July 2012 – Steve’s Hobby Blog

News This week!

Some of our regular readers will have noticed the drop in content recently. This is because our Girl Friday, Lotte, has moved on to greater things, leaving a gap in our resources and the office a slightly quieter but less interesting and attractive place…. So it’s back to me writing the blog for the future, which means that we will be dropping the regular history posts and just producing a weekly post.

Rather than try to cover all of the new releases every week, I’ll just pick out the ones that catch my eye or are part of a new range. There really is so much new stuff coming out it’s as much as I can do to keep it listed. But it is all listed! Check out my ebay shop for the latest releases & restocks.

As for modelling articles, I intend to keep you up to date with whatever is on my work bench but as I am a slow painter, this will be about once a fortnight rather than weekly. As you will be aware, I tend to focus on the Napoleonic era at the moment and I’m trying to build a good sized British contingent as well as some of their allies such as the Prussians and later on I have plans for the Portuguese! However, I occassionally get diverted, particularly when a good new rules set comes out so watch out for Muskets & Tomahawks related stuff and of course, with the impending release of Bolt Action, a World War II army.

Whenever possible, we’ll also publish pictures from guest modellers which hopefully will help to inspire you or give you ideas for your own projects. On that note, here is a selection of pictures of some Perry Miniatures Russians painted by Chris using our Expo brushes.

I’m sure that you will agree that the painting is superb, and I particularly like the basing detail. Nice Work Chris!

Chasseurs Ste. Domingue – Carribean part 3!

Well, having finished my first unit of Caribbean figure, the Chasseurs de Irios, I thought that I would carry on and paint the Chasseurs de Ste Domingue, also based in Haiti and of course from Trent miniatures. The uniforms are very similar, except that the coats were red and the headwear more like a traditional shako with a white plume.

Rather than go through the stage by stage painting, I’ll just give you the colours that I used, as the process is very similar. All the paints are vallejo as usual! The flesh is mahogany brown, 846, red, 957 for the coats, equipment & hats were painted in black, 950, muskets were painted with flat brown 984 for the wood, 801 brass for the gun details & belt clasp & steel 864 for the musket barrel & buttons. the facings were painted in green 968, which is probably a bit brighter than it should be but my preference is for the colours on the facings to show! Finally the trousers were finished with off white, 820.

The other difference was that despite my previous comments, I decided to paint over a white under coat and I used the Vallejo matt white spray, which I find gives a perfect base coat to paint over provided you are patient and build the undercoat and not ‘drench’ than models to start with. The reason I usually use a coloured undercoat, is to save on painting when using quick shade. Of course, I am used to painting Redcoats with grey trousers, so it made sense to undercoat in grey. As these figures have white trousers, I’ve reverted back to a white undercoat.

Once the figures were painted, I gave them a coat of Army painter quick shade, the dark tone or black variety, and when this was dry, I sprayed them with matt varnish to get rid of the gloss effect. The quick shade does tend to ‘dirty down’ the white too much for my taste so I have repainted the plumes with a pure white, 950 and used the off white 820 to highlight the trousers.

I also used the base colours listed above with a bit of Off white to give some extra highlights on the muskets, facings & hats & straps. Once again, the basing will follow exactly the same procedure as the previous unit. So here’s a picture of the finished figures just before the final touches on the basing.

So that’s two units of twelve ready for the gaming table. The next unit on the paint station is the 60th rifles!

The products used are available in my shop and are as follows:

Trent Miniatures Chasseurs Ste Domingue Car06

Renedra 20 x 20mm bases

Vallejo Paints & white under coat

Army Painter Dark Tone Quick Shade & Matt Spray

Basing Sand

New in this week. Airfix, Zvezda & Italeri New releases!

We’ve just recieved a whole batch of new releases from Airfix, Zvezda and Italeri. First up is the new King Tiger from Airfix. The encouraging news is that Airfix are now back on track and growing the range of tanks and military vehicles available, with new releases appearing at a steady rate now. I dont remember Airfix ever having a King Tiger in their range before, so this looks like a new model to me, rather than a reissue.

Also added to our range this week is the Revell 1/35th scale Marder. Although this is not a new release, we are now beginning to add the full range of Revell 1/35th scale kits to our range, so keep checking in to see this range as it grows. If there is a particular model that you are looking for, please contact us and we will always do our best to source it quickly.

