Westwind Productions 28mm SHS Seperate Head System (1)

A closer look at some heads from the SHS range of Westwind Productions. Westwind offers a large selection of heads for the Secrets of the Reich figures they are producing.

SOTR is a Weird World War Two 28mm tabletop game, this link gives you a very good descripton of the game, even when it is only available in German language. The google translation into English is here.

On the left handside you see the contents of SHS-SOTR1 "German gas mask heads" which contains the upper sprue two times and the piece below three times, which makes 20 heads. They are nice modelled and the casting looks almost good if there was not the distinctive casting line and some recess which will need some serious cleanup.

On the right handside you see the contents of SHS-SOTR8 "Soviet gas mask heads in helmets". This package contains also 20 heads, the same sprue five times. The modelling is nice but the heads will need some cleanup as mentioned before.

 

Comparison with some matching heads, the first two heads come from Warlord Games' German infantry, the next three heads come from Westwind (German, German, Soviet), and the last head is taken from a box of Wargames Factory German Infantry which is less heroic scale in contrast of the WLG Germans.

I do not want to rate them, but I think they are fine and will do very well for my special purposes. Compared with the plastic heads, the actual heads are clearly smaller but the helmets are at least equal sized as their plastic companions what makes them fitting well.

I already had some headless Germans, a mix of Warlord Games and Wargames Factory Germans. All I had to do was to drill a hole for the headpin and then I pushed the heads in. Since I have to clean them up, they are not glued.

On the first look at the new heads I was a little sceptical because of their size, I could not imagine that this would look well, but I does look very well and the unified size of the new head will hide the small size differences of the two different manufacturers' figures.

The last figure in the row comes from the old Void tabletop, but I can not say of which faction. They were included in a Void starterbox I got from the bay some years ago and I never knew what's to do with them.

A new head, a MP39 with the matching ammo pouch, and this mini can be used in any www2 game as armoured infantry at least this is what I want to use them for.

I can not wait to see this guys roaming through the streets of Sassnitz, on the search for artifacts, but as you sure may know, so many models, so little time.

 

A Soviet gas mask helmet attached to a Plastic Soldier Company 28mm Soviet infantry man. This will be the next project, along with a matching vehicle for Mariya Oktyabrskaya.
I painted a handfull of Soviets from PSC some time ago, now they are on the workbench again, waiting for new heads. They match perfect, the conversion above was done in two minutes and I think it looks fine.

Even when I thought at the first look that the heads were two small, I think the the heads fit very well. Especially when you use less heroic scaled miniatures like I did with the PCS figure on the picture above.

Since I had a small accident at work, which gave me a mighty bruise on my arm, some things are a litte more complicated at the moment, but as soons as possible some heads will role...

By the way,
I updated the post about the part-selfprinted Sd.Kfz.139 with a small video to documentate the printing process.

Just Some Pictures I Found On My Phone

Scenery contruction pictures from the last year. I found them while I was browsing through the backup from my phone. 

This is our river piece from this post. I found some pictures of it's construction:

 

 

 

The river piece in w.i.p. status. I hotglued some layers of cardboard pieces (leaving a gap) on a 120x30cm (roughly 4x1ft) piece of Styrodur (foamed polystyrene), then I filled the edges with acrylics. The gap, which should become the river, was filled with two component epoxy, in which some blue color was added. After that, the stones were added while it was still sticky.

Then two bridges and some more details were added as you can see in the first picture of the post.

And then there were some more pictures of an other scenery piece I made with my mate Olli.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This piece is a coastal segment, sized also 120cm width and built from Styrodur. It is planned as a D-Day element and can be set on any of our 120cm wide battlefield elements. While it looks almost finished in the last picture there will be a lot more work to spend on this section of the battlefield.

We were thinking of adding one or two bunkers and some obstacles at the beach, maybe we find some nice pieces at Thingiverse. And a small strip of blue paper needs to be added to represent the sea.

