Only two more Memory Monday’s two go before moving on.  This model was the last of the WW1 themed items that I did before drawing a line under the project.  Next week will see an interim post followed the week after by the full completed timeline that I put together.

TIM

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28mm WW1 Vignette – 18 Pounder Cannon and Crew

This week saw the end of my WW1 timeline with the completion of this little Vignette/Diorama.  I say the end but as I enjoyed the period I may well add to it at some point in the future if the right idea comes along and I can find the appropriate figures.  For now though this is it for the clubs June show in Plymouth.

Of all the pieces I have put together this one is probably my least favourite.  There are two reasons for this I think.  Firstly, the subject.  I felt I ought to at least feature an artillery piece and this one from Gripping Beasts caught my eye.  The downside is I wanted to do less conventional models and failed to deliver with this one.  I guess it’s a bit like going to see The Rolling Stones. They may have plenty of new songs to sing but if they don’t play some of their hits from 50 years ago then you’re going to be a little passed off!  Thus we have some artillery.

Secondly, the model isn’t a great piece of work.  It’s fine overall and may look OK but in truth I rushed it.  I think I just ran out of steam with the project.  I have enjoyed it and discovered lots of new things along the way.  I have tried to do other things in between but now it really is time to move on to something else and to use a few other colours. The April challenge will now receive my attention!

Images of the completed model appear  below.  In the next week or so I will try to put together a post of the whole project.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering the guy third from the left in the first picture is holding a shell!

TIM

If I have calculated correctly then I have three more Memory Monday posts to put up before I move on to Dio-Bolical Monday.  Hopefully in that time the remaining bits and bobs will turn up so that I can get started on the two projects I have planned.  Right now the absense of bases is causing me the greatest concern as they are literally the foundations of each build.  Fingers crossed they arrive soon.

In the meanwhile this post is of the iconic Willy’s Jeep and is very rare in my collection as it is a plastic kit and not a metal one! 

TIM 

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WW Rubicon 28mm Willys Jeep – (The April Challenge – Project No: 1)

An early entry for the April challenge under the banner of “build or assemble something”. This was not my planned entry, details of which will follow later in the month, this one was an accident.  Let me explain.

For quite a while now I have wanted to attempt a plastic kit.  I reckon it must have been the best part of 45 years ago when I last did one.  Why?  Because I loved the look of some them all those years ago, as indeed I do to-day, but I simply don’t enjoy making them.  My willingness to have another go was fuelled by my desire to try to encourage my model club who are well into such kits to base them, even simply as is the case with this one.  The passage of time also helped, it couldn’t have been that bad all those years ago could it?  Alas it was and readers of earlier posts will be aware that this little project was in danger of going tits up and being abandoned altogether.  Then the April challenge got me refocused on getting it done.  I figured if I was going to do it then I might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Pictures of the completed piece appear below and the eagle-eyed amongst you might notice that there are no “in progress images”.  There is a reason for this.

As I have mentioned previously I am not a vehicle kit person chiefly because me and glue simply do not see eye to eye.  I was dreading the build rather than looking forward to the challenge that lay ahead.  Nevertheless I was determined to complete the exercise come hell or high water but had no desire to record this momentous step by taking progress photos of deformed plastic covered in blobs of glue.

So how did it go?  Better than I thought but not great.  Were my worst fears justified?  Not the worst ones but the ones just below the worst ones.

The first issue I had was shortly after I opened the box and started to assemble the kit.  It turns out this Rubicon kit can be assembled into one of four configurations.  Being a man I don’t tend to read instructions so this point initially passed me by.  However, I got lucky.  I wanted to build the US version and without realising it this is the one I had started on when I discovered all the additional parts that I couldn’t work out what to do with.  Score – 1.

After eventually reading the instructions, assembly to be fair was pretty straight forward and the fit of parts were good, not that I have much previous experience on which to judge this.  I even managed to think to paint areas before assembly and to add things like mud to the wheel arches before fixing the wheels themselves in place.  Score + 1.

