Night on the town Part 1

I made a start on my new diorama project by putting the first two figures together.  The figures are resin and made by legend, they are nicely cast but did need some work.  The soldier was simple but some work was needed on the belt and map case.  He was then undercoated so I could see any flaws and mould lines, after this he was pre-shaded.  The second figure, the young lady is very delicately cast and getting the legs right was alot of work, but i'm happy with her so far.  The bike is an old kit by Italeri and I have used these before, it went together well.  I decided I wanted the storage box open so I thinned the lid and added a back to the box.  It was then undercoated, pre-shaded and then sprayed in Panzer grey by Life colour.

Greek Cavalry all finished

I added the spears to the Greek cavalry and gave them a final touch up.  I then applied a matt varnish with my airbrush and based them on plastic card using tile adhesive to add texture to the base, which was then painted sand colour.  I then dry brushed them in a lighter colour to add some depth to the bases.  The rocks were made of cork tiles cut into irregular shapes.  This is something I hadn't tried before and I am quite pleased with the results.  So with these completed it's now time to start a new project.  This will probably be a 1/35th scale diorama entitled 'night on the town'.

Greeks ready for basing

Having finished the horses the other day the riders were soon painted.  I used stencil colour by Vallejo to do the cloaks and shaded with sky grey.  Just the spears and bases to do.

Onwards with the cavalry

Having undercoated them by airbrush in Valljeo grey the horses were painted with a light brown.  Shading was done in the recess's and then an inkwash was added.

Success in competition

With my ambulance completed I fixed it to the base and added some static grass.  It was completed in plenty of time for the competition. There were around fifteen entries in all and the standard was very high.  A friend of mine made a Bofors gun and truck, which I really liked.  The competition was judged by a guy from Airfix magazine and I was both thrilled and surprised when my model took 1st place.

On with the ambulance

Having weathered the ambulance with oils and powders it was time to do the base.  This was carved out of blue polystyrene using a hot wire cutter, then sculpted with plaster, which I sprinkled chinchilla dust on to.  Again I pre-shaded with my air brush.  I then sprayed the whole base with sand and covered it in a sand coloured powder.  The truck was then added having sprayed it in black and weathered it in oils.

Greek Cavalry

Had a commission for Greek light cavalry figures arrive today there are eight in total.  I have cleaned the figures up and pinned the riders to the horses as they are wargame figures I wanted them to be robust.  Picture shows the figures ready for undercoating.

Airfix competition

As I said earlier this was an out of the box competition so I didn't need to buy anything extra, but you do get a model of a fire engine included with the ambulance.  So I decided to use the cab from this on the base with my ambulance as a burnt out wreck to add some interest to my model.  Having been speaking to an old school buddy of mine and telling him about the competition he said he had recently watched the film 'Ice Cold In Alex' being such a great film I decided to model my ambulance in desert colours like the one in the film.  I set to work and the model went together quickly with no problems apart from losing the steering wheel, which took me a couple of hours to find.  I primed it in grey, airbrushed it in model air sand colour having preshaded it with black, followed this with some white added to the base colour spraying all the surfaces, which would be exposed directly to the sun, I then varnished the model ready for weathering which was done with oils and sand pigments to give it a used feel

Airfix competition

Having been busy moving house, getting married and painting for rs miniatures I finally got to do something for myself.  Having paid a visit to my local IPMS last month I decided to enter the Airfix Series 2 competition.  This was an out of the box competition so I expected the project to be completed quite easily.