At the moment I enjoy the Friesian summer, waiting for an order of bits and bats to continue the work on my Rügen'46 project. When it will arrive things are going to get a little weirder.

Since I must pickup a small bargain from the bay, tomorrow will be no modelling on my modelling sunday, but I think I will find some time for a closer look at something.

Part Plastic Soldier Company Part 3Dprinted 15mm Sd.Kfz 139

In the picture above you see a Panzer 38(t) hull fresh printed with the Anet A8. Today I managed to print it to build a Sd.Kfz. 139, using the bits leftover from this post.

I took a small video with my mobile to give you a small look at the printing process. The selfprinted fan mount made the printer way more silent.

After some cleaning it looked like this:

I used new printer settings, the two 38(t) hulls I did before were printed with a different setup. Which means, there are differences in the printquality of the three hulls I made. Maybe more on this in a future post.

The overall details of the hull are ok, while the roadwheels were printed incorrect. Even the machine gun and the exhaust were printed in acceptable quality.

All in all,this time the hull was printed better as the roadwheels were not.

The hull roughly drybrushed, viewed from different angles. The top, front and back were printed properly. The roadwheels had some holes and gaps, that I had to use some Vallejo acrylic putty to give them a rought filling.

Both parts were prepared to fit and glued. I had to add a piece of plasticcard to close a gap in the back of the structure.

With minor efford another tank was built today. It looks a little crude on close sight, but it will make a decent gamepiece when it is painted.

I ♥ Freebies

 

 

 

A friend of mine quit his slotracing hobby after more then two decades. He sold most of his cars and tracks but kept some stuff for me. Whe I unpacked all the stuff at home, I was surprised by the amount of stuff.

Even when I will not keep all of this stuff, let me say thank you for the stuff once again.

At the moment I am preparing a follow-up for this post.  I will write about it in the later evening.

Plastic Soldier Company 15mm Marder III And Bitsrecycling With The 3D Printer

Yesterday I built another Marder III kit from the Plastic Soldier Company. It is a nice little tank and it's built went without any problems. There were neither sinkholes nor flash on the sprue. It will get the same paintjob than the one I already painted.

From this kit you can build three different tanks: the Panzerkampfwagen 38(t), the Sd.Kfz. 139 and the Marder III, which I built. When I was finished with the constuction of the left tank on the first picture some months ago, there was a massive amount of bits left in the sprue just as today.

Take a look at the picture below:

Not only that there are 8 crewmen included, there was a full 38(t) turret and a complete Sd.Kfz. 139 upper structure left in the sprue.

This would be a lot of plastic that would vanish in the bitsbox, maybe I could use the 38(t) turret to build a bunker, they were used to guard borders and other structures. But this means there is still the complete upper half of a tank, which may be used.

Days later I had an idea. I turned on the 3D printer and printed a Panzer 38(t) hull from this great collection. Then I tried to build a Sd.Kfz.139 from the structure of the PSC kit and the selfprinted hull. With some sanding, some putty and a lot of superglue I made it. I had to replace the mg barrel but the only things I had to build from scratch were the exhaust and the storage box on the back.

While we are running low on filament, today I did not print a hull for the actual structure I have left, but I did this two times before. When I will do the modification to a third tank, I will make a post about the built.

Both lower parts of these tanks were printed. While it looks a little crude on close sight, these tanks will be decent gaming pieces. They will be used as custom units for TANKS, I made first tries on creating new units for the game from this template.

But before this will be done there are a lot of things to finish before.

1:144 Zvezda IL-2 Stormovik

Pictures of my recently finished IL-2 Stormovik from Russian producer's Zvezda "Art of Tactics" range. The build went fast and without any problems. It was primed and basecoated by airbrush, pictures of it's unfinished state can be found in the post below. The final details were added with the brush.

Since I could not find the original decal sheet in the chaos of my modelling desk, I had to improvise. The numbers were taken from a Revell tank kit, and the red stars were taken from an 1:72 IL-2 kit, they may be a little oversized.

At the moment I am working on a bitsrecycling project. Maybe I will write about that in the later evening.

