Rügen'46: Механизированная пехота обезьян (and some 3D printed stuff)

Since the Rügen Incident, things went bad in Europe. Findings from various artefacts did not solve the question what happened on the island and it is still unclear what hides beneath the ruins of Sassnitz.

But what was found pushed scientific progress beyond known borders....

Mechanised Ape Infantry (M.A.I.) which is one of the results from cruel experiments in the bunkers of Stalingrad, also known as "Ape-X" from Reaper Miniatures' Bones range.

Reaper offers with it's Bones sortiment a big range of miniatures for a low prices. The reason for this is, that the miniatures are made from some kind of PVC. The material is pretty soft and the details are soft.

On both minis I modified one arm. I cut and reposed the arm, then the resulting gap was filled with Greenstuff, in which I sculpted a fur pattern with my hobbyknife (called cuttermesser only by professionals). If I would not know, I could not say which arms were changed.

Also both miniatures got a new 3D printed 50mm roundbase, since I did not like the look of the bases attached to them. The bases were printed with the same setting than the stuff below, and took 50 minutes to print for each of them.

I finished the miniatures with a simple but effective paintjob. When these creatures will be used for future games they will count as light tanks.

While I painted the miniatures, the 3D printer printed some movement trays from Thingiverse. They will be a nice addition for games or maybe even figure storage.

By the way, I think I never mentioned that we are using PLA as printing material.

The movement trays were printed with 100% infill at 195 degree celsius, with a print and movement speed of 50mm/sec. Printing one of these things took about an hour, after that I added some sand and my standard base colorset to make them match with the bases of the minis on it.

And as you can see, the new movement trays look decent and match perfect with the bases.

15mm German Tankhunters

A bunch of 15mm German vehicles I finished. All were painted in the Hinterhalt camouflage pattern which I use for all of my German tanks.

This is my Sd.Kfz.234/4 from Battlefront miniatures, some years ago I built one of these in 1:72.

I bought the TANKS version of this model which offers four different options to build. If you want to use it for TANKS, you get two different tanks you can use ingame, but you have to decide which version you want to build.

I built the Sd.Kfz.234/4 from this kit. Seeing the stats of this unit it may be an good option to use.  After some Google search I found out that it is not too complicated to build this kit that you can use all four possible versions, but I decided not to do this.

Instead, I turned on the 3D printer and made myself a Puma wheeled tank. Since I did not want to post about 3D printing this time, there is no picture of it

Seeing all the bits that are left over, maybe it is time for some more creative bits recycling like I have done before.

Three Sd.Kfz. 139s, built from bits from the Plastic Soldier Company Marder III kit and 3D printed hulls. Some lines about the construction can be found in this post. If you compare #1 and 2 and the number 3, you will see, that I used different settings on the 3D printer.

Some minor parts like the exhausts and the storage boxes of the number one and two had to be built from scratch, but after the paintjob they look great from a certain distance, but in close look you see the messed up details.

Two Marder III from the Plastic Soldier Company Marder III kit. I had to choose which tank to build from this kit because it offers three different tanks to build from.

I built the Marder III from this kit, I like it's shape. And I am pleased with the results. Both tanks have a different finish, even when I used the same paint, maybe it comes from the fact that I sealed one by hand while I sealed the newer one with the airbrush. And maybe it got a little too much matte paint

Today I started to rework some ruined buildings from Amera Plastic Mouldings. This will be much to do, but using my airbrush saves a lot of time.

Rügen'46: Нападающие, готовые к атаке

Last weekend I spent some time to rework the Plastic Soldier Company Russian infantry I painted a while ago. Even when I was happy with them when the were finished, in the moment I saw the Westwind Production SHS heads, see this post, I knew what would be to do with them.

I messed up the pictures.

 there are six figures missing and 

six figures two times on the pictures above

Heads were rolling like at the French Revolution. After all minis were headless, I drilled holes for the new heads, which were glued with UHU Hart. This fine stuff needs some time to dry but after it is dried there is a strong connection.

The modifications went without big complications, the most heads were easy to remove, some poses needed more efford, because of some hands and guns attached to the helmets.

