Wehrmacht in Winter

I just finished up a commission of some Germans all decked out in their winter finery.  My customer is working on getting together a 10.5cm battery as well as a 15cm bettery, both fully decked out with all the tow vehicles everybody tends to ignore since they're not used much in-game.  He wanted to paint the crews himself so I just had to paint up the guns, vehicles, and do the base-work.  This time I painted up a full 15cm battery, two Kübelwagens, four Sd Kfz 7 halftracks, two Kfz 68 radio trucks, four Sd Kfz 11 halftracks, two Opel Blits 3-ton trucks, and two Maultiers.  He hadn't quite finished the crew for the 10.5s so the guns will have to be painted and based up once I have the crew.

The Radio Trucks.  The antenna assembly was a freaking nightmare to put together but I think they came out pretty well and feel sturdy enough. 

 Sd Kfz 1 halftracks.  I was unsure what to do about the whitewash on the canvas but after some researching I found that the crews would usually apply the whitewash on the sides of the canvas covers.  

Sd Kfz 7 halftracks

Kübelwagens.  I decided to do an ambush pattern under the whitewash but it doesn't show through particularly well under the whitewash.

The 15cm battery.  This was my first time painting up the sculpted artillery bases and they're pretty great. Unfortunately I didn't think ahead to the snow stage and much of the painting I did on the various details sculpted onto the bases was covered up.  

Opel Blitz Trucks.  There are supposed to be four but I was accidentally sent two of these and two Maultiers.  The proper trucks should be coming with the next batch of stuff.

  

Opel Maultiers.  These aren't painted for winter because they were sent by mistake and my customer just told me to do them like the rest of his Germans rather than send them back.

This project taught me a lot about winterizing stuff.  I played around with how to give the impression of the churned up, sticky mud on the vehicles and on the arty bases where the crew have been slogging around.  I decided to sprinkle some snow flock on top of the mud to suggest that it's still snowing.  I also think I've gotten down my whitewash technique.  I used to paint the underlying color and then gloss the vehicle before hitting it with hairspray and airbrushing on a coat of white.  This is a pretty well known way to simulate whitewash; the hairspray lets the white coat be scraped away to show how the whitewash would gradually be worn off.  This time I skipped the hairspray and just did the white right over the gloss coat.  In the past I've had problems with the hairspray making it too easy to wipe away the white and leaving me with too subtle an effect.  Scrubbing a stiff, wet brush onto the still drying white layer gave me a far more controlled effect.  

Thanks for checking in.  Next up are some 15mm platoons for Chain of Command 

US Halftracks and German Big Cats

I just shipped off a batch of commission stuff.  I didn't bother taking pictures of everything because the rest of it was pretty standard US infantry and some jeeps but here are my favorites from the batch.

 Dicker Max

 Sturer Emil 

  These are just bog standard US halftracks but I thought it would be interesting to put them up here because they are the Point of Contact pre-painted stuff.  They actually paint up surprisingly well and have some pretty crisp detail for $25 a box.  The only issue I see it that the tracks and .50 Cals are a slightly more rubbery plastic.  

Next up is a couple of batteries of German arty with winter basing.  I also have a ton of German trucks and tractors to go along with the batteries.  They are supposed to be winter themed too but I'm not sure if trucks, or guns for that matter, were whitewashed.  If anybody knows please comment.  

After those I have a platoon of Germans and a platoon of Americans on individual bases to paint up for 15mm Chain of Command.  From the customer I have a bit of 6mm Cold War stuff headed my way to try out and see how long they will take (I've never painted 6mm before) so I can give him a better idea of pricing for painting more.  I'm really excited for these as I've always been interested in trying some 6mm moderns.  I have some experience painting moderns in 3mm so hopefully some of the techniques will carry over.  

And You Thought Napoleon Was Short...

Recently I've been interested in getting in to napoleonics so I figured I would talk a little about where that journey has taken me thus far.  For a long time, the furthest back in history I was interested in gaming was WWII.  I liked the tanks, the airplanes and all of the tactical flexibility the speed and deadliness of modern warfare presents a wargamer with.  However, last semester I took a course in European military history up to 1789.  I wasn't really sure I would enjoy the course very much as the big lines and blocks of infantry and cavalry had always seemed too slow to me to be particularly interesting.  However as we got into the class, my professor presented things in a way that just grabbed me.  As he talked about the development of the Roman manipular system and then the genesis of the pike and the age of linear warfare, I couldn't help but to imagine these battles playing out on the tabletop.  I decided I would give some of this older warfare a go after all.

