board

2010-02-17T00:00:00.007+01:00

Check out this and the following parts of the tutorial videos of this youtube channel. I found it yesterday while I was looking for some tutorials with focus on modelling. One of my favorite video series on this channel was found quickly, it showed how to build simple ruins from foam board.

Today I went to my local hobby shop and bought some foam board, I paid for a piece of 50 x 70 centimeters, 3 mm thick, about 9 Euro what was cheaper than I tought. Then I had to help a friend of mine who is moving this week.

When I came home I started to build my first ruined building and I was surprised how fast the built was, it took less than 20 minutes, but I think that I will spend some more time on detailing.

Sideview one, everything was glued with PVA (white) glue.

Sideview two, the bullit holes were made with a needle.

A view of the inside with some figures

I am satisfied with this first try and I have to thank all the guys at the Australian online shop "Battlebunker" who made all these great videos which are a great inspiration for me.
Another homepage which I found some time ago features the building of foam board houses too.

Work in progress: Soviet rifle company

2010-02-14T23:31:00.011+01:00

After a crazy weekend I found some time to continue the work on my Soviet WW2 army. Following this link which shows the structure of a rifle company I build up my first rifle company. It contains Soviet figures from Airfix, ESCI/Italeri, Revell, Mars and Pegasus.

For the heavy MG squad I have two choices, a squad with 3 Maxim machine guns or 3 12,7mm DSchK machine guns. I made pictures of them but they will be posted in the future. A first older picture can be found here.

The squad leaders got new heads from the Pegasus Soviets. All figures are fromRevell except the last one which is from Airfix.

Pegasus Soviets with new heads from Italeri and Revell Soviets. The second figure in the row is from Airfix and got a new head from Pegasus and a gun from an Italeri figure.

I re-based my 80 mm mortar figures. All mortars were seperated from the figure, it gives me a little more flexibility, because I still do not know which wargame rules I will play. The mortar on the right comes from Airfix, seems like it shall be a heavy 120 mm mortar.

There is still a lot of work to do, I counted all figures and I will have to paint a lot of figures. And not to forget the Soviet figures from the Toy Soldier Company which will appear on the market in the end of march. And then I have some Revell Winter Soviets, that need basing and some paint.

By the way, the first soviet hardware has arrived (greetings to the Dragon's Cave Shop). These Pegasus T34/85 are fine models with nice details and a fair price.

Help needed

2010-02-11T15:07:00.000+01:00

My last Soviet reinforcements have arrived. Only the Pegasus Summer Infantry is still on its way, I hope they will arrive tomorrow. If they are here, I will start to build up and paint my first big bunch of figuren. A lot of conversions are or will be done, you can find some first pictures of my Soviet troops in this and this post.

But now I have a little problem. I need some cheap Hong Kong figures that I can't get here in any shop. I went from shop to shop but I did not get them. So maybe some of my readers can help me.
I am searching cheap Hong Kong copies of old Airfix "Russian Infantry" figures. Airfix produced them in 1:32 but they never came out in 1:72. Some of the poses appeared in the "Red guards" set of ESCI but this is a long time out of sale.

I need one pack of cheap Russians or at least 10 to 15 guys with binocular from this set, maybe some German reader can help me, I would be responsible for the costs. The figures are needed for conversations like this one (the figure in the middle).

The figures are sold in packages like this one.

I need 10 - 15 of this figures.

If you think that you can help me, please send an email to ww2modelzone(at)hotmail(dot)com, maybe I have figures or stuff that can help you. Or someone can send me a link to some shop, but only German shops please.

Italeri Sd.Kfz. 11 with Hasegawa Flak 18

2010-02-08T18:27:00.000+01:00

Because I feel a little sick since the weekend today I will show only some pictures of the models I built last year. These two were built before I started with my Hasegawa Sd.Kfz. 7/2.

