Hard Edge Camo

It's all about how you hold your tongue.

Flamescon is mere months away, well sorta 1 and a bit, and I want to run SS-Kampfgruppe Peiper. I also wanted to try my hand at something a little different namely Hard Edged Camo this differs from my usual way of airbrushing on camo lines this requires time, precision, a special way of holding your tongue and silly putty.

Step one Paint your tank a light grey (you can use white or black it's no biggie) I also don't have a picture of a panzer painted grey but here's the colour I used.

Step two choose your Dunkelgelb I was mucking around with the AK Modulation set but only managed 4 of 6 steps before I realised it didn't work out in 15mm.

Step three cover tank in silly putty (you can use blue tack but it might pull up the paint) and spray your first colour at this point it will look like shit and you'll want to cry* but trust me it doesn't.

*One other thing worth noting is that at this stage I should've left the silly putty on for more natural edges but like a kid on Christmas eve I just had to see what I got.

Step four now add your second colour

 Step 5, 6, 7 and 8 Are your standard paint the tracks, commander, machine gun and any other bits. Paint little dots all over the tanks. Give it a light ink wash and some weathering and then finally decals and boom done.



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WHAT YEAR IS IT??!!!

You know how I promised that I would blog more? Well I lied and I'm a terrible person for it. Why? Because I've been doing a lot of hobby stuff and what's worse I've been taking pictures and not sharing.

 I've also been a bad boy and not promoted any of the events I've been to hell I even played a whole 40K tourney and didn't come last, yay soft scores, there was also Wolfcry where I came third.

Flamescon is also on my celendar and I've done something very awesome with Silly Putty. 

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I PAINT FOR YOU!

So as you've probably seen I like to paint miniatures, I also like money so I'd like to offer you my skill with paint and air brush. Below is my price list it includes basing, varnishing and decalling (Shipping depends on where you live). I'm fully GST registered and will be taxed (in case you were wondering) and can provide receipts if requested on completion of the job. I mainly concentrate on Flames or War but I can do 28mm Warhammer/Warmachine etc. Below are the prices I charge (All prices are in NZD www.xe.com for exchange conversion.

Examples of my work http://s2.photobucket.com/user/kingdan23/slideshow/Examples%20of%20my%20work

FOW Infantry figure $4.50 (SS Camo $5.00)

FOW Transport, Halftrack, Tankette or Armoured Car $20.00

FOW Tank $30

FOW Heavy Tank $35

FOW Artillery $10 (Crew comes under infantry)

FOW Gun Teams $10 (Crew comes under infantry) Mortars & HMG's are free and I only charge for the crew.

FOW Planes $35

28mm Figures $35

28mm Vehicles $60 (Rhino/Leman Russ/Warjack)

28mm Heavy Vehicles/Fliers $80 (Land Raiders/Valkyries/Gargantuan)

If you'd like a quote please email me kingdan82@gmail.com

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It's TOOL TIME

There's a few things I dislike in real life like waiting, stupid people, children, teenagers, old people,  people in general, messed up coffee order, being stuck in traffic, full trains, religion and atheists, Summer, Winter and a whole bunch of other stuff but as a wargamer the thing that really grinds my gears is paying for the Peripherals.

That's the hobby tools and in this review/rant/comparison we'll compare the prices (in New Zealand Dollars) of the more commonly used modelling tools. I'm also well aware that I could've poped down to the local $2 shop and got craft knives and super glue up the wazoo, but hey, I'm a professional (I'm also aware of the irony).

So here we go Games Workshop VS Gale Force 9

Super Glue

Basically it's the same stuff anywhere you go however being super glue and in a bottle is where the similarity ends the GF9 Glue has more in it 1oz or 28.4gm while the GW stuff 0.17oz or 5gm and the price GF9 $10.00 and GW $15.00

Hobby Knife

A basic hobby knife with a scalpel blade used for cutting things (duh) the GW knife offers and ergonomic rubber handle and is designed to be used in key modelling positions and comes with 12 spare blades by comparison the GF9 hobby knife has much less fanfare it's used for cleaning mould lines and cutting plastic however it only comes with 5 spare blades

price GF9 $15.00 and GW $30.00 

Sprue/Plastic Cutters



These tools are great for chopping through plastic sprue to help hasen your trip to modelling town I'm generally a bit harsher on mine I used the GF9 cutter on the right here to cut heads of metal minis it's not what it was designed for but it works. Once again both similar products in nature although it seems GW have updated theirs to go down to a 1mm point of which the GF9 already has.

