Shot down Malcador

The Malcador is a vehicle which fascinated me from the very moment Forgeworld released it. It’s lines are so WWI that I immediately imagined it on a mud-and-razor-wire trench scenario.

I wanted to scratch build one of them, but this time I though about a little vignette in which I could display the tank pondering though razor wire and concrete defenses.

I finally decided to display it shot down (this is the good thing about scratchbuilding things, you do not need to put any constraint on your model). This Malcador was shot down by enemy fire, ammo exploded making the riveted joints to break away.

I have progressed on the right side so far… More to come.

Snow tutorial

Once I finished my entry last week I noticed that I could have made a little tutorial about working with snow.

As the diorama was far from being complete, I took advantage of next stages to take some pictures (I also used my wife’s brand new camera, which is actually so complex that it only lets you to push the big button and does everything by itself).

I use the traditional snow recipe used for ages by many modelers: bicarbonate and PVA.

You will need water, PVA glue, bicarbonate and gloss acrylic varnish (I used Future here, but you can use the one you prefer).

I mixed equal parts of PVA and water, added a generous quantity of gloss varnish and then added more and more bicarbonate until the mix gets a slurry consistence.

I also water down some of the original mix in another container.

Once I get the right consistency, I carefully pour the thicker mix on the diorama.

The bicarbonate mix will naturally adopt shapes similar to those formed by real snow.

 

Even though, you will need to shape it with a flat tool.

I used the watered down mix to soften the edges with a large brush.

I prepared a even more watered mix –adding a bit more of gloss varnish- to represent snow and ice which got into recesses (like the thread marks on the ground).

I start applying it to the tank (you need to do this in many stages, allowing the mix to dry between them in order to not overdo it).

And this is the result for the moment being. As you see is quite easy to do and a lot of fun. Once it is dry, you need to seal the bicarbonate with gloss varnish. This will give it the right satin finish and seal it to avoid it to get yellow tones over time.

WWII Stug III Aus G

Even as my job leaves me not too much spare time, I sometime manage to get some work done on my different projects.

This is a 1:48 Sturmgeschütz III kit from Tamiya I had liying around half-painted for some years. Once I moved to my new home, I decided to finish it, adding some kind of snow terrain. At the last minute I decided to represent it crushing a wooden fence just to add some drama.

The vignette is half finished, though, and still need a lot of work to be complete, but I wanted to share it with you.

The stug is painted in a battered winter camo scheme. As you see, the crew has added wooden logs to try to compensate for the loss of the left schurzen. The general look want to represent a battered vehicle badly in need of some maintenance.

The dirt is done mixing plaster, MIG pigments, PVA and some sand. Snow is done by mixing bicarbonate, PVA, water and gloss varnish until the mix is quite slushy. I poured it and flattened it with the help of a palette.

The vignette is far from being finished. Next steps include completing the snow (I run out of bicarbonate), adding some of it to the tracks and over the stug, finish the tree, completing the road... All the little details that unite the diorama as a whole.

Modelling tip: Filling resin defects

No matter how careful you are, or how much do you spend in pressure chambers or vibrating trays, it is difficult to avoid having some bubbles in your cast pieces. The same is also true with Forgewold kits.

I normally used two component putty (as A+B or Duro) to fill imperfections, but I found a product that is far more efficient for filling small bubbles and defects. It is a hard wax typically used to fill scratches in wood furniture.

The wax is soft enough to be easily worked with a modeling tool.

You just fill the hole and its done. Once painted you would not notice anything.

The same is evidently true for this Forgeworld mortar. I will later put a drop of cyaonoacrilate on top to harden the wax and glue a new rivet in place to substitute the missing one.

The wax technique is very useful for those bubbles appearing in rivets and pother ointy places.

You just rub softly the wax stick over the defect...

And it's easily filled.

You just need to remove the excess wax.

This is most convenient for all those rivets in imperial tanks (a.k.a.: "bubble magnets").

You can fill dozens of defective rivets in seconds.