Unfortunately some things hadn’t changed, I’m still heavy-handed with glue.  As light a touch as I might have with a brush the complete opposite is true with glue.  Alas trying to apply super glue with a modelling brush which would be the ideal solution for me is simply a way of ruining a brush.  So, crucially glue everywhere, Score – 10!

I had hoped the figures would be my saving grace and although they were OK the faces left a lot to be desired.  I’ve been lucky of late in that a lot of the miniatures I have been working on have been superbly sculpted and the expressions on the faces have been simply awesome.  As a consequence I have been able to get away with my painting skills.  Unfortunately the faces of these figures were plain, very flat and featureless and although I felt I made the most of them the end result still left a lot to be desired.  Score + 1.

Final assembly of the kit including the figures went together better than I had hoped but for one error.  I’m not sure if the error is with the kit or with my assembly.  Having googled some images of completed kits done by others I think I can be certain the error is mine but quite where I went wrong I’m not sure.  The error in question is with the rear sitting down soldier and the way he is holding his rifle.  He’s holding it far to low down and although I was aware of this at the time I simply couldn’t get it higher and get the figure sitting in the back of the jeep.  Still that’s why I’m The Imperfect Modeller!  Score – 1.

On to something positive, the base work.  Now there is nothing much to the base, it’s all pretty basic and that was the intention, to keep it simple as a demonstration piece for presentation at the club.  However, if there is one thing I have learnt, albeit with room for improvement, it is how when creating dioramas and vignette bases to cover up errors!  With a considerable effort I pretty much managed to conceal excess glue thanks to some weathering, decals, ground work and opting to lay the windscreen flat to the point where the overall model just about looks OK.  Score 10 – not entirely merited but brings the overall score to 0 which feels just about right.

In summary, did I enjoy the experience?  No.  Will I venture into a kit build again in the future?  Only if the wife is present to tell me to read the bloody instructions or if I can learn how to better apply glue!

Conclusion?  Never say never but if I did embark on another kit then I would only do so if I was drunk!

TIM

 

A return to the WW1 timeline project this week.  This was a two part project but both posts appear below.

TIM

28mm WW1 Diorama – Communications Team – Part 1

The weather in England, as pointed out by Just Needs Varnish in his most recent post, remains unsettled.  I beleive the technical term given out on the SouthWest Weather report referred to it as “f’ing awful” but I may have miss heard.  However, for every ying there is a yang and the good news is that the full on winter modelling season has been extended into spring.  Hooray!  As a consequence work has begun and is well underway on this the penultimate model in my WW1 Timeline sequence.

One of the things I wanted to avoid with the various WW1 stuff I have done to date were stereotypical trench scenes and tank dioramas and so far I think I have achieved this.  Not that I have anything against trenches or tanks but there were many other stories to be told I wanted to try to tell those.  Nevertheless trenches are hard to avoid completely and so this diorama does have a trench feel but I hopefully not a dominating one.

The emphasis on this little diorama is communications, a key component in any war but one which rarely gets highlighted.  How many WW2 action films have there been as a ratio to the film “The Imitation Game” for example?  To be fair communication as a subject probably doesn’t make for the best box office figures but you get my drift as to the importance of the subject I’m sure.

I’m not sure if the scene when complete will represent an accurate portrayal but it puts the subject out there and gave me an opportunity to paint a pigeon, surprisingly something I’ve never done before (I have however been “shat” upon by many a pigeon in Trafalgar Square!).

Progress so far consists of figures in various states of painting and ground work almost complete.  Construction of the base enabled me to recycle what I can only describe as various bits of “rubbish” which would otherwise have ended up in a land fill site somewhere so I’m feeling good knowing that modelling can be good for the environment too.

Progress pictures below.

TIM

28mm WW1 Diorama – Communications Team – Part 2

Part 1 of this little diorama received a greater reaction than I anticipated with a couple of excellent comments relating to this rarely covered subject.  This, along with some pretty dreadful weather over the Easter holidays, inspired me to push on and complete the model.