Figures of the Buck Rogers Board game

2010-02-08T17:57:00.001+01:00

I found this game at the flea market one week ago, and I bought it only because it contains a lot of figures. The price was 4 Euros. The basic rules in German were included too, maybe I will make a game  if find 5 other players.

After I came home the first thing to do was counting all parts to see which parts are missing. It was not complete, but there were only 3 little parts that were missing: 2 of the hero figures and one planet marker were not there. But this is no big problem, I think that I can replace theses parts.

The four remaining hero figures

The Gennie Troopers (48 figures in 6 different colors)

The normal Trooper (120 figures in 6 different colors)

Additional informations about this game can be found at the website "The board game geek" following this link.

This last picture shows a size comparison between the board game figures and some other 1:72 figures.
From left to right: Revell German Paratrooper, Buck Roger Gennie trooper (same size as the heroes), Caesar Handschar, Buck Rogers normal trooper, Airfix Afrikakorps, Esci German Paratrooper.

German Leaders figures

2010-02-04T18:15:00.000+01:00

And now for something completely different...

I got this sprue from ebay. It came with a big lot with other figures. I do not like them and but I wanted to find more informations about them.

The only hint that I had was some marking at the sprue (see picture below). Then I found this very interesting article about this figure set hidden in the features of the site. That gave me some informations but they did not know the manufacturer, too.
This Italian shop (scroll down) sells the labelled as HYTTY. But I always thought that HYTTY is a Russion produrer. I did not know that France belongs to Russia

I do not write more about this strange figures but to the conclusion I would like to quote PSR, because I think the same about this set.

"The argument goes that it is better to have poor figures than no figures, and there is some truth in that. Most of these subjects are unique to this set, and a skilled painter would be able to make more of them than did the sculptor. However for the majority of people this set, whatever it is actually called, is little more than a curiosity, and not worth adding to the collection unless you absolutely must have everything ever made."

Bergepanzer III: Basic painting

2010-02-01T19:57:00.000+01:00

(too lazy to write today)

HäT Panzer III G conversion into Bergepanzer III

2010-01-31T01:51:00.000+01:00

Here are some pictures of my current project. I try to build a Bergepanzer III from a HäT Panzer III G. I removed the turret and built a repair platform from scratch. My only sources were this article and some pictures I found via Google.

The materials I used for it are pieces of cardboard, wooden sticks and some parts from the spare box. The crane was built from different plastic parts.

There is still some work to do. I will add some more details to it and will try to modify the tracks with my method of drilling (see here). I will try another modification which I found at this link.

The wooden platform is finished.

Some self-made rivets were attached.

Tools and equipment are still missing.

The crane will get some more details.

20 percent discount at PBtoys.de

2010-01-27T22:29:00.000+01:00

Peter, owner of PBtoys (one of the best online shops for 1:72 figures), gives all his customers 20 percent discount on all orders until the 31st january 2010.

He has a big sortiment of figures from different manufacturers like Caesar, Emhar, HÄT, Italeri, Pegasus and many more. In addition the sortiment of Italeri, Pegasus and Armourfast kits is growing on. The prices are very fair and sometimes you can find some rarities in his shops.

Follow THIS LINK to his 1:72 shop and maybe you will find some interesting products. If you like 1:42 figures you can follow THIS LINK to his shop for 1:32 figures and stuff, HERE you can find Elastolin figures, the shop for Britains figures is HERE, and HERE you can find Timpo Toys figures.

You have to order in each shop seperately but all orders from his shops will be sent in one packet, which means that you have to pay only one time the postage.

Raupenschlepper Ost paper kit by Satoshi Yoshioka

2010-01-27T21:47:00.000+01:00

If you mentioned my linklist on the right side of this blog you will find Satoshi Yoshioka's website who designs model kits building from paper. There is a nice sortiment (15+) of downloadable model kits.

