MYCENEAN WARRIOR No.1

Dear Readers,

A week ago i paid a visite to Andreas Panagopoulos (a.k.a. Kaiser Bill) and had long - splendid talk about miniatures painting  and wargaming surounded by his beautiful collection of miniatures and uniforms.
Andreas was kind enough to give me some static grass turfs he makes for some local shops to test them on my bases.
Although i was thinking of using them on my late war Germans on the way home i desided that they were better suited for a "mediteranean" themed base. Luckily two of the figures i had taken with me for Adreas to see where unfinished Mycenaen Warriors from Foundry so what a better excuse to have them finished.

And here is the first one:











As for this figure:

The sword blade was replaced by hand made metal one made from some left over realy thick photoeched frames ( from the construction of a ship) since i found that the original one was too fragile.
The shield was also hand made from plasticard ( since i had only the figure with me) .
For the N.M.M. Bronze i was inspired by the illustrations of the Late Agnus McBride and Jose Daniel Cabrera Pena.
The colors i used are:
822 German black brown
921 English uniform
814 Green ochre
858 Ice yellow
Black and White
All Vallejo Model Color

Finally the Turfs

I had never used turfs in the past so i dont have any experience with other manufacturers but i have to say that the turfs Andreas makes are perfect, not only for display bases but and espesialy for wargaming ones. These turfs are extremely tough and i expect them to withstand any gaming - transportation hardness.

Thats all for now

Cheers

George

Tiger I (Part 2)

Done a little more research on the "last Tiger in Berlin" and found out that this particular vehicle was build around March or April 1943.
The second picture in my previous post  shows what i believe to be TWO holder  for the spear track links on the loaders turret side. Plasing it in late April acording to Jentz and Doyle:
http://www.missing-lynx.com/panzer_facts/pftiger.htm
This ment that i had to do more work in order to have a late April build Tiger, especialy on the engine deck.

Started with the rear ventilation screens, from early April 43 these changed from two differt (cast as mirror-images) to two of the same ( left side screen).
Another change was the new triangular plate (on the middle plate of the engine compartment) instead of the screwed one.





As i was checking for the correct angles for the mountings of the Fiefel filters i managed to break the dumn thing so desided to improve them too. Now i have to fill the gups with some putty.

Finally i finiched the exhausts by plasing the uper covers and made the base for the track tool box from aluminum foil.



Next time i will have finished the hull modifications and move to the turet (hopefully) but in between i will try to finish painting two figures of another era that i have unfinished for so long.

Cheers
George

Tiger I

The best part past month i was away from home for work. Although i had take with me my sculpting equipment in order to finish the mg gunner i was in the mood for sculpting.
When i go away for work i live in my parents house were most of my old stuff are so looked for something else to do.
I could do some modeling and the choices were a 1/48 Panther ausf G by Tamiya and a 1/56 Tiger I diecast by Hobby Masters bought a few years back when i couldn't decide what scale to use with my figures. Back then the 1/48 scale seemed a better choice with better quality and greater availability over the 1/56 but now with the intoduction of so many models in resin and plastic espesially the choice is deferent, so i went with the Tiger.

Now the problem was that my force is focused arround 44 - 45 while the H.M. model is that of an early vehicle with the drum cupola but while searching i found out that Panzerabteilung Muncheberg in Berlin 1945 had some Tiger I and that at least one of them was of an early type.







Then i looked for an apropriate camo scheme, searched again and came across this beautiful beast:

http://www.missing-lynx.com/gallery/german/tiger1_jungdonghyun.html

And while i was looking for a camo ref. to just paint the model i decided to strip the beast naked and do some modelling work.

I broke the model upart and removed the track fenders and the track cabels from the sides.









And started working on the rear armor so now it looks like this



The best part of modeling in 1/56 is that there no after market assecories sets yet so it feels like the pioneer modeling days of the 70s, 80s, and early 90s when modelers had to do most of the work by themselves and since you are modeling a wargame piece you dont have to be too focused in scale just represent correctly and most importantly firmly the details.

Cheers
George

MG Gunner (part1)

As i've already mentioned the next figure i'll work is an MG gunner in an advancing pose.
It took me a while to find the correct placement of the upper torso and hands and involved lots of cutting, twisting and shaving.











The pose was losely based on this picture.



Now it'time for some putty work.

Cheers
George

OSTPREUSSEN 194X (Part Three)

The third German i wanted to be an officer so i searched the net for inspiration and i found these two.

A Tom Meyer sculpt for Fox Miniatures (unfortunately never published).



And a simple but very efective conversion of a Britannia miniature made by Rob (sorry i don' know his last name) aka panzerfaust200 an esteemed member of  "the guild" forum (www.guildwargamers.com)



So after some playing around with hands i came up with this pose:



From the beginning i had desided that he would be most experienced of the lot as so he would wear a Palmenmuster camo smoke and an early style peaked cap:











I've kept the field gear minimal in order not to interfere with the painting of the complex camo pattern.

Here he is painted:














This post brings my blog up to date with what i have done so far.
The next figure, an MG gunner, is under the butchers knife at the moment so stay tuned...

Cheers
George

OSTPREUSSEN 194X (PART TWO)

Ostpreussen 194X is the name of my new project, it will cover my adventures at the eastern front.
And by adventures i don't mean conersions of figures only, they will also include scratchbuilding of houses, trees
frankly everything that a good gaming table needs.

The second German is posed as firing his STG44. I have tried to depict him as wearing a zeltbahn over his greatcoat a common use in 44 or 45.

The figure started like this:



And after some putty work became this:













Now the figure looks like this, waiting to be based.














Next post a German Officer.

Cheers
George

Back Again

It has been far too long since my last post life prevented me from having something finished to  share with you.

So firstly i would like to thank all of you who have visited my blog over the years of abandonment.

My new adventure in the world of miniatures started just before christmas
with my visit to our local club (after i don't remember how much time)
There on a table of Bolt Action i was introduced to Warlords plastic figures.
Immediately i realized their potentials for conversions. After a little search at local stores i was able to purchase one box of panzergrenadiers and ... found my mojo back.

The first German:

A simple conversion in order to change the way zeltbahn was worn and adding some minor details.












And painted:












That's it  for now.
Two more Germans in the next post
Best regards
George