Treesong's Modelling and Media

Nazi Zombies

2011-01-22T03:28:00.001-08:00

Seems like there's more and more of these on the market now. There has been a real boom for the shambling hoards in recent years with "The Dead Will Walk" from Cold War Miniatures or the plastic zombies from Wargames Factory. These are all modern day zombies and there are lots of othe figures around to match them like the not-Shaun-of-the-Dead zombie hunters from Hasslefree. There are also some pirate zombies out there and a few other genres.

But the Nazi zombies have been getting a fair share of attention recently...

Yes, the goose-stepping undead are ready to lumber from a range of companies into WW2 pulp games. Nazi zombies have featured in a few films in recent years like Outpost and Dead Snow so the interest is certainly there to go with all the 1946 WW2 alternate universe type stuff.

One of the larger ranges comes from West Wind Miniatures, they work out at good value as the larger packs offer 20 zombies for £20, and you get a wide variety of different characterful bodies and interchangeable heads. I was more than pleased with the packs that I had and they painted up well. There are soon to be released plastic zombies from Studio Miniatures which work out at 30 for £20. But while you get a lot of arms and heads to play with there appear to be only two variants of body which could make a hoard look somewhat repetitive. On reflection I think the West Wind metal figures are more satisfying for your money but we'll see upon release of the plastics.

There are also smaller sets of nazi zombies from manufacturers like Brigade Games, East Riding Miniatures, Reaper Miniatures and Blue Moon Miniatures do a set of 'world leaders' zombies that include Hitler, Goring, Himmler as well as Stalin and Churchill and if 28mm isn't your thing Rebel Miniatures do 15mm nazi zombies.

Overall, there's a lot of choice out there for nazi zombies alone, with all the other ranges as well with reasonable prices there's a lot of possibilities for games swarming with the undead.

Remember - remove the head or destroy the brain!

Where are my men damn it?

2010-11-24T05:10:00.000-08:00

Not all that long ago you'd buy a kit like a plane or a car or a tank and you'd get at least one guy to go in it. Now a tank, you can have it with the hatches shut, but a plane? You can't have the seat empty, it just looks like a museum piece parked on a runway. It looks sad with the empty seat, the little man is a tiny bit of colour in his yellow life jacket and pink face sitting inside an otherwise dull cockpit interior.

The little man is a mere wisp of plastic, but for some reason manufacturers decided that he was not worth including any more. Suddenly it became the norm for all these kits to be released without pilots, not even offering the modeller a choice. If you don't want the pilot then give it away, but not including one in the fist place takes away any choice. So then you have to dig around in a bits box to hope you have some going spare. But here's the issue, you might only have a handful in the roughly correct uniform and size because oddly enough as someone who puts pilots in their aircraft you don't have a load going spare - you don't buy kits just to fish out the pilot and chuck the rest. But if you do throw a kit for some reason, the pilot is the first thing to save, because he might need to be called upon to fly again. It's ridiculous, you can't even buy a box of pilots for aircraft. You can get a load of ground crew and the odd pilot, but who wants to buy whole boxes of ground crew just to get a couple of men, you want a whole box of pilots all sitting down in a variety of uniforms.

If I were reviewing aircraft kits for a magazine I would say "no pilot" under the criticisms every single time, because it's something they should be called on. Almost all kits now with pilots are old kits being reissued, not new toolings. Perhaps it's some sort of snobbery against having a little man in the craft because it makes it look like a toy. Well it's a bloody model aircraft, anyone building one is just a big kid and anyone who claims they don't wave their newly completed kit around a bit in the air making engine and machine gun noises is either a liar or a dullard.

It's just as bad with car kits. All the older Formula 1 models from Tamiya came with an optional driver with full decals for the helmet. But suddenly they decided it was too much effort or they wanted to seem grown up. So out went the man and up went the prices and having a car without a driver is a much more glaring void in the model than a plane with no man. The man in the car brings it to life. A F1 car without a driver has no soul, you only see them when they are on jacks in the garage. I build all my F1 cars with men and put them on a piece of tarmac as through they are mid race.

