Maghariba Guard in progress

As I mentioned in my last post, I ordered a Maghariba Guard for Infinity. It turned up on Friday and I filmed my initial thoughts on the kit for your perusal; the video can be found here.
As I wanted to play with it the same day I leapt into clean-up and construction. There was quite a lot of clean-up to do with regards to flash, pour stubs and seam lines, but with the exception of some of the seam-lines on the inside of the legs, it was easy enough. Construction was also easy, although in my haste to assemble the legs for gaming Friday afternoon I layered on and broke the superglue many times, so eventually it required pining which ended up with the two leg sections not aligning properly. This does however mean some of the legs are raised, meaning interesting basing possibilities with rocks and such- every cloud has a silver lining and all that. Needed mad Milliput to fill in the resulting gap though.

Before priming.

For the colour scheme I was originally thinking of re-doing of the camo I used on the 1/76 Sandstalker, but instead opted for a variation on the scheme I used for the Polar Bear a while back 

So far everything's in Tamiya. I'm annoyed I didn't think to do some post-shading on the khaki before adding the green, but I'm sure it'll work out. Plan is some sponge chipping, a Burnt Umber oil-wash and the pigments trick I used on the Sandstalker for weathering once the main paint-job's done.

3rd ANZAC Battle Group Finished!

So you know those Australians I got last October? I've got them all painted in just over 3 weeks, and I'm really pleased with the way they came out. Even won a game with them against Russians today! Though had we carried on with no time restrictions my opponents undamaged Borodinosaurus battleship would have devoured my crippled fleet... 

(Ignore the one Crocodile submarine facing the wrong way...)

For paints I used a mix of Tamiya (XF-9, Hull Red, for the hulls & XF-52 Flat Earth for the decking) and Citadel (Boltgun Metal for pipes and such, Skull White for the funnels & guns, Chaos Black for the funnels and Fortress Grey for the hulls of the submersibles). As a wash I used a 50/50 (more or less) mix of burnt umber & black oil paints thinned with turpentine. The decals were all from various Maschinen Kreiger kits (specifically the Hagesawa 1/35 Gustav/Melusine kit, the Nitto 1/76 Nutrocker & the 1/20 Wave Polar Bear). I got hold of some Humbrol decal fix for them and it works really nicely, definitely a worthwhile investment. Props to my friend Joe who suggested the adding black to what were originally all white funnels!

And without further ado, lots of photos!

1st Frigate Division

Black Squadron

1st Frigate Division

White Squadron

1st Gunship Division

1st Gunship Division

1st Squadron- HMAS Cavalier (2) & HMAS Wildcat (3)

1st Gunship Division

2nd Squadron- HMAS Quadrant (4) & HMAS Boar (5)

 1st Submarine Division

 1st Submarine Division

Tender Squadron- HMAS Penguin (9) & HMAS Bear (10)

The Pocket Battleships HMAS Muldjewangk (89) & HMAS Digger (70).

The Muldjewangk is an Aboriginee water monster type thing, and 'digger' is slang for an ANZAC soldier.

With Convertible Generators open.

The HMAS Muldjewangk

On a completely unrelated note, last night I got seriously in the zone with Hotline Miami. It's a fantastic 2d, face-down "fuck-'em up". Great soundtrack, rock solid difficulty and completely brutal combat. Thoroughly recommended.

Blood, blood, lord look at all that blood...

After my last uni exam ever(!) I'll be going to the States again, but before then I should have plenty of time to paint the Maghariba Guard I have on the way for Infinity. Hopefully all the Urban War I ordered from Wayland Games should turn up as well. And I have the Rook to finish up when I get back home too. So plenty of stuff for me to be getting on with!

Painting drive, engage!

After essay season ended on Thursday, there's been a flurry of painting activity! The first cause of this was the arrival of many new Infinity models; those sculpts are so cool I can't keep myself away! So now I have an additional Sekban (armed with a Heavy Rocket Launcher no less), an Azra'Il, a Djanbazan sniper and a Fiday to my name as well as the Sekban box set.

The full Sekban team. The new HRL guy (second from the right) is the mini which made me get into Haqqislam.

Been a while since I painted eyes, but I think these turned out OK...

 Seriously cool pose on this guy.

The Fiday. She'll be used as an Odalisque or an Al'Hawwa depending on the list. Needed a female mini and the single Odalisque looks silly, so I got this one instead.

The second cause of the mass painting is the imminence of the UK Student Nationals, which I shall be attending, along with my Britannian fleet. The rules say every mini has to be fully painted, which has forced me to paint tiny flyers after 3 years of procrastination. It also means I've got around to painting some of the stuff from the sub flotilla box I picked up in October.