price GF9 $20.00 and GW $30.00

Hobby Drill

Mostly used to drill holes in weak points in miniatures for secure pinning or putting on a large base etc GF9 refers to theirs as a Model Pinning System whereas GW still call theirs the Hobby Drill the GW version comes with 6 spare 1mm drill bits (I still have my GW drill from 1998) The GF9 drill has just the one bit a maple wood handle (I'm not sure if this was supposed to impress?) and 3 bits of brass rod to get you pinning although stolen paperclips work just fine.

price GF9 $20 (for an extra $10 you can get 2 different drill bits and 12 rods) and GW  $30

Bone Saw

These bad boys wouldn't look out of place as part of a carpenters tool kit but these are mostly used for big conversion jobs like cutting up Landraiders and taking the limbs of giant monsters not essential but it's one of those things you need just encase also you can't buy the GW one online because "we're not able to sell chunky blades like this online because, without age verification, anyone can get their hands on it - younger children and goblins alike"

 (I haven't taken mine out of the plastic yet)

price GF9 $20.00 and GW $45.00

Tape Measures



The most important tool for any wargamer and you'll go through about 20 in about 10 years of gaming although you can get them at any hardware store the gaming tape must have 2 things on it Centimeters and Inches as we all know proper wargames are played in inches and for some reason a strange few like to play in centimeters. Both of these tapes are 10ft long and have a lock to keep you ranged in the GF9 tape however says it has tensile strength for up to four (4) feet good for faux sword fighting.

price GF9 $10.00 and GW $9.00

So in summing up GF9 is the cheapest however there are other options your local hardware store probably has all these items for less than half of all this it's up to you how you want to spend your money.





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Flames of Six Day War

We can now resume normal programming: After taking some time away from blogging (mostly laziness) I'm back and here's the start of my friends Eygptians for the 1967 6 Day War. Although there are no rules yet I'm sure with the gratuitous tanks battles and sheer amount of equipment Battlefront will more than likely kickstart this badboy.

 Not being a fan of Vietnam the next best thing was the middle-east and the Arab states attempt to capture Israel they tried this 3 seprate times but failed  in all attempts and as every good general knows when you have your balls to the wall you're going to fight harder.

How'd I make these I hear you ask (and yes the keyboard is old and no I won't clean it) well my friend gave me a bunch of Battlefront Vietnamese figures and some Soviet mortar loaders. I used my trusty Gale Force 9 sprue cutters to grip and twist the Vietnamese heads off then cut a deep V around the Soviet heads then leveled them off for and awesome headswap.

The paintjob uses mostly Khaki and Green Grey for the webbing and of course Russian Green for the helmet all in all a quick mini to paint.

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The Final Countdown



As you all know I've been patiently waiting for the new Warzone Resurrection now it's down to it's last 6 days and some of the renders are looking pretty awesome. It's got 6 days left tell your friends and go put in a couple of bucks. Here's the link and some more wonderful pictures. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/513277403/mutant-chronicles-warzone-resurrection

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Product review AK Interactive

Hello again everyone! Like most of you I strive to become a better painter and will use any and all available techniques available weather it's the salt and hairspray technique or home made oil washes the problem  being that these techniques are mostly guess work and hairspray can do all kinds of nasty things to an airbrush.

 Imagine my surprise when Modelair (http://www.modelair.co.nz/ ) said they were going to stock AK Interactive they posted it on a Monday morning on their Facebook and I was there by 1 (Also not having to work that day was good) I picked up some of the enamel washes a couple of weathering pigments the heavy acrylic chipping fluid and a few track colours in their airbrush range.

What I was most excited about was the rust streaks and fuel stains set because they're enamel they have a long working time but not as long as oils and this is a good thing because I am very impatient I've also experimented with their Dust Effects and they look pretty good just remember to gloss varnish first.

Now the above took about 20 minutes to do it would probably look better once varnished and decalled and all the little bits tidied up on it. Now for the rust and fuel streaks and stains I've used a Forgeworld Comtemptor Dreadnought for this.

Before

After



There are over 100 options in the AK range and anything that doesn't make my office smell like a meth lab is a win, win!

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