So jolly good, all the other cars from the 70s and 80s have little men, none of the modern cars have them. Isn't that a backward step? 1/20th drivers are not as easy to find as pilots for an aircraft, you could almost buy another car for the cost of some of the metal/resin ones done by small manufacturers. Admittedly Tamiya released their rally drivers separately but you still need to do some work to convert the helmets and because you have no decals you have to hand paint them. So that's why we bought a heap when they were available. But there again, the majority of their touring cars and rally cars are released without any men and rally cars require two figures. Fortunately as F1 cars only have one man the packets of figures we do have will go some distance.

The lastest F1 car release from Tamyia is the 2009 Ferrari F60 which depending on where you can find it being retailed costs anywhere up to an eye-watering £50. That's absolute insanity for a 1/20th plastic car kit even if it does have some fancy photo-etch. So they can put some photo-etch in but they can't put a man in. Considering the price of plastic kits today that is a disgrace.

Dogs of War (1)

2010-10-06T05:50:00.000-07:00

Last couple of weeks have seen my Dogs of War brought out of the cupboard and painted up. Many of these I bought when first released others when Games Workshop dumped them half price when they dropped the range, the Giants of Albion were picked up for £14. Now I realise that most are over 10 years old which shows how time flies.

Even though they left the shops a limited selection were available online and they later added the character of Marco Colombo which was the first I painted.

Soon after I started digging around for more and realised I could put together a respectable small army. I started with the Long Drong Slayer Pirates. For some reason I had two standard bearers in the box but it's a bit late to complain now so I went ahead.

Next were Pirazzo's Lost Legion. Years ago I started painting these but in bottle green cloth with bronze armour as per the box art. This time I decided that was all too dark and I wanted something lighter and more fitting for the Mediterranean or South Americas, wherever they are to operate. So I went for a cream cloth and silver armour.

Last up for this batch are the Giants of Albion. These were a bot of work to assemble, gaps and mould lines running across skin and worst of all, hair. This needed a bit of imagination when filling/sculpting bit it went well. My favourite was always the one with the rock, but through painting I found the one with the tree to be more characterful and pleasing on the eye.

These set me off to a good start so I'm into bulking it out with a few more items. I have Vespero's Vendetta which currently just needs the bases done and there are some galloper guns too for artillery. But needing more straight forward regiments I just received 14 Braganza's Besiegers through the post from eBay and have been given 24 Alcatani Fellowship by my father so the work isn't finished yet by a long way.

Lead; worth it's weight in gold (almost)

2010-09-23T02:14:00.000-07:00

I've seen several forums pick up on this eBay item that sold recently...

You read that right, nearly £1200 for a single miniature. It's a shame I don't have a couple in the attic. I have to wonder at who bought this. Who has that kind of money to drop on an old figure? Unless they are rich enough that it's of no concern to them, that's a pretty keen Chaos Dwarves collector. I suppose it goes up there with the'chicken dragon', a colossal lead model so called because it's about the size of a chicken which sells for a couple of thousand when they infrequently appear, and the first giant citadel produced which can reach a similar price if boxed.

Becoming 'one with the force'...

2010-08-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

Ascending to a 'higher plane of existence' or becoming a being of infinite power, usually in a beam of light (see picture) is one of my more disliked SF tropes. It always seems rather lame way to send off a character, especially if it has never been signposted all along. It's a way of killing them off while saying "don't be sad, they're not *that* dead". And the might/probably will return to the series at a later date.

So the title of this piece is named after Star Wars where several jedi become one with the force and leave their corporeal bodies behind. Obi-wan and Yoda both pass on by sacrificing their lives making their physical presence disappear, while Qui-gon and Darth Vader both die onscreen and leave their bodies intact, but appear as ghosts later on. Actually we don't see Qui-gon's ghost, we are told of his post-death reappearance offscreen, apparently he's come back from the dead to teach other jedi how to return as a ghost. This was one of the many loose ends discreetly tied up by Lucas in the closing minutes of Revenge of the Sith. Oh did I say discreetly? I meant drawing similar attention a brick with the plot wrapped around it would get if thrown through your front window. It's alongside those other loose ends like Yoda suddenly claiming a liking for Dagobah, and Captain Antilles ording the wiping of C3PO's memories. Not R2D2's though, he doesn't speak english so isn't a security risk.

