Two great charity shop finds

Sue and I recently visited the Daisychain Benevolent Fund bookshop, St. Johns, Worcester and I came away with these two second-hand book bargains, both of which I had previously looked at while at model shows or browsing ebay.

At just £5.00 each they were a real bargain and both will be added to my ever-increasing collection of model-making or painting books.

Details of the Daisychain Benevolent Fund Book Store can be found here.

Tony

Flintloque Limited Edition - LE006 Winter in Catalucia

Following on from the Flintloque Undead posts last month I based and painted this limited edition blister set LE006 Winter in Catalucia set that I had in my stash. In fact I found that I had two sets, one still in its limited edition and numbered blister pack and one in a zip-lock pouch.

The three figures and one base of equipment were all based on 2p coins with the groundwork built up from Milliput and decorated with fine sand. Painting was done with various acrylic paints before the figures were varnished with first a gloss varnish and then Galleria matt varnish. I then applied some static grass tufts to decorate the bases.

For more details see this link.

Tony

An Industrial Narrow Gauge Adventure - Adding some wildlife

Regular followers of this Blog will know that I have been working on an industrial narrow gauge railway layout built to 1:27.7 scale or 11mm = 1 foot. The choice of such an unusual scale has meant that much if not all items needed for the layout have had to be heavily modified and/or converted from existing models, completely 'scratch built' or sculpted by me.

In these latest posts I will update the Blog with 'work-in-progress' images and text showing how the initial project is developing. For more information look out for the Narrow Gauge Labels to the right.

"A railway layout is never truly finished!"

Quite early on in the building of this diorama, my wife suggested that adding some wildlife would be a good idea. We had already seen a number of layouts with dogs and cats included, in fact my earlier Ogam & Stone narrow gauge layout features some 1:43.5 or O gauge animals.

I had already added a plastic crow to one of the walls and was on the look out for some suitable cat or dog figures. In the end an ebay search and auction produced these two Britains 1:32nd scale animals, a dog and a rabbit - both in a very bad state of repair (see below).

The rabbits ear was built up with superglue over a small section of cocktail stick, while the dogs legs were replaced with more cocktail sticks and glue.

Painting followed the same techniques as earlier posts, a dark base colour with lighter highlights and some washes.

In this final image, you can see both the rabbit (glued in place and hiding in the undergrowth to the right) and the dog (still loose as I have yet to decide on where to place him and the workman).

Tony

Reddit Terrain Building

This weekend, my son suggested I check out Reddit and in particular the Reddit Terrain Building group. So I did and thought it was worth passing on.

The group has over 43,000 members and regular updates. I have joined, but am yet to post any of my terrain models.

For details see this link.

Tony

Kennel Lane, Broadway - The painting

At long last, I have started the painting.....

The honey-yellow was mixed from a variety of different acrylic paints and applied in thin washes. As you can see I have picked out individual stones in either lighter or darker colours and will be drybrushing over the top later.

I have no use for this particular model (as I have no 1:43.5 scale layout) and will be selling off this model once it is complete. If you are interested in purchasing it please contact me via the Blog.

Tony

Wargames Terrain & Buildings - North Africa and The Middle East an update

The final proof has now been done and I have seen estimated production/publication dates for mid 2020. I will keep the Blog updated as and when I have more information.

Wargames Terrain & Buildings - North Africa and The Middle East
Written by Tony Harwood
Published by Pen & Sword
160 pages
Over 350 full colour images
ISBN - 9 781 526716439

Thank you

Tony

An Industrial Narrow Gauge Adventure - Kerr Stuart Geared Steam Locomotive

Regular followers of this Blog will know that I have been working on an industrial narrow gauge railway layout built to 1:27.7 scale or 11mm = 1 foot. The choice of such an unusual scale has meant that much if not all items needed for the layout have had to be heavily modified and/or converted from existing models, completely 'scratch built' or sculpted by me.

In these latest posts I will update the Blog with 'work-in-progress' images and text showing how the initial project is developing. For more information look out for the Narrow Gauge Labels to the right.

Narrow Lines (the magazine of the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association issue 239 - October 2019) features this scratch-built model of the Kerr Stuart experimental geared steam locomotive No. 4412 as part of the 40th Anniversary Exhibition Modelling Competition feature (see page 20).

The model is constructed to the scale of 11mm = 1 foot or 1:27.7 scale running on 16.5mm gauge track to represent an 18 inch gauge industrial locomotive/layout. It was built by me from plastic card on a highly modified Hornby 'Smokey Joe' chassis with an added metal fly wheel. The main painting was done with my DeVilbiss airbrush using Vallejo acrylic paints after which the Kerr Stuart lettering was applied with white Letraset rub-down letters and weathered with acrylic paints, weathering powders and artists watercolour pencils. The plans were re-drawn by me from an article in Narrow Lines issue 56.

I have also applied etched-brass names plates and included a modified driver figure.

I had intended to offer the construction and painting steps as a magazine feature, but as none of the magazines I approached were interested and it has now been featured in Narrow Lines, I have included some detailed images of the finished model here.

Hopefully I can include more images showing how it was built and painted at a later date.

Tony