More Works In Progress

Zvezda's 1:144 Ilyushin Il-2 Stormovik. I built it today, then it got it's base colors via airbrush. The lower part was masked with tape, the camouflage pattern was created with liquid masking solution. When I removed the tape, some parts of the color kept sticking on it, so I had to repaint some parts with a brush.

The next steps will be to paint the details followed by a coat of gloss coat to prepare it for decaling. The decals of both of the Zvezda planes are generic ´numbers and nationalsigns, not too bad and usable.

Zvezda's 1:144 Messerschmitt BF 109 F/2. This was built today too, but at the moment it got only primed and the lower hull was painted grey. I am still unclear how to paint the upper hull.

Two Plastic Soldier Company SD.Kfz. 251/D in 15mm scale. Both got nightfighting equipment. The left model got upgraded to the Sd.Kfz. 251/20 UHU with the Heer46 conversion parts. Since I did not like the driver's night vision piece I changed it with a matching piece from the Heer46 Panther night vision conversion pack. I also added a clear lense to the searchlight which is not on the pictures.

On the other halftrack I changed the closed doors to scratchbuilt open ones. 

I forgot to make pictures of Olli's stuff but I think soon he will upload some pictures in his own blog. Another successful building session for the Montagsmaler even when it is Wednesday.

Revell 1:144 Ju 87b Stuka Todays W.I.P.

Two pictures of Revell's 1:144 Micro Wings Stuka kit. Revell's Micro Wings range offered 16 world war 2 planes in 1:144 scale made from moulds from the early seventies. My mate Olli made pictures of another two Revell Micro Wings fighters which he will publish in his blog soon (update: this post).

Due to the age of the kits' moulds there was a lot of flash and some parts did not went together without putty and some mild violence. I painted it with the brush, using masking tape for the camouflage pattern. While I am not 100 percent satisfied with the results, it will be a decent game piece.

The (still unfinished) diorama base was made with a picture frame and some cartonage.

Today my mate Olli joined me for another Montagmaler session. Our roguish goals for today are to build two Zwezda "Art of Tactics" 1:144 planes, I will try to build a Sd.Kfz. 215/20 "UHU" from the PSC Sd.Kfz.251/D kit and the Heer46 UHU conversion kit. Olli wants to remove its paint before he starts to repaint one of his Tigers. Maybe we will build and paint some more stuff, but the clock is ticking.

 

Later in the evening I will post some pictures of today's progress.

Rügen'46: Achtung, Spione!

A group of allied commando forces accompanied by their trusty drone. In my Rügen'46 background settings, the allied commands decided after devastating losses of men and material to withdraw all their troops from the continent while the plague is spreading

Allied specialists can join any faction as so-called military advisors, but since the plague spread over the oceans, their armies are needed to defend the homeland.

Two minis from the Warm Acres boardgame "Hour of Glory". Due to the game mechanics you get the same character in a sneaking and in a fighting pose.
I replaced the left miniature's knife with a bad looking pistol which will be replaced when I get a new one. The other figure got not only a pretty weird view but also a cigarette.

Again two miniatures from "Hour of Glory" and again the same character in a sneaking and in a fighting pose. I did not do any changes to the figures but if I get a nice looking revolver the actual revolver of the left mini will be replaced.
The overall quality of these "Hour of Glory" figures could be a lot better.

Today I finished this Mr. Gutsy inspired robot figure made by Brother Vinni. Made from very soft resin, the 8 parts went together very well. It was the first time I used UHU Hart glue for resin and like the actual result. For the paintjob I used the same colors that I use for my 15mm US tanks.

A specialist armed with a revolver and a sharpened wooden peg by East Riding Miniatures. The other mini came in a blister with the vampire miniature from this post.

These miniatures were mainly painted with Revell Aquacolor Khakibraun and an unlabeled olive green. The main wash I used was thinned down GW Agrax Earthshade. For the bases I used the materials which can be seen in the background of the first picture.