I downloaded the kit of the Raupenschlepper Ost as tractor for one of my two artillery batteries. The PDF document contains all parts for two simple models of the RSO on one DIN A4 page. Unfortunally the RSOs are grey colored that I had to modify this kit for my personal use.

This picture shows my first try with the building of paper kits, and I was surprised that the building went only with  some minor problems. I changed all grey parts to white that I can paint them with water colors in some camo pattern.

My cmera makes a little trouble that I made only one picture of it. The figures come from the figure set "German Auto Infantry" of Russian producer Mars. They look like they are pirated copies from Matchbox and Airfix, maybe I will do a comparison of this figures in the future.

At the moment I am designing the interior section for the RSO. When it is done I will make it downloadable in order to supply the RSO with some interior equipment. In the next days some more pictures of the paper kits will come.

UPDATE:
I compared the measures of my kit (51 mm lengh) and the measures that I found in the wikipedia (4425 mm lengh). It seems like the model I build is not 1:72. The comparison resulted that the kit is in 1:87 scale, that means that i have to do some conversions on the scale.

If someone of you has an 1:87 or 1:72 model or kit of the RSO, it would be nice if you could post the lengh of it in the comments.

Italeri News 2010

2010-01-21T00:50:00.000+01:00

I found this interesting news in the HAT forum and at the homepage of "Henk of Holland".
Italeri will release several new kits this year, but I do not know, if this list is officially confirmed by Italeri. I did not find any of these kits at their official homepage.

This news come from Przemyslaw Sobusik, who is a Polish modeller.
The following kits, and many more, are (inofficially?) announced for 2010:

Dioramas + accessories 1/72:
 * 6142 Modular Battleground #1
 * 6143 Modular Battleground #2
* 6144 Modular Battleground #3
 * 6145 Modular Battleground #4
* 6146 Diorama Accessories #1 Urban Accessories

Fast Assembly 1/72: 
* 7514 Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.F1/F2
 * 7515 T-34/85 
 * 7516 Sd.Kfz.251/1 Ausf.D
  * 7520 GMC 2,5 Ton Truck

The complete list can be found here.

Volkssturm Figures from Odemars and Orion 2

2010-01-18T22:41:00.001+01:00

Here is the rest of my painted Volkssturm figures. I had to finish the last three figures but now I'm a little proud that I painted my first 2 complete sets. Or at least I painted all poses of booth sets. The only thing missing are detailed bases. I was trying how they looked on usual 1 Euro cent coins, but almost the half of them will not fit on it because they are too big.

I like most the poses but the armament is some kind of strange. Some figures have a Panzerfaust which is reasonable because it was a cheap weapon which needed not much training to use. But why the heck does the guy with the beard (1st post) carry an Panzerschreck, which was a weapon that needed much more training than the Volkssturm got.
I think that there are too much automatic weapons and the figures personal equipment of them is too good because most Volkssturm units were poorly equipped. More informations about that can be found in the link at the end of this post.

 Last but not least, here is the comparison between the Volkssturm figures by Orion, Pegasus and Odemars. Compared with the Pegasus figures the figures of Odemars and Orion look like cheap toysoldiers but somehow I like them more than the figures of Pegasus which are very detailed.

Basic informations about the Volkssturm can be found in the Wikipedia (German / English) and on the homepage of the "Lexikon der Wehrmacht" homepage following this link.

A cheap book about WW2 armour

2010-01-15T21:54:00.000+01:00

Before I will continue the presentation of my painted Volkssturm figures I would like to present an interesting book. I got it last week from ebay and it was cheap, approximately  5 Euros including postage. It contains a lot of pictures (700+) of tanks and some useful informations. Maybe it is not the best book about WW2 tanks, but I think, that the price relationship is good.

A lot of tanks are showed, the main focus is on german tanks, allied  and soviet tanks are shown too. The language is German but I think that most of the informations should be able to be translated simply, like for example with babelfish that I also partly use for this blog.