The figures themselves painted up quite nicely and were all from favoured suppliers such as Gripping Beast and North Star. They are as they came with no modifications.  The ground work was completed by adding ground cover and a few more coffee stirrers for the trench effect.

Overall an enjoyable little diorama to put together and one which fits with my self-imposed brief of trying to cover lesser recognised aspects of the Great War for my timeline.  Just one model to go now, time for my own big push!

Pictures below.

Hopefully they provide sufficient detail to view the completed model but the number of figures made it hard for the camera to find a focal point close up and my own photographic skills were insufficient to compensate.

TIM

I calculate Memory Monday has another couple of months to run, a little longer than I thought.  I could shorten it but then again maybe I might run it up to Christmas which would be neat and start over in the New Year.  Much depends on how I get on with replacing it I guess.  In the meanwhile …

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Not my intended post this week but three things happened to change the situation. Firstly, a model arrived which like Just Needs Varnish recently made reference to “I just had to do”. Secondly, the photographic light box I ordered from Amazon arrived. Thirdly, having realised earlier in the week via my Mid Week Musings that my blog was a year old on the 22nd March I wanted to post a finished model which gave me a buzz and not simply report on some work in progress.

I’ll deal with the model first.

I mentioned in a recent post that sometimes I find a figure I like but struggle at how best to base it and sometimes I have an idea for a vignette or diorama but am unable to find suitable figures.  More often than not a solution under either scenario presents itself but occasionally along comes a figure that instantly floats my boat, that I know just how I want to base it and therefore “must have it!”.  This was the case with “Legendary Viking Warlord – Ragnar Lothbrok, King of Sweden & Norway”.

I found the figure when I was doing some browsing on Pintrest. That site and Google images often throw up ideas and I managed to track the figure back to being from Gripping Beasts their SAGA range. I immediately ordered it along with three other figures which will most likely feature as future posts once complete.

Now the truth be known I have no idea if good old Ragnar is a real or mythical character and to be honest it doesn’t make much difference to me either way (that said I’ll probably Google him after I’ve finished this post just out of curiosity).  The fact is I simply like the figure for reasons I cannot quiet put my finger on.  The non action pose lends itself to being a lone figure and also to a still photographic image in my opinion and that’s what drew me to it.  I’m not sure if that makes any sense but it’s the best explanation I can offer for now and it isn’t much of one I know.

Photo’s of the model appear at the end of this narrative and by the time you get there I suspect you’ll wonder what the fuss is about but from my point of view this was one of those rare (all to rare as it happens!) occasions when everything came together nicely.  The figure itself is advertised as 28mm which I guess it is but it rather depends on your point of view.  Personally I tend to think 28mm should be measured from head (top of) to toe but some manufactures measure 28mm from eye level to toe which produces an overall head to toe height nearer to 32mm which is the case with this figure.

The figure as I mentioned is from Gripping Beast and I’m sure I have mentioned in the past that their products are excellent.  The SAGA range was largely unknown to me although I’m sure it’s familiar to the war gamers among you.  For me it represents a small departure from my typical eras of interest and a welcome change to WW1 as much as I have and am enjoying that project.  The base work was relatively straight forward.  The rocks were once again taken from the garden and the tree was another wire, sea-foam and filler construction.

On this occasion I stuck the sea-foam to the wire armature before applying the filler which produced a better result but was harder to paint, particularly as I don’t use an airbrush. Hard to believe I don’t use an airbrush at in this day and age but the way I see it when they drop the bomb and the power goes I’ll still be able to paint using a brush under the warm glow of nuclear radiated light. Which kind of leads me onto the photographic light box.

Not a lot to say but first impressions are that it will certainly improve my photos. Much to learn but I am pleased with the early results. The photos taken below of the completed model were all taken using it so you can judge for yourself.

TIM