WW2 British Airborne

[Cubs]

All metal Bolt Action by Paul Hicks, painted up for ... urm ... well, painted up then. I guess in theory they're for 'Rules of Engagement' but I don't even know if they'll ever see any rolling dice.

This is the latest offering, a 75mm Pack Howitzer in a base that was lots of fun to make. I've given different angles to show the different bits of the base.







Some overhead shots so you can see the sabot bases properly. From the last one you can see some of the colours don't quite match up, so what I'll do is lob some pigment powders around with the bases in place, just to marry them up nicely.





Does anyone want to see the stage-by-stage shots? Some are a bit fuzzy because the camera was sulking.

[Cubs]

By the way, there's plenty more pics of the rest of the platoon, but I have to find where I've stashed them, so wait up a bit. I also did a stage-by-stage which I can bring across from the Warlord forum if you like that sort of thing.

[Captain Blood]

Great paintwork. Really like those 
Wonderful groundwork too. Well done.

[tomek917]

Great painting! Please show us all of them!

How did you make the bricks? I'd love some bases like that!

[grant]

Wow! You are my new painting hero!

There's something you need to see

[Helen]

Fantastic work, well done.

Helen

[aircav]

That is awesome 
Just post everything 

[Atheling]

Exceedingly good 

Darrell.

[dodge]

neat 

[Blackwolf]

Lovely work

[Cubs]

Wow! You are my new painting hero!

There's something you need to see

[Cubs]

How did you make the bricks? I'd love some bases like that!

Well now, a lot of the work is explained in this month's exciting issue of 'Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy', in a copy near you! Or, if it's on a far shelf out of reach, not particularly near you. If the shop is out of stock, it will be even less near you. Quite far perhaps.

But basically you get some Forex (which is a lightweight sort of plasticard, used in advertising signage) and score the brickwork onto it with a pencil or similar pointy thing. It's a nice soft material to work with and you can chop at it easily to make loose bricks or holes in your wall section. There are also plenty of sprue bricks, made by chopping up plastic sprues into brick-sized chunks.

[Cubs]

Right, well, since plenty of people want another tickle then this is the stage-by-stage. Again, sorry that some of the photos are a bit iffy, but the painting demon that lives in my camera likes to torment me from time to time.

The base is cut from a piece of Forex and the round 'sabot' shapes for the bases to sit nicely in are just made by drawing around the crew's basing pennies and then building up around with Milliput and glued-on sand. The broken walls, some of the bricks, box and some of the snapped bits of wood are also all pieces of Forex cut and/or scored in suitable fashion. There's also plenty of grit, rough and fine sand, Milliput sandbags and sprue bricks glued on with gay abandon.

The artillery shells are bits of wire shaped by clamping and spinning them in a mini-drill and then touching them to a diamond disc spinning on another mini-drill. Most pleasing.






Here's the base with the dark brown undercoat and some grey, blue-grey and brick red drybrushed over. Then it all gets an overall drybrush of dry cream colour.






Finally (for the base at least), the shells, box, sandbags and wood are painted in. It's tough to make out on these photos, but the wood has been painted to look like green-painted woodwork, splintered and wrecked by explosions. Lots of inking and washes have gone in to dirty it up, then after varnishing (the bits where the bases will sit get a few layers of brush-on varnish too) then plenty of grey and brick-dust pink powders are lobbed all over it. Just the gun and crew to paint now!

[Cubs]

Photos are a little blurry this time, for reasons known only to the bloody camera, but it gives you an idea with the painted gun in place. Simple green paintjob with inks and washes and plenty of powder round the wheels.





And here's the crew, all painted up.



The standing dude has had his Para wings chopped off his badge, so I can put in an artillery one instead. I don't really know if the Paras themselves crewed the guns or not, but since the howitzer came in by glider, I'm guessing it was crewed by Airborne Artillery instead of Paras.

[flags_of_war]

That is just bloody unfair. These are far too good.

Great work mate. Im so jealous of these.