Pegasus 1:72 German Elite Infantry

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 1:72 RC Tiger Minus RC

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.

A Zvezda 1:72 T34 Tank Is Coming Soon

(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

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.

1:72 Soviet Rifle Company (Work In Progress)

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.