Tag: US para

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Boots on the ground

Some progress.
Michaels painting gymnastics has spurred me on to paint some more myself.

I had been a bit lax between my boys needs, us having colds, preparing for Christmas.. those cakes don’t make themselves and I had been feeling a bit off and had terrible shaking hands latley.

Anyways…

The new 0.5mm airbrush needle and nozzel arrived from Ophiir and will use that later on the tanks.
I have made some progress with the static grass applicator… just need to finish it.

Finished painting the brown on wood and boots and helmet straps.
Alot of overpaint at this stage.. but he helmets get a paint of Olive drab and that leaves the brown helmet straps which looks real cool.
There is no leggings on these guys .. so boots are painted right up to the trousers.
The face is the only part painted in flesh tone as they wear yellow nubuck leather gloves. Thats the next stage.
Metal is being painted black so thats why alot of overpaint onthe guns occours.. which is cool because faces are usually real hard to paint when there up close to guns… no problem this way.
anyhow the pics..

Classic thompson MG troops

Staff sgt pose
Staff sgt pose
Carbine
Carbine
Another carbine
Another carbine

These look rough.. but when finished will look great… just wait and see.

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Boots on the ground

Boots on the ground….

A nice name for the operation currently on my painting bench.

152 figures to paint, seven Sherman tanks and 8 x 75mm pack howitzers

To date I have made some nice progress.

Stripping all the figures was a mixed bag.
Most stripped like dream.
Half the guns and some of the figures had a very thick dark green enamel oil based paint and that took not just simple green but the brass wire brush to get that off.

The guns had alot of super glue and blue tack on them and that was covering up good detail but holding it together remarkably well.

I cleaned this all off and I drilled the gun bearing and pinned the barrel to the carriage… which looks great. I used a small amount of green stuff to stick the gun barrel angle covered with a minute amount of super glue. So those are now finished and ready for priming.

Meanwhile the figures were all glued to card and primed with KearKote(TM) black metal primer and they look good.

Some parts were missing and I easily managed to get some replacement parts from Battlefront who are just totally awesome to deal with when you need some parts replaced. I really do love dealing with them for my miniatures.

I then went to base coat the airborne in their distinctive colour. I mixed Tamiya German Grey a little bit into Kahki and got a good colour. This was airbrushed on to the figures and they look great.

After setting I have then started painting colour by applying brown. This is painted onto the boots, guns, shovel handles and the helmet strap. The helmet strap is important as when you paint later in Olive drab (OD) you just brush each side of the strap and it leaves a crisp strap in brown.. which shows up alot when viewed from above.

some pics for you.

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Parade USA!

I finished basing the US airborne platoon tonight .. and whilst sorting out the entire army.. figured it was worth the effort to show what is on offer.. especially for august.

So here is a shot of what is on the parade..

collection1

The key is;
A. Company HQ, 2IC and 2 Bazookas
1. Combat Rifle platoon 9 rifles, 1 HQ, 1 Bazooka.
2. Combat Rifle platoon 9 rifles, 1 HQ, 1 Bazooka
B. Company HQ, 2IC and 2 Bazookas
3. Combat Rifle platoon 9 rifles, 1 HQ, 1 Bazooka.
4. Combat Rifle platoon 9 rifles, 1 HQ, 1 Bazooka.
5. Ammo and pioneer platoon 6 Rifles and 2 Bazookas.
6. Weapons platoon, 4 HMG’s and HQ.
7. Weapons platoon, 4 HMG’s and HQ.
C. Airborne Company command, 1 bazooka
8. Airborne platoon, 9 Rifles, 1 Bazooka
9. Airborne LMG platoon, 8 LMG’s

and of course there are Sherman’s currently in the paint and panel shop

I won’t show any close ups just yet… but the airborne are some of my best ever to date painted figures.. yes really!

I still have mortars to paint but they haven’t arrived because the army bag hasn’t arrived from the states yet.

I also have the weapons platoon for the army… which are still undercoated black.. looking like little … chared men.