But I'm heading way off the topic. It's chronic to Star Trek where it happens several times to main cast for a variety of reasons. At the end of Next Gen Wesley Crusher goes off with the Traveller to become a mighty being and explore the universe, and in DS9 Sisko becomes one with the force and joins the prophets. At least Voyager got it out of their system early and had Kes ascend quite early on for no particularly logical reason. Kes's species had been stated to live only 9 years, so this was a convenient escape from messy scenes of the character dying of decrepitude. Stargate had Daniel Jackson ascend for a season or so until the actor wanted to come back, at which point he got returned with his memory wiped just in case he had learnt something useful from his time as a superbeing.

At worst it's totally unexpected or shows no foreshadowing. But there twists on a theme. For instance, in the new Battlestar Galactica it is revealed that the Starbuck that has come back from the dead been guiding them for the final season has already ascended and is not even conscious of it herself. 'Coming back from the dead' is a bit of a dodgy area for most series, it is often flagged as the point in a series where it takes a turn for the worse, especially if the series has been unexpectedly renewed and characters are being resurrected, one example would be Buffy, where she's been to heaven and come back, the final seasons are probably the weakest.

There's also a few villains that are ascended characters, though examples like Omega in Doctor Who and Anubis in Stargate have ascended before the story opens. Jean Grey in the X-Men becomes an evil superbeing, or always had it in her, depending on which continuity/retcon/adaptation you follow. The Time Lords in Doctor Who had the plan of 'winning' the Time War by ascending to a higher dimension and annihilating the physical universe. Some plan.

I sometime wonder how Doctor Who could end, not that I think they would ever make a 'final' Doctor Who story. Either the Doctor would have to sacrifice his life spectacularly, or maybe what with talk of him being 'more than just a timelord' and his colossal importance in the history and shaping of the universe, he would go on to become something special. Oh dear, I'm supposed to hate character's becoming one with the force.

Alas poor Morph, I knew him....well?

2010-07-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

If you think of all the classic X-Men characters you are unlikely to remember poor Morph. In fact many probably don't recall him at all. When the X-Men was brought to TV as a cartoon in the early 90s it gave many familiar characters appearances even if only once. The X-Men cartoon was one of those you could think of as being adult and proper grown up stuff when you were a child, and on several occasions it did deal with serious issues. But in the team of X-Men established in the first story "Night of the Sentinels" alongside Wolverine and Rogue and Professor X is the character Morph. The poor bugger didn't make it ouf of his first story.

Morph is seeming a best friend of Wolverine but other than that has little characterisation or background. We never get to know him as he is unceremoniously killed offscreen half way through the story. If any of the main characters had been killed it would have been a blow, but Morph is a nobody. Being killed offscreen and then having the circumstances related in a flashback a bit later on takes away any remaining impact. The little time you get to know him onscreen doesn't help you bond at all in a manner to reflect the mourning that all the other characters are going through.

Life is cheap in cartoon land. In a later episode Apocalypse attacks the army and blows up a bridge causing a tank to plunge into the river. Fortunately as the tank falls from view we see two soldiers clinging onto the bridge having jumped clear. You think you have the series pegged but a moment later a helicopter is thrown into the Eiffel Tower and we definately don't see a guy leap out of the explosion with a parachute which is always the case in Gi Joe.

Repeatedly in later stories Morph is mentioned, when people are upset or disagree they (usually Wolverine) will shout "Do you remember Morph?" or "Don't you remember what happened to Morph?". The answer is probably "No" or "eh?". Rest in peace Morph, the X-Man no one ever remembers.