Once the excess is removed, it's hard to notice it.

After all those months... I am finally back

Dear friends:

Many months has passed from my last update. They have been very busy months indeed! Changing to a new job, moving back to my birthplace, living during many months at a rented flat, finding a place to live and finally get back to what can be considered as "normal life".

You know what? I am finally back!

I had not too much time lately for my models (mainly as they where locked away in a warehouse), but I did find some hours to continue weathering my bombard and ammo carrier... Let me show you some new pics:

I am not yet happy with this rusted effect, but I think am am very close to complete it...

The models some hours before! Please note the clean look of the ammo carrier on the back.

Let's see how much I can progress in the following days... I promise to update the blog often!

Modelling Tip : How to fit Chimera and Leman Russ tracks

(versión en Español)

A lot of modelers have the same problem when facing a Chimera or Leman Russ kit: The tracks does not fit. No matter how much you try or how much you read the instructions, those tracks will not fit properly.

Of course, this is a well known problem, but until Games Workshop develops an alternative track sprue we need to find some solution. There are people that simply leave some missing links in the lower part, where they would not be seen, or that leave them in the upper part, covered by track guards.

As a fellow modeler asked me what I did to solve the problem, I did this quick walkthrough.

First of all, I use polystyrene cement. It allows the pieces to be adjusted after being glued. Cyanoacrylate (superglue) sets too fast for that.

I only add six road wheels, preferring to save the rest and glue the tracks to the sides.

I use the handy sanding pads from Rhino for removing sprue marks. This is important if you want the tracks to be glued to the sides.

Let's start with those links.

I start from the upper front of the track set. As I said before, I glue the tracks mainly to the sides. If a link lies on a wheel, I obviously apply glue to it. But I want the track to be parallel to the sides (If you look closely at the pic below, you would see that the end of the long track section is not in contact with the wheel, but parallel to the side).

We continue adding links with the same idea in mind.

Now it's nearly complete, we only need one of those big tracks sections.

Well, we knew it would not fit, isn't it?

And this is the trick, it is most probable that there are a lot of people already doing it, but some other would probably find it useful

Just cut the end of the track section like this:

You will end with a reduced track link.

Sand the end a little to give it a rounded shape.

And that is. A shorter link at the bottom part of your tracks. Once painted, I assure you that even if you flip your model upside down, you'll need to closely inspect the link to notice that something is wrong.

Death Korps of Krieg Trench Digger

(versión en Español)

That was to be my entry at the Lt. Walke's WIP contest. Unfortunately, Real Life issues prevented me to finish on time. Not that this represents a problem for me, as I can now concentrate on the kind of detailing I prefer.

When Lt. Walke asked for support vehicles, I immediately thought on the DKOK and their bias to large maze-like trench systems. I thought that being this the future, and with all those techpriests and engineseers to help, they would have probably developed an autonomous trench-digging engine.

As it was to be set on 40K, it's clear that it would have to had some characteristics like hugeness, "clankyness", armor and firepower (being 40K I imagine that the grim Korps would dig their trenches in the middle of heavy assaults from hordes of xenos, making some last stands on their way and so)(and THIS is exactly what I really like of Warhammer 40000, mates...).

Having said that, I picked a really old and bad industrial scraper kit a bought for 5€ ages ago (I knew I would someday use it, BWAHAHAHA!) and recycled the bucket for my sacred and revered engine of construction.

I used chimera sides for the digging part and resin sides for my Ragnarok-like set. The hulls are scratchbuilt from plasticard, throwing some styrene parts from bargain 1/35 kits I hunted on eBay. As some fellow WIP pointed me, the chimera tracks looked too small and close to the sides of the freshly dug trench, so I added some extra pieces to add a winterketten-like feeling to the rear part.

The most interesting thing is that, incidentally, the front part works really well by itself, so I am planning to make some magnetized add-ons to use it as an independent engineers vehicle.

This is still a WIP, thought, a lot of work remains to be done on the rear part.