Revell TIE Fighter done

This was a fun little build, even though I just had to re-do the back end as the fit was'nt brilliant;

The base is actually a tin of mints with some lead and car filler put inside to add more weight (the mints were removed first by the way).
The black paper gave some weird reflections in the lens but it worked out well as they look like stars :o)

1946 Flak bunker

You may recall I built a '1946/ what-if/ paper panzer' of a radar turret on top of a Trumpeter E-50 chassis a while back. Anyway the base kit was the flak-panzer version and with using the Paper Panzer Productions Heimdall turret this meant the kit item was destined to go in the spares box, however I got thinking as to how I could use this turret for something else.
It was taken back out of the spares box and I had a play around with it on the bench wondering what to do. I thought the gun sight on the top was a bit naff so I blanked off the hole using styrene sheet and added some bolt heads for a start, this then lead to thinking how the guns would be aimed so after drilling holes I stuck some tubes on either side like those seen on the Heimdall turret.
In the kit is a periscope type sight so this was attached to the inside to act as a gun sight, the turret interior was then further detailed with gun breeches, a seat for the gunner, a turret traverse gear and pedals for the gunner with some personal equipment and an MP44 with ammo pouches fixed to the interior walls. While I was at it I ordered some shiny new gun barrels from RB Models too.
I was stuck on what to mount the turret on and one idea was to get an armoured train car but seeing that this little project was in danger of snowballing out of control I decided on a bunker instead so after drawing a few ideas I cut 0.030" styrene sheet into the various parts and glued it all together and here's where it is so far;

Totally insane! I was only going to stick the turret together for a laugh but of course one thing leads to another does'nt it..... at least with these things it gets your imagination working as you can do anything you like within the 'what-if' genre.

Edit; I was thinking about this again and decided it needs a rear entrance (ooh Matron!) so I made one;

A productive couple of days!

I've had some time at the bench the past two days and managed to get a couple of projects moved on a bit more. Starting out with the neglected zombie figure and bike rider I undercoated the figures and bike yesterday;

Today the fuel tank and mudguards on the bike were painted, the Revell kit of Vaders TIE fighter was also painted using a mix of Tamiya XF-53 Neutral Grey and XF-8 Blue (near-as-dammit being my guide)

After a pin wash of Mig Dark Brown yesterday the Miniart Personenwagen received a coat of matt varnish today and while I was in the mood it got a blast of a dusty looking Tamiya colour, building it up around the back end;

Quite a productive couple of days for a change!

Life Miniatures tank commander bust

After cleaning the parts in warm soapy water and priming with Games Workshop Chaos Black I applied the basecoat of Vallejo Cork Brown (70843/133). I actually airbrushed it on as previously trying to spray Vallejo has been problematical however this time after a good tip off I thinned the paint with Vallejos' Airbrush Thinner and it worked very well. The only thing is next time I spray it I will add a couple of drops of acrylic retarder as the tip of the needle became clogged a couple of times;

One thing that HAS become apparent in this shot are the areas of shade and highlight on the face and this will be very useful when painting later on. I just really hope I can do this bust justice.