Star Trek and the Federation's "Utopian" hell hole

2010-07-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

Having watched a fair chunk of Trek over recent years on Virgin 1 I have to ask if the Federation actually that wonderful. Because they seem to me at times not to far away from the Federation of Blake's 7.

In Blake's 7 the Federation obviously used strong arm tactics and brainwashing to get their way, but like all massive organisations they are a mixed bag of leaders with some being obviously more malevolant than others. They did put their own people on trial for war crimes, like Travis, and Servalan was a loose cannon even by their standards. But lets consider that Blake's 7 as a series, and largely told from the point of view of terrorists, sets out to highlight the evil side of the federation rather than the largely benign parts that most people live out their lives under. Similarly this applies to the federation in Firefly.

Compare then with the Federation of Star Trek that is supposed to be a badge wearing 'utopia'. They have replicators and have done away with money, and everyone can happily join up to to back breaking work for Starfleet for no reward at all other than knowing they've done a job well. But their record on 'human' rights is dubious at best, even though within the context of the programme the Federation/Starfleet way of life is supposed to be rather aspirational. Do you know where people who commit criminal acts against the federation end up? Penal colonies. Julian Bashir's father was locked up in one for 2 years for having his son genetically engineered 30 years beforehand. While against the rules, it was effectively a victimless crime and for what exactly did an old man need to be punished or rehabilitated?

Lets recall that after accepting Data to join Starfleet and serve as an officer, they were quite happy for a scientist to request, with threats of force, to dismantle him just to find out how his brain worked, a proceedure supported by Starfleet officials. Data had to go through a trial simply to get a marginal enough victory to give him control over his own existance so as to choose not to be experimented upon by the Federation's own Dr Mengele. Though he was still not granted equal rights to a human, even though he is otherwise treated as one and allowed to work for them. Strangely, other bizarre aliens like the Horta (a rock) or Q (god-like), who both stretch the definition of 'life' are accepted as such, but Data is good for having his wires pulled out when they see fit. They look for life in new forms in outer space but overlook that going on in their own front yard.

But after that ruling for Data, where you'd hope some sort of precedent was set, we fast forward to Voyager where the hologram Doctor has exactly the same battle and ends up having the same dubious 'trial'. In this case he had a book stolen from him by a publisher who claimed that he wasn't a person and had no authorial rights over his creation and Starfleet seemed to largely agree. The doctor is arguably close enough to being sentient (which has been demonstrated to occur outright in holograms, see Moriarty in ST:TNG). He too gets his partial victory, barely enough to retract the book from the publisher, but he's still not recognised as a lifeform. But here's the best bit - the Mk1 hologram Doctors were an unfriendly bunch so they 'retired' them from being Doctors and packed them all into mines to chisel away at rocks to dig for ore. And I bet that as holograms aren't 'people' they are expected to work inhumane hours without reasonable breaks. So the Federation endorse slave labour when it suits them too, I suppose *that* is why they didn't want the court to decide that holograms could be people.

And lets not spend too long on the prime directive other than to say it's applied whenever certain people see fit. They either stick their oar in when it suits them to spy on people or turn a blind eye to people desperate for help and who are dying in droves. Furthermore it's frequently used as a brickbat every time one officer wants to get one over on the career of another rather than for the greater good of people and civilisations they meet. Every federation officer seems to dream of going to the planet Risa, which has a nice sunny veneer to cover the fact that it is in fact the Federation's brothel planet for uptight officers needing a break. The Maquis are Federation 'Terrorists' that only formed because the Federation encouraged people to start colonies on planets which they then decided to hand over to the Cardassians who have no concept of human rights. When these people decided to fight back and declare themselves nothing to do with the Federation, the Federation effectively help the Cardassians hunt them down. Oh, and then there's Section 31, the organisation that the federation leaders claim doesn't exist but which conveniently does all their dirty work like stealing stuff, assassinating people and even a little genocide.

