This Way In

 

"The Sacred Well of Garlo is an intriguing archaeological site located near the village of Garlo in Pernik District, Bulgaria. Constructed between the 12th and 11th centuries BC, this ancient structure is nestled in a small valley rich with natural springs. The well's design and function bear striking similarities to sacred wells found within the remains of the Nuragic Civilization (1600–730 BC) on the island of Sardinia, Italy."

Also, it is clearly the entrance to an underdark dungeon of immense scope. It's obvious.

Afrika Korps Tiger 1 - WiP

 

Next project: a 15mm Tiger 1 for my Afrika Korps.

I'm 3d printing an Afrika model, with the Feifel air cleaners, from TigerAce1945. It's the one in the middle, with an old Battlefront resin & metal model on the left, and a PSC plastic kit on the right.

I've given it new, more detailed running gear, and added a commander's head and some spare track on the hull front. Looking at it now though, I can see a few other places where it could benefit from some tarting up — it's missing the prominent seam around the turret top, and also the seams between the individual side skirt panels. Maybe if I do any more I'll take care of those details.

 Later...

I've added those details, and I think it looks a lot better.

When I'll get around to reprinting it I don't know, but it's ready for me when I do.

Later later...

Got the initial airbrushing done. Next will be to do a bit of dry-brushing and pick out some surface detail — tools, tyres and so forth — before gloss-varnishing for some decals and oil-wash.

The 2 pounder portee is there to remind me to pull finger and get it finished; it's one of those projects that has been hanging fire for far too long.

Later later later...

 I've finished it off now, and in spite of my hatred of waterslide decals, I'm pretty pleased with the way it's turned out.

Blogger Reply Login Woes

 To reply to a comment on any of my posts, Blogger demands that I log in.

Logging in to Blogger has no effect at all, and I'm just directed to log in again.

The upshot of this is that effectively I can't reply to any comments. If you're expecting a reply, sorry about that. I don't know what I can do about it.

Army Painter Speedpaints

 

At long last I've got my hands on some of these new-fangled SpeedPaint colour glazes from Army Painter.

The figures are a pair of 3d printed 32mm barbarians by Fat Dragon Games; they print in FDM without supports.  I've primed one in a sandy colour (left), and the other in white (right).

The SpeedPaints went on without any issues, and they do a decent job of staining the underlying colour and darkening recesses. If you can sort out the right colours, they would certainly make painting figures quite speedy.

However, actually finding the right colours is going to be largely a matter of trial and error, as the labels on the bottles give only a very general impression of what the paint will end up looking like, and in common with almost all hobby paint ranges, the paint names are of very limited usefulness.

Being glazes, the underlying colour is very important in determining the final outcome. They recommend either white or grey, which is fair enough. The sand colour worked okay with these two colours, though the final contrast levels are a lot lower than the pure white underlay. It would be worth while to do some tests on a variety of primer colours to see how they react.

The paints would be very useful for production-line painting of mooks, but I think they'd be of more limited usefulness when it comes to fine painting. I'd happily use them for pumping out masses of wargaming figures — assuming I can figure out which colours I actually need for historicals.

Fantasy Hero Grimoires

 

Just arrived this morning, a couple of PoD Fantasy Hero books from Hero Games.

These are full of spells and potions and what-not — magical shenanigans for a Fantasy Hero game.

There's nothing in either of them that any half-way competent GM or player couldn't come up with themselves, but it's handy having all the maths already done for you. The spells are designed for their Turakian Age setting, which is their bog-standard high fantasy roleplaying milieu, but there's nothing completely setting-specific there and they could be slotted into pretty much any fantasy campaign.

In truth, I have no particular need for these books, since I haven't run a Fantasy Hero campaign for many years, and to be honest it's not that likely that I will again. But they weren't very expensive, even with the swingeing postage the USPS charges these days, and they add more bulk to my Roleplaying Bookshelf of Doom. 

The Hero Games webstore for the 5th Edition stuff is at https://www.herogames.com/store/category/3-hero-system-5th-edition/

15mm Afrika Korps paint test

Collage of various internet stuff

I'm not great at painting 15mm figures, but I do like them to look at least half-way believable.

So, I occasionally force myself to do some research.

Fortunately, these days the internet provides plenty of material to look at — though it can be of variable reliability, since it is subject to reenactment fads and AI bullshit.

Looks like an Osprey illustration to me

This is the method I've settled on that seems to work for me:

Primed with Green Brown surface primer

Then 914 Green Ochre for the uniform base coat.

Just Buff for the trousers. I'll use Iraqi Sand for the helmets and other painted metal.

After lightly dry-brushing with Bone White for highlights, and washing overall with Agrax Earthshade, another wash on just the jacket with Athonian Camoshade greens it up a bit without making it too bright.

Bison II

 

Apparently this self-propelled gun ended up being called "Bison II" due to a model-maker's error, and like many nicknames given to German WWII vehicles, it was never used by the Germans themselves.

Its proper name is 15cm sIG 33 auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen II (Sf), which is a hell of a mouthful. I'm just going to keep calling it Bison.

The base model I built this up from was by Bergman, though all that's left is (most of) the  hull. I replaced the running gear and gun, rebuilt the engine grills, and cobbled together a couple of crewmen from some figures by someone whose name I've forgotten.

As usual, when I've decided to do some paint chipping, I've gone completely overboard. This looks more like shrapnel damage than normal wear and tear. 

Scale is 1:100 (15mm)