While we didn't really get to discuss the Napoleonic Wars in the class as we only covered up to the French Revolution, I read on in one of the textbooks (The Art of War in the Western World by Archer Jones for those who are interested) over the winter break and was fascinated by his coverage of the Napoleonic Wars.  I immediately went on to check out another book, this time it was Waterloo: the History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles, by Bernard Cornwell.

Having decided to start this new period, I was completely lost as to where to go.  Napoleonics is an interesting period to wargame because there is no "flagship" game for the period like Flames of War is for WWII.  Also, people have been gaming nepoleonics for as long as there have been toy soldiers so there are dozens of rule sets, each requiring a different level of abstraction and base size and miniature scale; its a confusing thing to approach.  I was muddling through all this and getting a bit discouraged when I came across this article by Curt on the Analogue Hobbies blog.  His little stands of 3mm infantry looked amazing and really gave the kind of massed infantry look I was excited about.  From this point onward I pretty have to give all the creative credit to Curt as I loved his idea so much I essentially copied it.

The rules Curt was using were Sam Mustufa's Blucher system.  I looked around on his excellent website and decided they were worth checking out so I picked up the book and the Hundred Days Campaign set (technically my mom got them for me for Christmas).  I'm still working my way through the book but so far it looks like a really enjoyable and challenging game.  At first I was afraid that the grand tactical scale would be too much as I am used to company scale games.  However as I read through the book, I can really see the appeal of being a Napoleon or a Wellington.

As far as the figures go, I really just copied what Curt did.  I made my bases a little bigger so they would more closely approximate the size of the unit cards Blucher uses.  Also, the larger base size allowed me to do four battalions as well as skirmishers, officers, and a cannon and crew on each infantry base.

Anyways, I've blabbered on far more than I should have about this so I'll leave you with a teaser picture of one of my finished French infantry regiments

Been Awhile...

I've kinda let this blog fall by the wayside these past couple of years.  I've been busy with school and work and really haven't had much interest in taking the time to post here.  However, I recently decided that since I'm still spending a lot of time painting and modelling, mostly on various commissions, I might as well post whatever I'm working on up here.  Besides, posting here will give me something to do between classes (or during the more boring ones) other than check Facebook or Reddit.

Anyways here are some pictures of commissions I've worked on recently:

First up some tanks from a US commission I finished up awhile ago.  

 Some US Jumbos 

 These guys really paint up really well (with the exception of the track of which I have had mediocre casts in all four of the boxes I've painted thus far)

 Some M4A3 lates 

 Aaaand the Easy Eights.  These guys are hard not to make look badass.  With the amount of US stuff I paint, I've done something like 25 of these bad boys and they're always my favorite of the batch.  

 Some DAK Germans.  I tried using edge hi-lighting instead of dry brushing on these guys and I really like how much it made them pop.  I also used the hi-light color to underline some of the larger chips and scratches and that really brought them out.  I can definitely see myself using this edge hi-lighting and the paint chip lining this going forward.    

 These Italian Semoventes and armored cars are part of the batch of stuff I have on the painting table right now.  This was my first try at Italians and I found the color tricky to get right - I think mine are too yellow.  Let me know what y'all think 

 Google told me that Italian tankers had a blue-grey uniform so that's what I went with.  Not sure if its right but I like the splash of color it brings.  

 And here's the state of the painting desk right now. 

 In the back are some US half-tracks and jeeps that are more or less done - all they need is some pigment for the tracks and wheels.  This was my first time painting those pre-painted 15mm figs.  I'm not sure what they're called but they come pre-painted inboxes of five and are made, at least partially, with a rubbery sort of plastic. 

On the left are the Italians which just need some varnish.  The US infantry and gun teams just need some basing.  

The two big German tanks are a Sturer Emil and a Dicker max.  These are really cool tanks and have been fun to paint to far.  Thus far I've done the airbrushed panel hi-lighting, the edge hi-lighting, the chipping, underlined some chips with the hi-light color, and painted the road wheels rubber.  I did forget to do the decals before chipping which is unfortunate but it's such a hassle to gloss for the decals as it means I have to break out the airbrush to hit the model with matte varnish before proceeding with painting.