New from Italeri are a Ruined church door in 1/35th scale, and in 1/72nd scale, a set of train tracks. Both of the items are ideal for diorama bases or even for scenery for your wargames table. The latest vehicle from Italeri is the Sturmmorser Tiger in 1/35th and in 1/72, we have the Sherman M4A3 76mm version from WWII and for more recent conflicts, the M163 Vulcan. The former is a quick build kit that includes two models – ideal for wargamers. The M163 Vulcan is the fearsome electric gatling gun mounted on a M113 APC. It was used in the 1991 Gulf War by both US and Saudi units.

Just in from Zvezda is their new Historical Wargame set, Samurai Battles. The box weighs in at 2600 grams and is packed full of goodies! There are two versions of the game in one box. You can either play a card driven rules set called Command & Colours written by Richard Borg or you can play the Art of Tactic version, the Zvezda in house game designed by Konstantin Krivenko. Either way, you get to command an army of beatifully sculpted Samurai figures, with 122 included in the box. To go with the set, Zvezda have been releasing the small box sets of figures and we’ve just received the two latest, the Samurai-Naginata and the Ashigaru with Arquebus. Whether you are a collector or a wargamer in 1/72 or 2omm figures, these are super little sets, sculpted to a very high standard and in great detail.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement, the next release from Victrix has arrived , the Spartan Hoplite boxed set!

To see all of these new releases and more, click in to either my ebay shop or independant online shop. As ever, at the time of writing all of these goodies are in stock and ready to ship!

Caribbean modelling project – Part 2, Basing

Having finished painting the figures it was time to get on with the basing. This part of the project can be as important as the actual painting, the mantra being concentrate on faces, bases & flags for the best results! The main purpose is that as well as finishing the individual figures, you can give the whole unit a cohesive look by ensuring that they are consistently based. As I have previously mentioned, I wanted these troops to look as though they were fighting in the bush, so I will add a bit more vegetation than my usual basing.

The first job is to paint the sand on the bases. I used the same colour as my gaming table, which is actually an emulsion from B&Q called delhi bazaar. It might seem a bit unusual, but the advantage is that buying a tin of emulsion means that you have plenty of paint at a very good price! Ideal for basing & terrain work. Once the base coat had dried, I lightened it with Vallejo off white and dry brushed the bases to bring out the texture. Vallejo and emulsion mix suprisingly well! I then gave the bases another dry brush with an even lighter mix to get the effect below.

Once the paint was dry, it was time to add the vegetation! I used some plastic plants that I had in my spares box & cut them down to fit onto the bases. To ensure that they stayed fixed, I drilled the bases & used Expo super glue. I also used Army painter jungle grass tufts and for a bit of colour, the flowered fields tufts.

At this point, I felt that I had finished, but looking at the picture, I decide that the bases just need something else, so I added a few dabs of Flowered Field Static Grass and then finished off by edging the bases with Vallejo Chocholate Brown 872.

So that’s finished my first unit – next up, the Chasseurs Saint Domique!

The items used in this article:

Trent Miniatures Chasseurs de Irios

The dehli Bazaar emulsion is available from B&Q stores in half litre tins. If you would like some of the plastic plants, I have plenty and will be happy to include a few FOC when you order anything from the Trent Carribean range, just put a note with your order.

New in this week!

Once again, we’ve been rather inundated with new stock and restocks so without further ado, here are the highlights.

New from Battlefront is the Rural Roads expansion set, as well as a train station to go with the tracks set that is available. All the terrain is fully painted and ready to use, so there’s no delay in getting your scenery onto the table!

We continue to extend our range of Vallejo products and amongst the most recently added, we now sell Airbrush Thinner in large bottles. Keep checking in for more additions to this range. We think that it is one of the best for paints and pigments.

Next up, we have four new packs from the North Star Africa range representing the tribes from the Congo in Africa, the dreaded Cannibals!

Also available is the latest issue (297 July) of Wargames Illustrated, part of our growing range of magazines and rule books. We are regular stockists of this best selling magazine and think that it is the best way to stay up to date with the latest products as well as finding plenty of reference and inspiration in the articles!

Finally, for this week, just a look at the latest from Blitzkrieg models to reach us. There are three new Sherman Variants in 1/48th scale as well as a Tiger with a Zimmeritt finish.

Remember, we are adding products every day to our Ebay shop and the Arcane Scenery Shop, so to see what’s new just click on the links! We currently have 3654 live lines available and we only list what’s available to post right now to ensure you get your items as quickly as possible!

Monthly Archives: July 2012