The Shape of Things to Come - 2017

I was hoping to have a few newly completed minis to show you - but the weather is stinking hot and I couldn't survive taking photos in my office so it will have to wait.  I have a few (loose) plans for the year and thought it might be amusing to show them here in photographs with no commentary - some will be pretty damn obvious, while some may not be quite so.  To help I'll list them by nationalities.

Let's see how many you get:

Now I'm not promising to do everything on the list - but I hope to (and other stuff as well!).  Some of the figures have already started to be painted (some I don't have yet) - most of the kits have been built and are just awaiting painting.

So here's to a productive year!

Have fun everyone

Richard

Matchbox Phantom FG1/FGR2

Carrying on with my attempts at aircraft, it was time to knock off another old favourite and complete this old Matchbox Phantom I started over 2 years ago.  As always with me and planes, it comes down to the painting - starting with trying to get the right colours.  I think this Phantom has about 4 different spray coats as I attempted to find the right colour.

Anyway - here she is in the livery of 23 Squadron whilst based out on the Falkland Islands:

All-in-all I'm quite pleased with out she came out.  For whatever reason I'm a bit disappointed with the way the canopies look.  I guess the light blue on the light grey doesn't look the same against some of the darker colours, but I can live with it.

Anyway - thanks for looking and welcome to the blog for 2017.

Richard

BAOR Objective - Work-in-Progress Part 3

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy 2017!  This will be my last post for 2016, another year gone by.

Today is another short W-I-P post, with the first part of this miscast Cromwell Models FV432 shown back here and the second part here.  No super progress on the vehicle as you can see here:

I tried to add tracks to the front and back of the FV432 to show how they have rolled off, but I was not happy with the look so attempted to chop them off again... (you can see some remnants on the back wheel)

So I added a base:

The base is definitely still a W-I-P.  It's nowhere near as yellow as the picture shows and hopefully I'll finish it before the new year, but we'll see.  As usual some other things have floated to the top of the pile.

So that's it for 2016.  Another year I am glad to see over - I have my fingers crossed for next year.

Take care

Richard

Bundeswehr TOW Team

I can't really remember the genesis of this particular idea, but at some point I decided I needed a man-pack TOW ATGM Team for my West Germans.  I guess I could see a couple of occasions when I might need one - A: Fallschirmjager dismount their TOW from a Kraka for some reason and B: a Jaguar II crew decide to dismount their TOW system from the Jaguar for some reason.

What that reason might be...  not sure, but it could happen so best be prepared.

This is the team:

The TOW system is by Dragon and came from one of their HMMWV kits.  All the crew are from Elhiem, with the kneeling chaps coming from a Milan team and the standing chap working the launcher being a conversion of a standard infantryman with a G3 assault rifle at port-arms.  I accidently loped his left hand off and had to re-scuplt it with green stuff.

So that's the team.

Thanks

Richard

Crewing some Bundeswehr Vehicles

In my ongoing effort to "finish" things I've gone back and added some necessary crew to a few vehicles - starting with an S&S Models Iltis:

The figure in the back an Elhiem MG3 gunner, as well as the Elhiem driver.  I've added some stowage in the back and then covered it in a cam net.  Kind of a waste of stowage!

Next up is an S&S Models M113G Panzermorser:

Here I simply added a single standing Bundeswehr mortar crewman from Elhiem.  There is really only room for one anyway.

Finally my conversion of an Italeri M106, into a M113G Panzermorser got two crew added:

This time I was able to add two Elhiem Bundeswehr mortar crewmen - one standing and one kneeling.  As I had complete access to the interior of the M113, the kneeling chap was able to fit inside - and looks pretty good!

That's it for this week - more on Monday

Richard

Cromwell Models FV433 Abbot

Sorry - I was meant to post these last week but we had an unplanned water feature in our lounge room (i.e. two leaking showers) so I've had to rearrange my life for a month or so as we get two new bathrooms.  Hence my delay in posting.  But enough of the excuses and onto the models!

So here are a couple of finished (without crew) Cromwell FV433 Abbot Self-Propelled-Guns:

Once again what you'd expect from Cromwell - beautiful models, loads of detail, little effort to put together.  Can't ask for much more than that.

Thanks

Richard

Cromwell CVR(T) Spartan

Time for another quick update from my "Back to the BAOR" mini-project.  Today I'll be showing you a Cromwell Models CVR(T) Spartan I found in the bring 'n buy at Cancon last year.  Less than a year from buy to build - almost a record for me!

As you would think from Cromwell, this is a beautiful model - all hatches with the ability to be open or closed, lovely detail, no bubbles - all-in-all, pretty much a prefect model.

I hope I can do it some justice:

So that's the model completed.  I still have to crew it - so I'll be getting some crew figures from Friendship Models I think - and it will at some stage need to be dirtied up - but that's for another day.

Thanks

Richard