In an attempt to make lemonade out of lemons, I have begun working on my huge mountain of backlogged work. That is not to say that I have not done anything, its just what I have done is very little. Mostly base coating pieces and very little of the detail work. However, that has changed recently and now I am trying to burn down my ignored hobby to do list. This new found focus is largely due to working from home. This has resulted in three extra hours a day that I don't normally have. Mainly dud to the reduction of commute and walk time to my desk everyday. I could go on an on, but doubt that its that interesting.. So without any more babel, Here is some artillery I have worked on. I still need to touch them up and apply a wash and seal them, but I think they are pretty close to being done.
Just a quick post to show one of my current projects. These vehicles are a set of Marine MTVR Mark 23s. Currently only the base coat and the windows are done. Still need to do the Cargo Tarp, head and tail lights, 50 cal and some odd bits of detail.
Just posting a couple of pictures I need for some post I am putting on the GHQ website for my imagination.
While I enjoy historical war gaming, there are moments that I have a drop in motivation. In recent years, I have been largely painting modern vehicles that all have very similar paint schemes. Just in the US vehicles alone, that amounts to over 400 pieces. I enjoy being creative and I think I need a break. In an attempt to break the monotony, I have decided to create my own Nation. This idea was spurred from several similar things that have sprouted up on the GHQ manufacturers forum. To this end, I will add a tab on this site that will contain information about the nation and the equipment that it employs. At some point, when i have enough vehicles, I will introduce this force into "what if battles" using other nations in the world today. I guess this is kind of akin to an alternate universe type situation. This nation will be known as the Republic of the Pacific North West (RPNW). This fictitious nation will consist of the State Of Washington and Oregon. To that end, I created a conceptual image of what some of the markings will look like for the Aircraft of the RPNW. This is shown below To make this happen, I am going to have to play around with making my own decals. I am starting off with my trusty HP printer and what ever program I have on my computer. We shall see if I keep thi9s alive long enough to actually paint up some aircraft/vehicles along with creating custom decals to give this life. Stay tuned.
Well, I seem to be on a roll. After Last nights post, I decided to create another. The topic of today is the Titan Bridge layer. I did the bulk of the work a while ago, but failed to post anything about it. In the last couple of years, I feel like GHQ has been really stepping up there game and releasing some quality pieces of Art. Now I know that these pieces are made to play with, but the level of detail is just beyond anything I could have hoped for at this scale. As shown in the picture above, the bridge is not molded into the chassis and is separated into two pieces. This allows it to be used in the deployed position or in the stowed, as shown in the first picture. Since the bridge can be removed, it give GHQ more are on the vehicle to work there detail magic. This closeup really shows off the quality of this miniature. Make no mistake, you pay for it as well. Do to the weight of the piece, there is only one to a pack and the cost is a staggering $11.95. Normally you get five vehicles for that price. However, you won't be fielding many of these, so I think its worth it. With that said, this particular model required some adjustments so that the bridge would sit right and it was hard to identify how one of the pieces was installed. These are shown below. The Object mounted on the aft of the chassis, arrow on the right of the picture, was hard to figure out how it was mounted. I scoured pictures on line and then reached out to GHQ. they provided some instructions on there site. This is shown below. The other issue is the arrow on the left points to a support structure that was molded in a way that it extended too far back. This is the arrow on the right of the picture above. Because it was too far back, it caused one of the cross supports, of the bridge to conflict with the vertical structure on the back of the Titan (arrow pointing to the rear of the vehicle. The interference is shown below. Due to the support brace being extended two far back, it conflicts with a cross member of a bridge section. this interns pushes the bridge back and then conflicts with the vertical piece at the back of the Titan chassis. As a result trimming needs to be done. This is shown below. The trim location, identified in red, needs to be trimmed toward the front. I would start small and test fit until the cross member clears the vertical piece, at the back of the chassis, that is identified as the interference location. Other than that, a great model and once complete, you cannot tell there was an issue at all. Good luck and enjoy.
