New drawing set for model making

I purchased these metal drawing tools from E-bay earlier this year. The purchase was made after reading a plea on The Lead Adventure Forum, see this link. I already had a larger metal square that I had purchased from Flying Tiger some time ago, but this set was too much of a bargain to miss out on. For details of where I bought them see this link.

I use the metal squares when scratch building in plastic card. The metal tools can be used to both mark and cut the plastic card without any danger of damaging the edges (unlike the plastic drawing sets). In addition you can use them as guides when gluing plastic card together as the solvent will not effect the metal. However my Flying Tiger square is now a little worse for wear as I tend to abuse it.

 Tony

Roman Mile Fort featured in Miniature Wargames - part two

Miniature Wargames issue 450 (October 2020) has the second part of my tutorial/article showing how I scratch-built and painted a 28mm scale Roman Mile Fort that was in turn inspired by the ancient Airfix kit. Details of part one can be found here. In part two I show how I finished and painted the fort.

Here are a couple of images of the finished model - for more details of MW, see this link.

Stay safe and

Keep Calm and Carry On Modelling

Tony

September - Painting one mini at a time - part eight

Two more 40mm Spartan Games Hoplites - The first is this blue shield figure - can you guess where I got the shield design from?

And this black leather clad soldier with a hand painted shield design and a much more dynamic pose.

Both are mounted onto pre-decimalisation pennies with the bases built up from Milliput. I still have a couple of bare metal minis on my to-do list, but now I have enough painted figures for a game. Stay safe and

Keep Calm and Carry On Modelling

Tony

Revised and updated gaming table

Over the last couple of months I have been able to spend more time in the garden and on my hobby. I've written magazine articles and searched through my Lead Mountain to pick-out miniatures to model and paint. One of my larger projects was to up-date my well-used gaming table. The image above shows the finished table or table topper.....

The table was built many years ago from three panels of white polystyrene packing material (used to protect display fridges during transit) with a strip-wood frame or surround. The gaming surface was first covered with manilla envelopes torn into small sections and glued in place with PVA glue then painted green. Over the years I have added layer after layer of railway scatter material or dyed sawdust. Images of the gaming table have appeared throughout the Blog. 

Here is an image of the bottom of the table. Note the torn newspaper sections which have two uses - firstly; they are repairing damaged sections of the exposed foam and secondly; they help to secure the two wooden battens which were added to strengthen the polystyrene panels and stop 'bowing'.

My first job was to sand the surface and remove any obvious rough areas. Over the years of use and adding more dyed sawdust the main surface was far from flat!

I added three areas of high ground. These were built from more polystyrene. The first (top right and covered in white filler) was a domed hill with the top cut off. Like the main board this was built many years ago but had not been used for ages. The second area (also to the right and just below the domed hill) was the section that I had cut off the top of the domed hill. And thirdly a much larger and flatter hill (bottom left). All three hills were glued in place with No More Nails and further secured with cut-down cocktail sticks pressed into the hills and board surface. I smoothed the transition from flat board to hill with both ready-mixed filler and Modelling Compound from Gaming Geek.

As you can see there were other areas of filler added to the sawdust covered board. these were where the surface had been damaged or I wanted to smooth out any deep ruts.

Once the new surface had been added I painted the whole board in muted browns and pale greens. I used both a large paintbrush and my airbrush for this.

Later I searched through my many part bags of flock and ground foam and mixed them all together to produce a more natural looking, multi-coloured mix and applied this over a patchwork of PVA glue.

The final steps were to 'blend' different areas my Paasche H model airbrush and add some areas of ground foam. Here you can see the finished board with the edges painted satin black - the image was taken in strong sunlight.

The gaming table or table topper gaming board is 1700mm long x 990mm wide. It is extremely light, being built from just strip-wood and plain white expanded polystyrene.

I have yet to game of the new board and don't look forward to re-flocking my terrain pieces (they are all edged in plain dyed sawdust to blend in with the old gaming surface - they will need to be updated and I will do this as and when they are needed or I have time). I hope you like the new gaming surface - I do. But for now - stay safe and

Keep Calm and Carry On Modelling

Tony

September - Painting one mini at a time - part seven

Another 40mm scale miniature for my Typhon project - this time Hercules a conversion using the lower body from a 40mm Spartan Miniature, the body from a HeroClix miniature - Hercules (from Secret Invasion Marvel) and the head from the Spartan Miniature set. I used Green Stuff to 'blend' the various parts and a pre-decimalisation penny for the base.

The club was modelled from some 3mm plastic card and 'pinned' into the hand before being superglued.

After a Tamiya spray coat primer was applied, the flesh areas were built up over a brown wash.

And the detailing done with a Rosemary & Co 401 no. 3 brush.

The figure was both gloss varnished and then matt varnished before I added some static grass to the base.

The final image shows my converted Hercules and The Nemean Lion (another conversion - using a plastic zoo lion and some Milliput).

 Stay safe and

Keep Calm and Carry On Modelling

Tony

September - Painting one mini at a time - part six

These images show the progress on yet another 40mm Spartan Miniatures Hoplite. The mini was mounted onto a pre-decimalisation penny and the groundwork built up with Milliput. The basecoat was a little different to the earlier models as I used different washes to get an overall brown tone.

I painted the armour as white leather rather than metal and kept all the colours in the grey spectrum. While the shield was hand painted in a bright red colour with a black bulls head motif to give a strong contrast.

                                                             
More to come, but as usual, stay safe and

Keep Calm and Carry On Modelling

Tony

Aden District Prison from Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy - issue 110

The latest issue of Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy (issue 110 - October/November 2020) arrived this weekend and I have this piece of terrain featured on pages 68 and 69. The modified MDF kit was modelled as the Aden District Prison from the Aden Emergency or Radfan Uprising (1963 - 1967).

I used a Sarissa Precision MDF kit as the basis, but as you can read in the magazine article, the kit was heavily modified with many scratch built components.

The model features a 'lift-off' roof and upper storey detail and has an added plastic card staircase.

One of the most striking features of the building is the signage. The Arabic script on the two black boards and the main Aden District plaque, see this link for more details. The signs certainly add to the overall effect and help to make this a unique piece of themed terrain.

For more information of the latest issue, see this link.

Tony