So what do we think? Utopia or authoritarian hellhole? Where for all their claims of freedom if you don't fit their square shaped hole defining a 'lifeform' and don't want to sign up to the federation way of life, you can expect to find yourself imprisoned or dissected.

Gi Joe the Movie

2010-07-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

I finally saw the new GiJoe film recently, just been reminded about it after reading something related. Just dreadful really. Why can't they make a film that bears some resemblance to the source material instead of rejigging it to fit a Hollywood shaped mould? For instance, they screwed up all the relationships between the characters, if you thought the comics portrayed a trailerpark universe the film has just about everyone being someone's sister or ex-girlfriend. Jeeze.

The few female GiJoe characters do particularly badly in the film. Scarlett hardly shows interest in any man apart from Ripcord who is supposed to be the comic relief, and anyone who knows a shred about GiJoe knows she is Snake Eyes girl forever. But in this they've cut that so she has no romantic interest in anything until one of the top billing stars arrives to turn her head. The Baroness isn't allowed to be a villainess or strong, independent female character, at the end of the story it turns out she's been brainwashed and degenerates into a wimp fit only for being a piece of fluff for Duke. Cover Girl gets killed off with hardly any input into the story.

As for other characters, well Cobra Commander is both the Baroness's brother and an old buddy of Duke's (trailer park universe again) . Great. Oh and he doesn't ever wear his iconic hood but some transparent Darth Vader mask? Argh. Destro is portrayed as some kind of meglomaniac that wants to destroy/rule the world. It's not very clear. But the Destro of the comics has both a personal code on honour and is primarily an arms supplier who frequently takes a neutral position on the GiJoe-Cobra conflicts. And Snake Eyes, they've sanitised and ballsed up his character history something awesome. In the comics he met and served alongside Storm Shadow in Vietnam and was invited to the ninja school after leaving the army wounded. In the film he joins the school after being caught trying to steal food out of their kitchen. Furthermore in the comics Snake Eyes wears a mask and doesn't speak because during an early mission for GiJoe he was horribly burned in a helicopter crash. An accident he could have avoided if he'd jumped out - but he remained to free Scarlett who was trapped because he *loved her*. Obviously they had to dispense with that for the film so he doesn't speak because one of his ninja masters was murdered and now has a 'vow of silence'. Give me strength. (The ninja master was murdered in the comics too but it didn't lead to any silence vows) Why Snake eyes wears a mask in the film then is anyone's guess, but it's probably because it looks 'kewl'.

And why they had to give the GiJoe people power armour instead of allowing them to actually be soldiers instead of superheroes? The film was just one endless string of explosions but that didn't seem to disguise the massive plot hole which begs the question as to what Cobra actually wanted to achieve? They have an underwater city like Atlantis or the Gungan city in Star Wars Phantom Menace, and it's bristling with missiles and they have a seemingly endless private army of people willing to throw their lives away. By the end of the film the tiny submarine the villains limp away in is all Cobra have left. It's utterly baffling, they obviously have a GDP that the United States would be envious of yet the entire premise of this film seems to be that Cobra Commander declares war upon the world and bankrupts the entire organisation and destroys its assets in order to become its commander. Epic Fail. I'll probably give the sequel a miss until it's dirt cheap on DVD.

The Prisoner!

2010-06-05T04:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a few weeks now since the new Prisoner series finished in the UK, I can't say it was good. It fell flat most of the time, there were a few interesting moments but even the worst series has glimpses of something decent, it doesn't make them watchable.

ITV also seemed to show no interest in scheduling it properly either. The first episode aired at 9.00pm, after which we were told that the second episode would be 'back the same time next week at 9.30pm'. Then it seemed to move around between 9-10pm for the next few weeks until the 5th episode aired and we were told that we'd have to wait two weeks for the 6th and final episode. Well actually the last episode was shown the following week afterall but pushed later into the night and shown at 10.30pm or something daft. Were they trying to stop people watching it?

