Life Miniatures WW2 German King Tiger Commander

Last year I bought my first ever 1/10 scale bust as seeing the finished model by Sang-Eon Lee inspired me a hell of a lot, however as well as inspiring me it also terrified me as I really felt I could'nt do the model justice. The model sat in the stash until yesterday as while sorting out a few bits and pieces I got it down for another look, had a fondle of the kit pieces then closed the box again.

Today I opened the box again, this time taking a deep breath and began cutting off the mould gates and attached the headphone and throat mic cables.  After a couple of hours I had this;

No going back now! This will NOT be a quick project however I've been encouraged by my attempt at painting the 200mm head the other day so I feel more prepared to tackle this one plus if I mess it up I can always strip it and start again.
The head, binoculars and headphones are separate to aid painting. Wish me luck people! :o)

RMG 1/35 Leopard tow cables

Another day, another visit by the postie and this time I received these rather splendid 1/35 tow cables for Leopard 1 and 2 tanks from RMG in Portugal.

The towing eyes are cleanly moulded in a light coloured resin and already have holes in them to accept the end of the cable. The cables are very malleable and will stay in shape when you fit them to your Leopard, the colour of the cables means they will just need a rub with graphite to accentuate the detail and you are good to go.
I'm quite looking forward to seeing them on a Leopard now so I suppose I should build another soon-ish!
For more info take a look here;


http://rmgresinmodels.com/

Figure painting

Over the years I've dabbled with figure painting to various degrees of being fair to total shit and the bug has bitten me once again. It's been brewing for a while after seeing the work of Man Jin Kim, Sang Eon Lee etc and I even bought a Life Miniatures bust of a German tank commander last year after seeing the picture on the box but chickened out as I felt I could never do it justice;

 So this week I got a few goodies through the post (again) as I need all the help I can get;

I've been looking at getting a wet palette to help stop paints drying out and I could have gone for a branded product but instead went the cheapskate route. I cut the lid off a plastic food box (it did contain some nice cake) and stole a dish cloth and some greaseproof baking paper from the other half and voila! One wet palette!!

For practice purposes I'll be using a 200mm head that I bought from Mitches Military Models as they were selling two for £5 at a model show a year or so ago. I did get some Scale 75 paints for the flesh areas but this time around I'll be using Vallejo;

The head is attached to a holder that was obtained via a Kickstarter project which I find it VERY useful and can be found here;
http://rathcore.com/miniature-holder/

I used the grip holder for a figure I painted last week for the Personenwagen;

You can see what I mean about getting all the help I need :o)

Edit; I spent a very pleasant couple of hours at the bench and come up with this;

I'm quite pleased with that seeing I have'nt painted in ages

Miniart Personenwagen Typ 170V

The model has been painted and just needs the decals applying before the weathering phase and I've used Mr Hobby paint for this as I did'nt want any of the 'graining' and roughness that I've experienced with Tamiya acrylics of late.
After undercoating with Games Workshop Chaos Black I sprayed the green first a couple of days ago using H303 FS34102. Most Mr Hobby colours are semi gloss but this one is'nt so I added a few drops of Tamiya X-22 Clear and straightaway I was getting a small amount of 'frosting' in a couple of places so I have'nt a clue what Tamiya have done to their paints but Mr Hobby will be the colour of choice in future. In case you think I'm making it up I sprayed some older Tamiya paint that I have in the stash and did'nt have ANY issues with it, also it's noticeable how different the older paint smells to newer stuff.
The red brown was a mix of H406 Chocolate Brown, H72 Dark Earth and X-22 and this was sprayed using my Harder and Steenbeck Infinity that I have'nt used for ages, only because I'm waiting on a replacement seal for my Badger 100. The next colour was the sand so I used H79 Dark Yellow and it all went a bit wrong at this point as the paint went everywhere. For fine lines I really should have used an enamel based paint as I have had more control with overspray in the past for some reason. Anyway after attempting to spray the sand colour I went back over the red-brown and green areas as I kept the paint mixes in empty jars and this is the result;

I'm quite pleased with that!

Airfix C-47. Project scrapped!

Fuck it! Off to landfill it goes;

Airfix C-47 rework

The model has been filled where needed, sanded down, cleaned up and has just been sprayed with primer. Unfortunately while shaking the can of Games Workshop white I managed to break the nozzle off completely which rendered the can unusable so I've had to use Halfords white primer instead.
I've always had reservations about using this stuff over surfaces that have been previously painted but I decided to give it a go and as I suspected it's started to affect the paint underneath;

It's highly likely that this model will be heading for landfill as it's becoming obvious that no matter what I do it will be a waste of time and materials. Shame really as there was a lot of work put into the model but there ya go...you can't win 'em all.
Project pending.....

Miniart 1/35 Personenwagen Typ 170V

The model is getting near the stage where I need to throw some paint on it so it will be left in three sub-assemblies. I only have some minor parts to stick on then it will be given a wash down in warm soapy water prior to painting;

The bonnet (or hood for my American readers) will be left open on one side and as you can see from the middle picture I've glued the right side down. The radiator grill has been glued between the fenders as the fit of parts is that good I can get away with doing this. Doing it this way allows me to spray the inside of the grill before fitting the radiator too.
Some mould pin marks are present on the inside surfaces of the main body and bonnet parts but luckly they are raised and simple to sand flush without filling. Whilst on the subject of the bonnet there is a mistake on page 10 of the instructions regarding having it open or closed in that option A depicts the closed position and option B the open position, also while on page 10 there are two options for the drivers side mirror but from what I can see only the one on the right was fitted so I had to fill in the hole on the left front fender.
The instrument panel dials are the only let down in the kit as there are no decals, just raised detail that needs painting. Fortunately Archer do a set of rub-down decals (AR35372) which will look far superior;
http://www.archertransfers.com/AR35372.html

I think the glazing will be the make or break feature of this kit as the front and rear screens will be fun to fit although I will keep the faith with the fit of parts being so good at the moment.

Edit; Well after an hour or so more at the bench and sticking some more bits on the construction phase is complete and I can now wash it down and start painting it.
Before I glued the headlights on I made black-out covers for them using Tamiya masking tape as these would have been fitted to the real vehicle, also note the very finely etched Mercedes emblem on the radiator grill;

I have to say this has been a very enjoyable build, maybe because it's something a bit different I don't know but I do like this kit.