16 bloody TFTs. Not as annoying to paint as I thought they'd be. Just very boring...

Dominion Support Cruiser

TFTs

Valiant Attack Subs

On all these I've started using the Tamiya acrylics I picked up, and using either an oil wash, or, on the DW stuff and the bodysuit for the Fiday, a gloss enamel wash. After being told great things about Tamiya, then being informed by the internet that they were "AIDS for brush painting", I've found them reasonable to use. They don't need thinning really, but in between each layer you definitely have to allow the proper time for drying, otherwise you can end up wiping all the paint off. The colours are nice- the dark green on the Infinity stuff is the Olive Drab (JGSDF) XF-74 and the blue-grey on the DW stuff is the Medium Blue XF-18.

I'm really liking mixing my own washes. Mixed right, the flow control is great and the glossiness of the enamel really lends itself to DW stuff.

Hopefully this amount of painting shall continue, but with my diss to be worked on I doubt it...

New poison!

So after the my wargaming club exploded with Infinity players I decided to take the plunge myself and go for some Haqqislam. I love their medium & heavy infantry, and with the new Sekban boxset just out I decided to treat myself to that.

The minis are nicely proportioned and the poses are good, although not as dynamic as some of the other individual Infinity models. Although the details seemed to be lacking at first glance, after some primer they showed up a lot better, showing some really quite intricate detail. Although there is a reasonable amount of small flash, the lack of casting lines on these minis is quite astounding. The moment I realised they weren't there snuck up on me, but it's really nice not having to deal with them.

Assembly of the head & back is extremely straight forward, but the arms are a different matter and can be very fiddly to attach.
I went with a straight forward scheme similar to the official one of khaki for cloth & a light green for armour. Shoulder pads in yellow & red and the back rods (something to do with the Sekban fighting in zero-G I reckon) in dark grey break up the scheme. As my old GW wash was all dried up, I experimented with a burnt umber oil paint thinned with artists turpentine as a wash, which works very nicely, providing a much more weathered look to the minis

The end result is only table-top standard, with the shoulder pads in need of touching up and some way of preventing metal minis chipping needed desperately, but they're fun to paint and still a really cool design.

I also went and got some more supplies. The Tamiya shall be my new main paint for my Britannian's in Dystopian Wars, as I've heard good things about Tamiya, and the Enamel thinners is for some old Humbrol Black which I plan on using as a wash for DW minis. I hadn't realised Tamiya acrylics smell, and the combination along with trying out the Enamel thinners and mixing the oil wash for the Sekban resulted in many new smells coming from the paint bench yesterday!

Breaking out the paint brushes

Got to painting the Sand Stalker. I tried to follow roughly a scheme used by the IJA on the Chi-Ha, but it turned out pretty different.

The customary coat of grey primer, after removing the blemishes it showed up.

Vallejo's Camouflage Green was the base colour, with the dark brown being GW Dark Flesh & the yellowy brown being GW Bubonic Brown. I was less than convinced by the Bubonic Brown so I went over it and changed it to GW Karak Stone.

Weathering, my favourite part of painting! I tried out a lot of the techniques from the Object 279 build in January's Military Modelcraft International. First a basic pin-wash using GW Nuln Oil; then paint wear was applied on the browns using a sponge dipped in the base green. Decals from a Revell 1:76 Challenger 1 kit were used, though one fell off from the next step- I really need some decal fixer. Scratches and such sponged & dry-brushed on using a mix of GW Tin Bitz & Dark Flesh, along with a small amount of MiG Light Rust pigment. After that a heavily watered down coat of Vallejo Light Yellow Ochre pigment mixed with MiG Dark Earth pigment was applied, left to dry and then brushed off where appropriate.

There's still a little left to do on this but I'm reasonably pleased with how it's turning out. I was thinking of making a vignette using a 1/76 Nitto SAFS I have left over from the EW Nutrocker and some insulation foam I found down in the basement. Such is the life of the student scale modeller :P

I also thought I'd post some pictures of the painting I got done on the Rook more than a month ago now...

The base colour, a mix of GW Shadow Grey & Camo Green. This was when I was just planning on a red or yellow ID stripe and leaving it at that before weathering, hence the red & yellow paints.

And after changing my mind about the camo scheme- the style of scheme taken from a T-34, but the end result feeling distinctly WW1 or WW2 French. The additional colours were Vallejo Camouflage Green and GW Snakebite Leather. I need some more paints...

Greebling resumes

Spent some time working on the Sand Stalker. Turns out 1/35 jerry can bits are perfect for detailing engines in 1/76, though I also returned to the SU-100 & M48 sprues. The big white bar across the engine space is an unused bit from the AFS Polar Bear.
Gonna start painting this soon I reckon.