First Flights

With the test ships from the Mad Padre came some aircraft. 

Teeny tiny aircraft.

As I said last post, the .stls for aircraft are free from Ghukek's Miniatures. Carrier aircraft are in flights of three, joined at the wing tips. Bombers, scout planes and larger aircraft are singles.

Wildcats and Zeros dogfight while SBDs attack the Special Vanguard Force

The bombers are light enough that with the aid of some superglue accelerator I made them into flights with a nylon broom bristle glued under the wings.

As I said, these things are tiny! I decided to not mess about with magnets like my Bag the Hun aircraft. They are light enough that a dab of superglue has them stuck on the top of flight stands. The join is robust enough to hold for painting.

Flight of F4F Wildcats

Painting is kept simple. The Americans are getting a medium blue and the Japanese a medium green. Canopies are a light grey blue. I'm not daft enough to try markings. Japanese might be doable, but not US stars!

Dauntless SBDs on left. Huge TBF Avengers in rear. F4F Wildcats on right

A6M Zeros in foreground. Kates in the back.

G4M Bettys make a run at a USN Battleship!

Wildcats and SBDs flyover their carrier

PBY flying boat flies over USN battleships

They aren't super detailed naturally, but they're more aesthetically pleasing than paper counters. The Japanese are getting some Val dive bombers and some float plane fighters to launch from the Ise, and the Americans are getting some Corsairs and B26 bombers. Plus both sides are getting more flights of the models already shown.

Test Ships

Ghukek's Miniatures on Wargaming 3D makes some of his .stl files free to download, so I did, and sent them to the Mad Padre to test out to see how they printed at my desired 1:2400 scale and how they painted.

His aircraft and submarine files are all free, which is nice. The aircraft are originally scaled at 1:900 to go with his 1:1800 ships. You could easily do up forces in 1:900 scale for Bag the Hun for free really. Coastal Command Beaufighters going after German convoys in the North Sea is now quite economical.

The Mad Padre handed me these at Hot Lead and I'm just getting around to putting some paint on them. I fixed them to nails for handling, then runny black followed by some layers of medium and light grey dry brushing. Brown for the Japanese decks and dark grey for the CVE's deck.

Done. Simples.

The hybrid battleship Ise is an odd-duck. It was part of the Aleutians task force during the Battle of Midway. Afterwards, to replace carrier losses, it's two rear gun turrets were replaced by a flight deck and an air group of 24 aircraft. It could recover it's E16A "Paul" sea plane fighters, but it's D4Y "Judy" dive bombers needed to find a conventional carrier or island airstrip to land on. In this configuration it participated in the Battle of Cape Engano in October 1944.

Ise as hybrid battleship

In it's pure gun version it didn't see much action, but I may get the Padre to print me a second to fill the battleship part of my IJN collection. although it does have a couple more turrets than the more active Kongo class.

Ise before conversion

For the Americans I've got a CVE and a battleship, the USS South Dakota. The Mad Padre gave me two prints of each. I cannot tell the difference from one USN battleship to the next, so the two copies of the South Dakota will be just fine.

There is a Victory at Sea scenario featuring 2 battleships on each side, so these models may actually get used. The escort carriers could see the table in a scenario based on the quite remarkable exploits of "Taffy 3" at the Battle of Samar.

I'm pretty pleased with the detail and ease of painting. Now to go buy the .stls for the destroyers and cruisers.

Trying some cheap shell splashes 

Unrushed Russian Uhlans

It's taken me a month to get this unit of 9 figures done, but I am another step towards completing Phase 3 of my Big Plan.

The double stripes on the trousers were surprisingly easy to do

Here, finally, is a group of 8 troopers with a Big Man from the Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment. Like I said, I started these a month ago, but then a war started, depression, anxiety and just getting busier with Hot Lead and cadets sucked all my energy away from painting.

Perry figures via Scott. Nice figures. Easy to paint all the details, even with my crap brushes.

Close up of trumpeter

I know, I know. A cavalry officer on a white horse is a bit of a cliche, but I wanted him to look suitably heroic.

The command pack came with a standard bearer, and while hitting frustration trying to find out info on Russian cavalry flags and the decorative ribbons beneath the finial, I decided it was simpler just to give him a lance instead out of my bits box. Uhlans and hussars apparently didn't carry their flags in the field anyway, which makes sense. Fortunately, the Hussar Command pack has an officer, trumpeter and NCO. No flag pole to worry about. 

The troublesome flag pole

Lance pennons are from GMB Designs. The lance pennons provided by Scott determined which regiment I painted. Although I probably would have picked the Lithuanian uhlans anyway. I have 17 left over in the pack, so if I decide to expand the formation when Perry release the plastic uhlans, I can easily enough.

I used contrast paint for the tunics and trousers. Brown and black ink for horses and leather.

Now my Allied army has a combined (Prusso-Russian) brigade of cavalry for General d'Armee games and the Russians have a group of cavalry for Sharp Practice. 

Quick Scatter Terrain

While basing up my Big Sexy Trees I slapped these together some pieces of rocky scatter terrain, because I'm feeling a bit Dwarvish right now.

I bought a big bag of cedar bark mulch at the garden center two years ago. Last year I sorted out a bunch of it and dried it on a low heat in the oven.

I've been staring at the box of prepped bark for a while now and I wanted to see how it would look on the table.

So some pieces of cedar bark mulch are glued onto CDs. Sand is glued around them.

Paint. Dark brown and tan on the base. Black, dark grey, mid grey and light grey on the rocks.

Flock and done.

Simples.

Big Sexy Trees

 As I said in my last post, my big purchase at Hot Lead was some BIG trees from Model Builder Supply.

Big Sexy Trees.

Four 8" tall and two 6" tall. Sold by the 2-pack for $24.95 and $22.95 respectively.

28mm Elf knight for scale

Model Builder Supply make their own three dimensional armatures, so their trees are much more realistic looking than the Woodland Scenics trees.

I used a piece of plastic display board my daughter rescued for me from the pharmacy where she works to make a couple of triangular bases and glued the trees on with 5 minute epoxy. Then I brushed on primer and after that dried, glued on a layer of sand.

The bases were then painted dark brown and dry brushed tan before gluing on a scattered layer of flocking, leaving numerous patches of bare earth.

I then glued on some clump foliage, large tufts, clumps of flowers, a fallen log made from a tree branch from one of my apple trees and a couple of bushes I purchased a few years ago at another Hot Lead.

Old tree bases looking pretty wild and ratty now

My long suffering 3-4" trees made from sticks and lichen are fine for 15mm and even 28mm big battles, but I've felt that my elves needed some trees worthy of Middle Earth.

These will be fine for the brambly, overgrown outer edges of the forest with the big trees in the heart of it, right?

But I think I'm in love and need some more.