FoW Jagdtigers

It was a wet morning here, so a good time to get to work on a couple of Jagdtigers that Phil at the Defenders club wanted painted - in return for a troop of Churchills.  So, here they are, airbrushed in Vallejo Dunkelgelb primer with a web-like cammo pattern in NATO brown and NATO green proxies for the exact colours.  Tracks, tools and MG are picked out in gunmetal and beige brown for tool handles.  Air intakes were picked out in dark tone ink.  The commander is in field grey uniform with flat flesh skintone, black headphones and white and pink waffenfarbe.  They still have to be matt varnished, but that can wait 24 hours while the paint completely hardens off.

For the photographs, I tried to experiment with the camera settings.  The first image is a standard exposure using the auto and macro functions on the camera.  The depth of field is very narrow and large parts of the left hand model are out of focus.

So, I set the camera to manual aperture priority and whacked the aperture down to F22.  The image is much sharper with good depth of field, but underexposed and very dim.

So, I upped the ASA rating from 125 (standard setting) to 8000, which has given a much brighter and pretty much correctly exposed image.  On my screen the colours match pretty much with what the naked eye sees.

So, I got in close to see what the depth of field was like.  Looks like the tip of the gun barrel is just beginning to get a little fuzzy.

Then closer still.  The depth of field in this image is excellent - I'm very pleased with this one.

So, I'm convinced, aperture priority with the aperture stopped down and shutter speed 1/15th second or faster to minimise camera shake and the ASA/ISO rating up pretty high.  On screen, the pictures zoom a long way before getting too grainy as well.  The image has a feel for one of those propaganda images showing how the new wonder weapons were going to throw the allies back and lead them to the negotiating table.

Quite pleased with these, hope Phil is too.

As ever, thanks for looking.

Revell 1/144 scale Typhoon

I happened to call in to Hobbycraft on August Bank Holiday and impulse purchased this little kit for the princely sum of £2.  On opening the box, I was at first a little disappointed as the parts seemed really flimsy, there was a lot of flash and the parts were connected to the sprue by thick and chunky feeds.  However, the flash was easy to clean up with a craft knife and the chunky sprue connecters were easily filed down.  I found the kit straightforward but fiddly to put together, largely due to my sausage fingers.  In particular, the rockets are really fiddly and required some adept use of a pair of tweezers.

Once assembled (I used Humbrol polycement), I undercoated in Vallejo light grey primer, then painted the underside in light sea grey and the upper surfaces in medium sea grey with a tiny drop of Prussian blue added.  Reflective green cammo patterns were added and the wheels, prop, exhaust manifolds and cockpit bubble canopy painted in NATO black.  Yellow prop tips were added along with white fins on rockets and reflective green rocket bodies.  The cockpit was then painted in azure blue and white.  I added the decals supplied - again fiddly, but no problems - and used a matt varnish to seal paint and decals.  Finally, a gloss varnish for the canopy.

This should provide some much needed air cover for my FoW British companies.

The model with the box it is supplied in.

Looks OK to me!

Another view.

I then had an experiment with the camera settings to see what I could achieve with depth of field.  This picture was taken in manual mode with aperture priority set to F15, which allowed a 1/15th second exposure time, about the slowest shutter speed for hand held work.  The picture has much better depth of field, but the colours are more washed out than the others above, which I took on full auto macro mode.

I do like the extra depth of field though, this should help with photographing my 6mm/1:300 collections for the future, although I'll have to look at the lighting again.

As ever, thanks for looking.

FoW Henschel HS129

I painted this FoW Henschel HS129 for a friend, Phil at the Deeside Defenders club.  This is a nice little model, I think in 1:200 scale.  I sprayed the model in Vallejo grey primer, then the upper surfaces in Model Air Light brown and the underside in sky blue.  Next I picked out the panel edges in Model Air NATO black, which I also then sprayed to form the cammo splodges and used to paint the AT gun, prop bosses and wheels.  Finally, the cockpit canopy was painted NATO black, azure blue and white, while the prop bosses were painted white and red and the AT gun was dry brushed gunmetal.  I finished it off with a coat of matt varnish and picked out the glass in the cockpit with gloss varnish.  I was really pleased with the finish and so, thankfully, was Phil.  I'm looking forward to seeing it when he has put the decals on.

Apologies for the graininess of the photos but I took then on my phone.  As ever, thanks for looking.

6mm scenery - hedges

I tried out making some hedges for the upcoming Crisis Point 6 mega-game at Broughton in September.  I used wooden tongue depressors, sanded and painted brown with a Cinnamon match pot from Wilkinsons, dry brushed Vallejo Iraqi Sand.  The bushes are Woodland Scenics clump foliage in olive, light and medium green with a few cork chips.  All were stuck down with PVA glue and sprayed with Woodland Scenics PVA sealer.  Static grass was applied around the edges of the bases.

They make some cool looking field systems and seem to be pretty well stuck down.  Now I'll have to get a production line going and maybe add some trees for variation.

Thanks for looking.