Where has the time gone? Its November and my last post was back in March. I can hardly believe how little time I have spent on my hobby and this site. But to be fair, this site is part of my hobby. Its scary how life can slip by faster and faster each day and some things get neglected as result of life just happening. I have far to much lead lying around without paint and even more that needs finishing. This all gives me some anxiety, very time I walk past my hobby table in my office. This anxiety for unfinished lead will soon be increased do to my annual Black Friday Purchase from GHQ. This is a long winded way to say I have been really really lazy.
On a happy note, I am putting up a quick picture of some M109 Paladins. These were actually painted a long time ago and somewhere in my archived post, there is a picture of one of these pieces at the time they were finished. However, since I have no way, to post pictures on GHQ's web site, other than through this site, I am posting a formation shot now. Hope you enjoy and even more hope that I will finish some more vehicles soon. I Recently pulled the trigger and made my frist purchase from Gamecraft Miniatures. See link below for retail site. http://gcmini.mybigcommerce.com/ GAMECRAFT provides a large selection of miniature buildings for 3mm up to 28mm. Their product lines are made from Acrylic, Resin or Matboard (MPF). My order consisted of three buildings, 1 Resin Middle Eastern shop and 2 MPF motor pool buildings. This weekend, I received my order. I have inlcuded the link to Gamecraft miniatures motor pool building for their online store. http://gcmini.mybigcommerce.com/motorpool-building-matboard-285css025/ I've been interested in the motor pool buildings for some time. A while back, had contacted the owner and asked if he would consider making something. My reasons were two fold. I wanted something I could use in a game and to also use when displaying my pieces when not in use. To my surprise, he not only considered my request but decided to make a kit for his growing inventory of 6mm buildings. It took me a while before I got around to purchasing one and for that I felt bad about. Though I know Gamecraft did not make this piece solely because of my request, I am happy he did. The Motor Pool kit comes with three sheets of cut matt board. 4 side pieces, 2 front, 1 roof and 8 garage doors. The pieces can be assembled using wood glue with good results. It’s important to note that there are no directions for assembly. However, because of the low number of pieces and simplicity of the building, they are not really necessary. I chose to start with the two interior walls. I placed the white non-textured sides facing toward the middle of the building. There is no good reason for this approach, but that's what I went with. Per picture on the website, I faced all the white side of the the exterior walls outward and the textured grey side inward. Not sure that makes a difference, but I assumed that it would look nicer and more realistic when painted. The grey textured side does not really look like a typical building facade covering. I glued the two interior walls to front and back exterior walls. Then assembled the left and right exterior walls last. These were than taped in place for about 30 minutes till the glue dried enough to ensure they stayed tacked. The only issue with this came from how square the building was after completion. There are some Youtube videos that talk about using something know to have a good square shape to set at least two walls. I think the example was a calibration block from Harbor Freight. I did not follow this and in the end, they were only slightly off square. Some neat features of this kit, are the interior wall windows and doors. There are no doors or window covering provided in this kit. However, I have seen similar MPF kits use thin clear blue film to cover the windows. I will probably do the same. One neat feature is the inclusion of garage doors, as stated above, that can be glued in place. See picture below. Word of caution, because the garage doors have details laser cut into the surface, the edges of the top layer of MPF can peel up. I was able to carefully glue them back down but its precision maneuver and the material is fragile. The roof just needed to be folded along the center line that is laser etched into the grey side. I assume bending it down from this side would be easier and less likely to break the two sides in half. I gently bent the side to an angle that matched the contour of the side walls. Taking this approach, enables me to have the option to remove the roof as one peace. This gives you easy access the inside when and if needed. In the end, I bought two and completed them in very little time. They both look really good with vehicles parked beside them. There are a few more steps needed before they are complete. These steps consist of sealing and painting. Youtube has a video which gives tips on how to build and finish similar building made from MPF.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXxP6LkeEW8&t=159s I will try and do a follow on post with the finished kit and a list of the products I ended up using. When complete, they measure about 6.8” x 4.25” x 1.7”. They sell for $12.25, which I think is a good price for what you get. I am very happy with the results so far and cannot wait to finish them off. I will definitely order some more MPF buildings, from Gamecraft, in the future. |
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