NKDS

Finished this post a week or so back. Posting this first while we recover and settle the AFA articles.

As our regular readers would have known by now, there are some of us who are gamers, in the traditional sense, as well. However, from previous articles, many people would think that we only play Warhammer 40k. However, that is not true. Both me and Julius started out with BattleTech. For my post today, I will be showcasing the buildup of some Flames of War miniatures, in particular, the box below.

In my eagerness to have some minis for gaming, I bought a box of Panzer IVs, not knowing in late war the German Army had already been largely equipped with H models. Imagine my dismay when I found out that I had gotten Ausf Fs instead of the H.  The primary external visual differences would be the add-on armour sheets, called schruzen, on the hull and turrets to prematurely detonate infantry anti-tank weapons. Oh well, time to build me some schruzen.

The minis supposed to represent Panzer IV Ausf Hs painted in the common scheme used at the time of the Normandy invasion.This allows me to play any German formation at that time period (44-45).

I used 0.3mm Tamiya styrene plaplate to build the turret ones. They are flexible enough to wrap around the turret and attached to them to hull with superglue. This is wrong on the real thing as the sheet metal sits on struts. Oh well.

Before and after.

The rest of them done up.

You would have noticed that the minis come in two colours. This is a mixed media kit, meaning the parts are made up of more than one kind of material. In this case, the silver portions are pewter and the grey parts are resin.

I primed them using Mr Surfacer 1000 through an airbrush and followed that with flat black paint. I never took pictures of the application of the flat black coat.

After base coating the Panzer IVs with black, I wetbrushed Vallejo Middlestone over it. Wet brushing requires me to load me to load up a flat brush with some paint and wiping it against a tissue to remove som, but not all, of the paint. This allows me good coverage with the paint but still does not flow into the panel lines. The colour looks slightly off in the photo but the colour of the actual mini is close to the dark yellow I like.

For some reason, I decided to add the hull Schruzen at this point of time. I based the idea on a tutorial I saw on the Flames of War modeling forum. The vertical piece is the same thickness as the plaplate on the turret and is attached onto a thicker horizontal piece attached to the hull. Some of the panel lines were scribed while it slipped my mind for the others.

Left one out because I was feeling a tad lazy at that time.

Camo applied with Gunze Mr Hobby Colour Dark Green and Mahogany through an airbrush, lightened slightly with some sand to get the proper colour tone to go with the middlestone. I referenced these colours from my Dragon King Tiger.The camo I did them in is not historically accurate as it consisted of brown patches and green squiggles. But I am satisfied the way they turned out.

After this, I moved onto the details. Tracks were painted with a custom mix of Vallejo Black, Dark Blue, Dark Grey and Citadel Boltgun Metal, as were the tow hooks and tool heads. This mix based on a Japanese modeling video where the chap used a simliar mixture to paint the tool heads on his King TIger. I added in the Boltgun metal for a bit of a metallic sheen. Wooden areas were painted with Vallejo Flat Brown lightened with Desert Sand. Jerry cans and drums were Vallejo German Camo Green. Wheel rims were painted with the same mixture as the tracks. No pictures of this process, sorry.

After all the details we were done, I proceded to other stuff. Gloss-coating, decal application, washing with raw umber artist oils and sealing with flat coat. The gloss coat allows the oil paint to flow smoothly the surfaces and not pool up. At the same time, the gloss coat is very very hardy, great for metal parts where paint chips easily. The wash darkens the mini and blends in the colours together and brings out the recessed panel lines. The flat coat unifies all the colour together in a uniform finish. For those interested, the streaks were achieved by ‘drybrushing’ the tank with enamel thinner on a flat brush after the wash had dried. I really out to retake this family photo.

Here’s some shots of my ‘command’ tank.

Yes, I see the strands of fabric on the last photo and they’ve been removed since.

Another tank in the batch.

For those who are interested how big each tank is, here’s a shot of one next to a metal rule.

And that concludes the article.Hope you guys enjoyed it. Next up, shots of either the Eurofighter Typhoon or Arblade Custom, depending on which one I finish off first.