I wouldn't blame them if so. The series didn't seem to know where it was going. The first episode seemed to portray the village as a physical place from which you can escape, there were armed guards trying to prevent No.6 leaving and they even set Rover on him. In later episodes the prisoner is just free to wander about. He didn't seem too pressed to escape and seemed to take a taxi and drive out into the desert in every episode. The things happening in the real world seemed initially intriguing, my suspicion was that as he could remember events occuring in both worlds there was some kind of parallel universes that were bleeding through into each other. In fact this is what I believed Lost season 6 to be but I was equally wrong about that, maybe I'll cover that in future. It turns out that it was all some kind of dream existance supported by No.2's wife. The series ends with No.6 accepting the 'identity' of a number and takes over the village believing he can make it work fairly. His girlfriend sheds a tear knowing he's been tricked. This isn't so much a remake of the original as a perversion of it. The original Prisoner was anti authority, he would know that power corrupts and wouldn't have taken control of the village. He also wasn't a mug and wouldn't have been hoodwinked by No.2 in the same way. At the end of the original series he is offer the chance to peacefully leave or to take over the village. Given these choices he typically refuses to conform and destroys the village. The Prisoner just gets added to the heap of British things the Americans bungle when trying to make themselves.

Anyway I did feel a bit inspired towards completing something I've had in mind for a long time. This figure is supposed to be the somewhat obscure character of Kellman from Revenge of the Cybermen. It's part of Harlequin's old Doctor Who range now available from Black Tree Miniatures.

Dragon Models Heuschrecke 10 "Grasshopper"

2009-11-27T05:04:00.000-08:00

Dragon's Grasshopper is a top quality kit of an unusual subject. Only a handful were built and the peculiar feature was the ability to remove the turret to form a seperate artillery piece.

Although the kit offers the possibility to make it in both formats it does not seem possible to make a model with moving parts and a few parts on the crane mechanism for removing the turret are missing. Also the interior of the vehicle is basic, only what can be seen directly through the top of the turret is included and there is nothing forward of the turret or of the drivers position. All of which would cause a problem if the turret was removed, with the turret on this isn't apparent (just). There are a few mistakes with numbering in the instructions to keep you on your toes and the kit also suggesting using different drive sprockets on the left and right hand sides of the chassis. This is how the Heuschrecke is configured in Aberdeen Proving Grounds but, frankly, it looks peculiar. As it is a prototype it's more likely to be an example of something having been put together from spare parts than an actual design decision. So mine was built with a pair of drive sprockets to look the same.

But all these niggles are fairly minor unless you want to remove the turret from the vehicle. The kit is of top quality. There is almost no flash or ejector pin marks. Detail is of the highest standard with panel lines and rivets given full definition. Detail is to be found everywhere and give the model a very crisp appearance. Everthing goes together well without any gaps and the way the hull and chassis have been cast in one makes it a well engineered kit courtesy of wider use of 'slide mould' technology. All the parts of the crane mechanism fot together in parallel lines making it look very neat; worries of the effect being spoiled by it looking squiffy were unfounded.

All in all a top kit and one which appears to be readily available and freqently discounted for £20.

Deathstrike Missile!

2009-11-27T04:40:00.000-08:00

This was my recent entry for the Dakkadakka "Nitty Gritty" competition. I had it planned for some time with an old Baslisk kit in need of restoration and a 1/48th V2 rocket from Pegasus Hobbies, a snip at only £6. The kit is a straight forward but fairly accurate model of a V2 which goes together well.

The Baslisk was stripped down and the Deathstrike ramp built up with plastic card and completed with various parts from the Imperial vehicle accessory sprue that coems with various Games Workshop tanks. The rocket was done in a plain black and white design based on various images and the vehicle painted in Vallejo 'German Grey'.

F-117 "Stars and Stripes" (Italeri)

2008-10-15T04:43:00.000-07:00

I don't normally makes models of one-off variants with specific pilots/distinctively unique markings, I prefer something more generic in appearance where possible. But in this case I found the stars and stripes quite appealing. Also the Stealth isn't really known for being aesthetically pleasing in appearance and as the bulk of the colour is on the underside I thought it would make an interesting contrast without being intrusive...until you look at the underside that is.

