I also tried my light box for the first time so the pictures has improved somewhat, but I need to play around with the ISO setting of my camera or add more light to get rid of the graininess.

For further progress I need to await some reinforcements from the Plastic Soldier Company, but then they will have to compete with my cravings for a German StuG battery, but I think there will be StuGs enough for everyone…

I’ll try to throw in a quick review when they arrive.

Here are some pictures, but of course they suck, I actually have a new lighting setup but I haven’t had the time or space to test it out…

Some details, a Battlefront StuG IIIG “finnified“by me and painted with Lifecolor Airbrush paints, with some GW Badab Black added on top, and decals by Doms Decals. I also tried to add some weathering using Tamiya powders with limited success.

I’ll base them on frosty early winter urban bases.

I’m using a mix of Command Decision, Peter Pig and Battlefront miniatures which mix quite well in these ranges.

Some german riflemen in greatcoats, primed grey.

Watch this space for maybe some more,  if I don’t get carried away again, and start another project…

Enjoy this sort of step by step instruction (excuse the somewhat blurry pictures though.):

Shape the EPS sheets roughly, don't worry about the rough surface.

The material is 20mm sheets of extruded polystyrene foam roughly cut into shape and glued together.

I’m using an Japanese razor pull saw for this, but any saw or rough file would probably work since the surface finish doesn’t matter.

As you may notice this makes quite  an mess, especially since the polystyrene gets static and sticks to everything…

Fine tune the shape of the hill after the glue has dried.

I try to avoid the hills looking to step-like, although this is probably better in an pure game aspect.

Hit the hills gently with a heat gun. This smooths out the rough surface and "hardens" it. A well ventilated work space is probably a good idea.

This is my brilliant idea on how to even out the surface, although everybody else has probably discovered this a long tine ago.

The areas between the layers needs a bit of smoothing out with some filler because of the heat gun melting away the thinner areas.

Some filler is needed between the layers though.

Right now I am at this stage, I've covered the surface with my spackle/water/paint mix and sprinkled fine sand over it.

The hills in their current shape, about two evenings worth of work.

Can be found in the book series from Muller History Facts that I just couldn’t resist buying, and I sure don’t regret my temptation, they are filled with useful information on the history and development of the StuGs including a gigantic double-sided poster with a spreadsheet detailing the various characteristics and changes made in the production run of the StuG III making it much easier identifying vehicles from photographs.

The books are of course brim filled with illustrations and photographs printed in high quality.

The two-part book is aptly named Sturmgeschütz III and is companioned by a  book series named “Vorwärts Immer, rückwärts nimmer!” which details the history of the different Sturmartillerie units, part one deals with the development of the first units and their fighting in France, the Balkans and the initial part of Operation Barbarossa.

Both series are highly recommended for stugophiles, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next part of the Sturmartillerie history.

This shows the base after the paint/spacle mixture has dried, I'm also dryfitting the PaK 38/97. I actually did this as the spackle was half dried so I got some depressions from the wheels on the base.

As you may notice the bases of the figures shows slightly, this is because I added a bit to much water to the mixture so it actually shrunk a bit…

I paint the base brown, this isn't strictly neccesary but I like the base to have an even color before I proceed.

As with all my base work I use cheap craft paints for this.

I lightly drybrush the base with a lighter brown paint, the effect is not that noticeable in this washed out photo.

Notice the quite fine and varied texture, this of course depends on the type of  sand used.

Next I paint the bigger stones, I start of with a medium grey (some cheap crafts paint again) a quick black or brown wash, and the a light "wet" drybrush with some light grey.

The stone are natural stones, you can either glue them to the base before adding the spackle or press them into the mixture after it is applied.

Then it's time to superglue the gun, add some tufts and bushes, and the turf and static grass as desired.

After this step I add my “pine forest floor” mixture as described in this post.

My last step basically hides all the work I’ve done before, which I’m the first to admit is rather stupid, but, as I’m doing forest dwelling Finns, it is needed to get the right feel of the army.

So for desert based armies my basing method should work very well, but since it is so quick and easy I’m using it even if most of it is hidden under turf, flock and static grass.

This first part deals with the basic ground to which different types of  materials can be added depending on the type of terrain that is emulated, but it works fine uncovered for deserts and similar grounds

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of bases showing the groundwork under the flock right now...

I start by gluing the painted figures to the base.

I prefer to paint my figures before painting, but this basing method is viable for use with unpainted miniatures too.

Materials used, light weight spackle and cheap acrylic crafts paint.

I’m quite sure there are similar products out there for non-Swedes but this is a low-price brand of light weight spackle or filler that I use. The advantages of it over other types of filler is that it hardly shrinks at all, it’s very easy to work with and you can mix it with paint and water.

This spackle is the “secret” of my basing, I prefer it over any other type of filler or pumice I’ve tried.

Mix the paint and spackle, add water if necessary.

In the example I’m using a especially cheap crafts paint hardly containing any pigments at all, so usually you don’t need to add this much. The paint is not necessary but it saves time later on. ( It would also hide any chips in the spackle but so far none of my bases has had any chipping.)