Its a cheap book for beginners, some of the drawings seem like they are based on photos. In my opinion it is a simple but good source for beginners, because it contains many suggestions to painting of models .
You can find it at Amazon, sometimes at the German section of ebay and at other book traders.

Jean Restain "Panzer und Kettenfahrzeuge des zweiten Weltkriegs"
ISBN 3828953301

Volkssturm Figures from Odemars and Orion 1

2010-01-14T22:39:00.000+01:00

Part one of my Volkssturm Figures made by the russian producers Orion and Odemars. The two lying figures are from the set "No refuge" from B.U.M. and got some weapons and equipment from Preiser.

More informations will follow soon with the second part.

Hasegawa SDKfz. 7/2 with 37mm flak 36

2010-01-14T14:28:00.000+01:00

This SDKfz. 7/2 with 37mm flak 36 is the fifth kit I finished after I started building models last year. I have a dozen unbuild kits on my desk but I wanted to start with the easier ones. Before that I finished a Panzer II, a Panzer III, a Tiger 2 and a SDkfz. 11 with an 88 Flak.

The kit is built straight from the box, the only things I did were that I drilled the barrel and built some kind of ammo mounting plate. The most figures are Hasgawa, the gunner is some Preiser figure and the figure with the AT mine belongs to ESCI. All was painted with acrylic colors from Citadel, Vallejo and Tamiya.

There a minor things to change. While watching the pictures I mentioned that I forgot to attch the steering wheel and to drybrush the front wheels. Decals and dirt will come in the future, I still have to improve my modelling skills.

Giant German Infantry toy soldiers

2010-01-03T14:23:00.001+01:00

These figures came with an ebay lot. I had never see figures like them before and had no information about the manufacturer of them. The bases are printed with "Giant" and "Hong Kong". Seems like a first hint.
Their armament consists of German WW2 weapons like MP40, MG34, Panzerschreck and Stielhandgranate. Maybe these guys should be German infantry from world war 2.

I did not know anything about the Giant corporation. Google did. I found this interesting article at the Hät homepage and some other smaller sources which gave me a some information.

This is what I found out: They appear as "World War 2 German infantry" in 10 different poses and were manufactured by the Giant corporation. They are downsized copies of old Marx figures, a picture of it can be found on this homepage. They were made between 1960 and 1970 (found an ebay auction that said 1969) in Hong Kong.

To the conclusion a comparison with figures of other manufacturers:

First row (1:72):
Pegasus Volkssturm, Giant, Esci Paratrooper, Giant, Revell Pioneer, Giant

Second row (1:76):
Matchbox Infantry, Giant, Airfix Afrikakorps, Giant, Matchbox Afrikakorps, Giant, Airfix Infantry

Revell News for 2010

2010-01-02T15:08:00.000+01:00

I got this great news from Modellversium and  Henk of Holland. The Revell company will reissue several old world war 2 kits this year. It is great to read that both ww2 Soviet infantry sets will come back to the market, beginnig with the kit "Siberian Rifleman" (02516)  which will come in March. In June the "Soviet Infantry" set (02510) will come back again.

In addition there will come some new world war 2 armour, like for example the reissues of the Panzer III M and the Jagdpanther, and the new kit of the 8,8cm Flak 36 with the Sd.Anh.202 that will be surely better than the old Hasegawa kit which I built last year.

Read more at the official Revell site.

Hen Long RC Tiger in 1:72

2009-12-29T23:23:00.000+01:00

Last year I got six RC tanks from ebay. All were sealed and new, the price was fair. The tanks can drive and shoot each other with infrared. This work with big and ugly remotes which need 6 x AA batteries, this definitely sucks. So I use an old 9V AC controller.

I made some tank duels with friends, and its funny to play with this little tanks. Up to four players can play against theirselves, if you have enough batteries.

After some search in the internet I found some more information about the Hen Long Tigers. In a german micro rc forum I read that the TL Tiger looks like some Italeri Tiger.
After visiting Modellversium and  Henk of Holland, two very good ressources for modellers, I have to say that it is true.