Italeri offer a decent kit, a fairly minimal number of parts which fit together well. The body of the kit comes in two halves, other kits offer the wings seperately which I've read is more awkward to assembly neatly. The cockpit is completely clear, but the Stealth has tinted glass. I tried to create this effect with a mix of gloss varnish and a tiny drop of black painted on the inside, but this didn't quite work as well as intended. As with the Eurofighter, a pilot had to be found elsewhere.

The model was painted with humbrol enamels, matt black for the top and gloss white for the underside. Patches of gloss varnish were painted onto the matt black in preparation for transfers. The transfers were of excellent quality with minimal carrier film, the stars and stipes section comes in a series of red stripes to lay over the white gloss and the blue triangle comes in a single section at the end, apart from a hole for the undercarriage. Further decals are supplied to be fitted to the undercarriage and bomb bay doors, and overall the fit is good. With a priority placed on making the stripes straight and equally spaced there was a little work done trimming the ends of the stripes and cutting to make the transfer run smoothly over the ailerons. Thankfully the bulk of the underside is smooth making the whole job fairly pain free. The miniatures paint 'Bright Red' served as a good match to patch up the odd gap.

The model was then finished with a coat of Humbrol Satin Cote which has rather caught the camera flash in these photos making it appear more glossy than it is. Overall a simple kit with an excellent decal sheet allowing you to quickly achieve a crisp finish.

28mm Ghost

2008-09-18T06:54:00.002-07:00

My entry for the online painting competition run on http://www.dakkadakka.com/. The theme for this competition was something 'old school', so after a rummage around at home I dug this one out. A 1985 'Ghost' by Citadel miniatures. I seemed a good choice as it would be unusual, colourful and something standalone unlike a rank-and-file figure. The painting standard was very high from the entries, particularly those from the forum staff.

Most figure I paint only use half a dozen colours at most with black and white to shade and highlight. This used a lot more and came from either Games Workshop's own brand or from the Miniatures range.

Bovington Tankfest (2008)

2008-09-18T06:54:00.001-07:00

Part of our summer holiday this year was a visit to Bovington for their Tankfest which was mainly centred around British vehicles. Some pleasant suprises, among others they had running were the Matilda I and II, Churchill, Valentine, Crusader and a variety of Shermans, Centurions and Chieftains. The Tiger I also made an appearance, which was a bit special as it was the first time I'd seen it running. I've been visiting the museum since I was a young child, and the Tiger was always in various states of repair with either the turret or chasis away abroad.

Chieftain in urban colours, several variants were out on the day but this was among the more interesting.

The Tiger, odd colour scheme though, but a beauty.

The Churchill, another favourite.

I took many reference photos of the Black Prince, I was hoping a 1/35th model would be available in some form that I could hunt down. It appears one does not exist, though a 1/72 one does. Closer examination shows that a conversion from a Churchill would require so much work you would be better off starting from scratch. So that's one idea shelved for now.

First Entry: Eurofighter Typhoon

2008-09-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

Hello! This is my first blog, and hopefully the first entry of many. In coming weeks I will add some older things, but will mainly be concentrating on new projects. In the past I have built cars, planes, tanks in a variety of scales and cover some miniature painting too, so I expect this blog to be fairly varied in content and I have every intention of keeping it up to date.

Eurofighter Typhoon

I've never actually seen one of these flying but think they look particularly gorgeous. I came across the older Revell kit in a charity shop. The older kit definately isn't as good as the newer retooling, some gaps had to be filled where the wings meet the fuselage and around the air intake on the underside. The transfers with the older kit cover several nationalities but the newer contains specific markings for different RAF squadrons so a spare set of those were used on this model.

As with many modern kits there was no pilot so this was sourced from my dad's spare bits boxes. The bulk of the model was painted with Xtracrylix RAF Camouflage Barley Grey (XA1017) with a little black added for the slightly darker shading on the nose. Pretty much a straight forward build with a nice finish.