I wanted to save some time, that is why the minis in firing poses look a little weird. But I did not want to repaint the whole mini, what I would have to do if I had to pose the gasmask filter a little more appropriate.

The paintjob was fairly simple. The mask, tube, and filter were painted with Revell Aquacolor. Then I made two black dots for the eyes, followed by a lighly thinned black wash. The helmet was painted before I sealed the new head.

Luckily there was almost no damage to the paint at the necks where I removed the heads. I used AK Russian primer for the new heads, that color concealed all messed up spots arround the necks.

Finally I found a use for my (weird) ww2 styled miniatures, and are only four weeks to go before these guys will roam through the streets of Sassnitz. But before they can do this, there is a lot of work to do.

Tomorrow is Sunday what means: turn off the mobile, ignore the doorbell, time for some models to build or paint. This time I have a clear goal, I have some built Amera Plastic Mouldings ruins in the basement that will get a new look.

Komm, wir gehen nach Panama

Yesterday the Montagsmaler went rogue and met, even when it was Friday. My mate continued the paintjob on his German tanks, last week we removed the old paint, basecoated them, and gave them a first layer of paint.

While Olli removed the masking tape from his Tiger, the tank's paintjob looks somehow like the Tigerente from German children's book author Janosch.

At the moment I am preparing a handful of post for the next days, a lot of stuff piled up in the past few days that a I would like to show you.

Warlord Games 28mm Siberian Veterans for Bolt Action

 

 

A closer look at the 28 mm "Siberian Veterans" made by Warlord Games for their game "Bolt Action". The box contains enough plastic and metal parts to build 34 figures.

By the way, at the moment I am not interested in Bolt Action, but I always can use some more Russian soldiers for future projects.

First a look at the plastic parts, if you want a "real" review, you may stop reading now and search something better on google, here I only take a closer look at a pretty random piece from my collection to give other potential buyers and collectors  pictures and some basic informations.

The plastic parts are the same sprues as in the "Soviet Infantry" box from Warlord Games. There are four identical sprues for the figures, from each frame you can build 8 figures. There is a variety of heads and equipment as you can see on the picture.

Then there are 3 identical sprues with Soviet weapons. They offer a great selection of pistols, rifles and automatic guns, this will not only be useful for equipping Soviet soldiers.

Also there are a sprue with 25 bases, six single bases and the instructions leaflet. When you build all figures from the box, there will be some bases left for the bitsbox.

But I mainly did not buy this box for the plastic parts, so let us take a look at the more interesting parts that came with this box:

First of all there are two metal miniatures, a Soviet comissar using a megaphone to motivate the troops, and a soldier pulling a Maxim machine gun.

The new heads for the veterans. There are two different versions, you get two of each what makes 24 heads. This is not enough for the 33(34) minis from the box , but maybe the rest of the plastic Soviets will get zombified.

Not only I ordered the heads from the last post, there are still two boxes of SHS heads I want to show you in a future post.

A sprue with five backpacks and the first three pairs of arms, the first equipped with a carbine with bayonet attached, the second pair holds a German MP38 or MP40, the last pair of arms is holding a carbine with a rifle grenade. This is a nice addition

The last two items on the picture are an arm with an ammo box for the Maxim machine gun, and an arm holding a knife.

The final picture shows the sprue with the rest of the arms. This sprue contains four pairs of arms, two with carbines and two with the PPSH machine pistol. Just as all the other parts they are a bit of heroic scale but they do not look like boybuilders.

The plastic parts are the usual great quality as all plastic minis Warlord Games offers for their Bolt Action range.

All metal parts will need some cleanup to remove some minimal mould lines and the residue from the casting process, but  the metal figures are nicely modelled and casted without any flaws, just as the rest of the metal parts. The faces of the heads may look a little cartoon-like but I like that.

All in all, this box offers a great value for its price. When you build all miniatures, you will have plenty of bits for other projects, especially the weapons sprues are very useful for every Eastern Front project. This shall not be a review but thumbs up for this box, I can only recommendate this box.

The Friesian Summer is still ongoing, my arm is better now, and tomorrow is Sunday, which means I will spend my time on some models. I still don not know what I will build or paint, but the Sunday is reserved for it.