This is the Italeri kit 7505 of the Pz.Kpfw. VI Tiger Ausf E. It contains 2 quickbuild Tiger models for wargamers at a low price. The parts of the turret and the hull are identically to the parts of the Hen Long models except for the holes for LEDs and the spare tracks.

Last but not least I made some moving pictures after I found out that my new cam can do this. The second tank is a Hasegawa Sherman.

More Hät StuH Modifications

2009-12-27T15:11:00.000+01:00

I made some more little modifications on my StuH's to make them look better. Maybe other modellers can do it better, but I am happy with them because I am a newbie to modelling.
All materials I was using were from my spare parts and plastic junk box.

The picture below shows a Sturmhaubitze 42 squad for my own Eastern front wargame rules(+scenarios) that I started to write, more will come soon.
Please note, that all tanks are still not finished.

Good News from Airfix for 2010

2009-12-27T13:02:00.000+01:00

I saw this news in this blog, Plastic Soldier Review is writing about it too. In 2010 Airfix will release several new model kits and one complete new figure set in 1:76 scale.

The most interesting kits for me are the following:

A75001 - European Ruined Workshop
A75002 - European Ruined Cafe
A75003 - European Ruined Corner House
A75004 - European Ruined Country Cottage   

Seems like a must-have for me and I hope they will match with the vac buildings from TM Diorama. Read more at the official Airfix homepage.

Soviet Artillery: Basic Painting

2009-12-18T18:28:00.000+01:00

Here are some pictures of the WW2 Soviet infantry, on which I am working. I made some basic painting on them, I did not finish the webbings, bottes and skin yet. I have still no idea how to paint the bases of them, maybe they will get some urban style.

Light mortar (Mars)

Heavy mortar (ESCI/Italeri + Revell)

Soviet Infantry: Basic painting

2009-12-18T18:16:00.000+01:00

continuing with the infantry

Light Machine gunner with DP LMG (ESCI/Italeri)

Heavy machine gunners with 12,7mm DSchK (Mars)

Antitank rifle team with PTRD (Mars)

Good news from HAT INDUSTRIES

2009-12-14T16:15:00.000+01:00

HAT published new pictures of rough masters from their coming (?) sets German and Soviet tank riders that will be a great addition to their growing range of WW 2 figures. Pictures can be found here and here.

There are also new pictures from their master model of a German wagon which could be the "schwerer Heeresfeldwagen HF.2". You can join the discussion about these new and all other HAT figures in the HAT forum.

But their are still no pictures of the Hanomag.

Soviet Infantry: Based and primed

2009-12-14T12:59:00.000+01:00

I am building a WW2 soviet army for wargaming. The most figures are from Revell and Italeri Soviet Infantry sets. A handful of figures are from Revell Siberian Rifleman set and some other figures and guns come from Mars.

The hole bunch...only the antitank rifles and the lying gunners are not primed and based.

This Soviet fighters are based on 1 Euro cent coins. The structure on the base is a mix of PVA Glue and sand. The big round bases are pokerchips from TeDi, 26 pieces for 1 Euro. All other bases are made from plastic sheet.

Some minor modifications were made. The mortar soldier got a new head. The stupid runner figure from Italeri got one arm lowered. And two Airfix soldiers with new heads and weapons.

The Airfix kneeling gunner with a new torso from some Dimestore Soviets and the Mars Anti tank rifleman with new barrel and handgrip.

The next step is to give all unpainted figures a black base coat.

Hät StuH Modifications

2009-12-13T17:05:00.000+01:00

I sent this sketch to Mike "The Bunkermaster" 's Blog to publish this. By the way he did. Thanks for that. You can find his blog at http://bunkermeister.blogspot.com/

On both StuH 42 the holes of the roadwheels were opened. The paintjob is very sloppy and not finished yet.