Now you should have a brown thick paint/spackle mixture

I actually added a bit to much water to this, it should be a bit thicker.

Using an old brush, I "paint" the base around the figures.

You can apply this stuff  as thickly you need to and its very easy to “push” the mixture with the brush into areas which are hard to get to with a spatula or similar tools.

When the base has dried a bit I sprinkle fine sand over the mixture. Use coarser sand if you want a more rocky ground. You can add bigger stones too at this stage.

After the spackle has dried (in about an hour) just shake and brush off any excess sand.

Now you just need to quickly paint the base with a somewhat diluted paint and finish of with a light drybrush to get an great looking base, but as I noted in the beginning, I don’t have any suitable images of this stage right now…

*edit* Part two with some finishing touched is available here.

A few other bases waiting to be painted.

I’m working a bit on a MW 5th SS Panzergrenadier list so I’m currently struggling with painting planetree camo on Battlefronts excellent MW SS figures.

But since that range is somewhat limited (to only one panzergrenadier platoon blister in fact), I’ve been looking around for some alternatives and found FiBs SS range.

So here are some notes and photos of what they have to offer.

First out is the SS-INF-01 SS Rifle Platoon (I’d like to note that my camera is on “vacation” so all the photos are taken with my old compact camera):

These are the riflemen included in the SS-INF-01 SS Rifle Platoon with a Battlefront rifleman to the left for comparison.

These are nice crisp sculpts that matches the Battlefront ones well in size. They all have jackboots and smocks so they should be suitable for MW.
They differ a bit from the Battlefront range with their headgear which is more varied, it includes helmet covers (as the BF range), uncovered helmets, helmets with bands and helmets with foliage.
Some cons are that some helmets are a bit over-sized and that some rifles are a bit short, but overall they are very nice.

These are the other figures included in the SS-INF-01 SS Rifle Platoon with a Battlefront rifleman to the left for comparison.

Looking at the rest of the figures included there are an officer (in a somewhat strange posture), 3 NCOs with SMG (all very nice) and 3 LMG gunners (With MG42s unfortunately) with loaders (all in different poses), and finally a light mortar with 2 crewmen (this isn’t listed on the FiB site).

And finally the two support packs SS-INF-02 SS Mortar Teams and SS-INF-03 SS HMG Teams:

These are the figures included in the SS-INF-02 SS Mortar Teams and SS-INF-03 SS HMG Teams packs with a Battlefront rifleman to the left for comparison.

The Mortar Pack consists of 4 mortar teams with 3 crewmen and an 81mm (one piece) mortar, there is no variation in sculpts or any spotters or NCOs which is a bit of a letdown compared to the Rifle pack but the figures are good overall.

The HMG pack is a bit more varied, it consists of 4 teams with 3 crewmen and an MG42 on a tripod (which is separate so you could actually exclude it to use the gunner to upgrade the Rifle Pack to Panzergrenadiers), the gunner and loader are all the same but the third crewman comes in 3 different poses, pointing, holding a spare barrel and opening a ammo box.

To sum up:

I think the FiB range will work fine to complement the Battlefront range and will look good even when used on the same bases.
Hopefully they will extend their SS range and if so I will surely get some additional figures.
Recommended, especially since the price is good compared to Battlefront: £8.10 vs £12.60 with 10% off on RRP for the Rifle platoon.

My new air compressor and my cheapo airbrush.

As you’ve probably noticed I’ve mostly been painting infantry models since I’ve found painting vehicles too tedious and slow, and also the end-result hasn’t been that satisfying.

So I got my act together and got myself a cheap air compressor (I’ve actually owned a cheapo airbrush for years).

The result is fantastic, I’ve primered over a dozen vehicles in a few hours, and then base-coated them the next evening.

Not only is that way faster than any painting I’ve done before the result is great even thou I spent less than 800 SEK (~80€) on the setup, the secret lies probably in the products I’m using, Vallejos Acrylic Poliurethan primer and Lifecolor Acrylic Paints.

Both are highly recommended and worked fine for me poured directly into the airbrush.

The Lifecolor series has a great range with several special sets with colors (even a set with Finnish WW2 Armor colors!) and color matching many  FS and RAL codes.

I will probably get myself an Iwata airbrush eventually but it’s amazing what you can do with even a cheap airbrush as long as you can adjust the air pressure to match what you are painting.

The only drawback is cleaning the airbrush between color and at the end of your session but In my opinion  it’s nothing compared to painting vehicles with a brush…

So you will probably see quite a lot of increase in my vehicle production and you will maybe even see a part three of my “Sturmi pimping” posts.

A quick base-coat with Lifecolor RAL 7021.

Some research for my next army...

So coupled with my last spending spree I think I have most of the affordable books on the Wiking division.

If you are going to get one of these books on the 5th SS then I recommend the Klapdor book, It has just  been translated to English and should be readily available. My only complaint about it is the paper quality which makes the photo quality suffer.

Now I’m hopefully done buying books so that I can get back to painting instead…