More 3D printing beauties: World War 2 tanks

 Hello friends, It has been a month since my last post, I will update the blog soon with some painting minis, but in the meantime, in this little summer entry, Let me introduce to you some vehicles in 28mm and 15mm, for Bolt Action and Flames Of War respectively.

A hobby colleague is very well equipped with 3D printers, and he has brought these WWII vehicles 3D printed for me. For my German project (1944 and 1945), and for my ambitious Far East project of Japanese, Chinese, and Manchukuo armies/vehicles. 

The vehicles I have ordered are practically impossible to get them from the main manufacturers in plastic or resin, because no one seems to produce them, so I finally opted for this fantastic technology, as I have done earlier with XVII c. stuff.

The first of them is a 28mm  Jagdpanzer IV L/70 Alkett, a vehicle that I have always liked, and that I was lucky enough to see in the tank in Saumur tank museum, in 2015, the only one left in the world of this variant.

In my opinion the model has a pretty good quality, the only thing that seems poorly designed are the tracks which I will have to cover with mud, and I also will add some stowage  and plastic parts of other kits in order to give it more flavour and improve the general looking.

The second vehicle is a 28mm 6 ton  Vickers tank, used in small numbers by the Nationalist Chinese army in 1937,  It is an odd vehicle that I loved when I saw it in action during the battle scene of the most excellent film "Nanking Nanking" (2009). 

the third tank is a Japanese Type 89 medium tank of the early thirties, that fought on Manchuria and Shanghai in 1931, and then in China, Mongolia, Malaya, Philipines....  the model is in 28mm and In my opinion, the best detailed of all, specially the tracks!   I got 2 versions from different sculptors.

later model (best quality)

Earlier model (worse quality)

And finally, the two antagonists in different scales :)

I hope you like this little post, I am looking forward to paint them as soon as I come back home from my holydays!

Flames of War: Stalingrad Panzers

Hello guys! 

It has been a month since I last updated the blog... You know, summer , holydays and those things that prevent you from painting. So now, after a few days off, I bring to you some Zvezda 1/100 Panzer III and Panzer IV, for my Flames of War Stalingrad project.

Last month I was painting more XVII c. stuff but I stopped without finishing my French petard team (but I will finish that soon) because I had several games of Flames of War with a friend at home, and my mood/interest switched from baroque period to World War 2, so I finished my half painted 14 Panzerdivision for Stalingrad.  I also bought Flames of War Scenery and some candy like a 15mm Junkers 52 for scenery purposes, also 3 Opel Blitz, 3 sdkfz.10 with flak, a couple of Stuig 33 and so on.

The Panzers are all Zvezda with some battlefront plastic and metal add ons, like stowage, tracks, guns (in the panzer IV).   Panzer III are of early type of shorter gun, for longer 50mm guns I will use Battlefront's plastic set of Panzer III.   And Panzer IV are D. version, I know they should be F1 models for Stalingrad battle, but I had 3 Zvezda nice Panzer IV D and "converted" them with F1 metal guns from Battlefront and turret rear boxes also in metal.

I painted them as If they were display models, so a lot of weathering. In the future I think I will put less dust and paint less chipping in the vehicles, because in this scale I prefer cleaner tanks (just a personal preference), but I am very pleased with the result of the unit.

As they are 2 platoons of 3 models, I will add a company HQ of a Panzer III ausf J and Panzer IV ausf F2 or even a captured T.34 mod.41 from the Stalingrad Starter Set of Flames of War.

I also have been inspired by the brand new Ammo Mig Stalingrad colors book :) very interesting and full of color profiles of tanks and vehicles of both sides:

https://www.migjimenez.com/es/publicaciones/4864-stalingrad-vehicles-colors-camuflajes-de-los-vehiculosa-alemanes-y-sovieticos-en-la-batalla-de-stalingrado-multilingue-8432074061465.html

Panzer IV platoon:

Panzer III platoon:

Again 2 platoons photo:

                                        

I hope you like them!

My small Dutch army for late XVII c. wars

 Hi mates, 

As you know, I paint Spanish and French for late XVII c. wars, Well, some time ago I started a parallel adventure ... I realized that the Franco Dutch war of 1672-1678 cannot be properly played without a Dutch army, so I needed more Grand Alliance nations and started I started looking for solutions.

The answer was to find some regiments already painted (good quality) by another painter, and then inter mix those units with more painted by myself, to save time and because I am too lazy to start an army from scratch these days 😅

I found a fellow painter, Peter Walker, whose blog I strongly recommend  (http://peterw3169.blogspot.com/), who was selling his collection, and I acquired part of it, specifically two infantry and two cavalry units, to which,  I added the army commander, another officer, artillery, a guards regiment on horseback,  and converged grenadiers, and I have yet to add the Dutch Blue Guards and Coerland dragons in the future.

So this post is little more than an army showcase so far.

the units are the following:

William of Orange, as you saw him in the previous blog post.

Grand Alliance's converged grenadier unit, with grenadiers from several regiments (Dutch, English, Austrian...)

Dutch officer,  featured on this blog a few months ago, Northstar 1672 conversion. I also use him as Spanish officer because he has no sash with national colour, he change nationality .

                                                         Dutch artillery, Warfare Miniatures

"Gardes Van Zijne Majesteit" or Gardes du Corps, these are lovely old School Foundry sculpts, this regiment is more suitable for League of Augsburg War than Franco Dutch War.

Regiment of Graaf van Wittgenstein in 1674, possibly present at the battle of Seneffe 1674. In 1676 the colonel was Albert Ferdinand Graff van Berlo. painted by Peter Walker.

regiment nº 10 of cavalry, fought at Seneffe his colonel was heyden in 1688. Painted by Peter Walker.

Regiment Schwarzenberg painted by Peter Walker, based by me

Regiment van Palm (Salisch 1688) Regiment op Holland 1673, painted by Peter Walker, based by me.

I hope you like this Dutch contingent, I think the miniatures although painted by 2 different painters, have cohesion and look like an army.

28mm William Prince of Orange, 1672.

 

Hello guys,

In this post I want to introduce you to my "command base" of my small Dutch army for  the Franco Dutch War of 1672-1678: William III of Orange, as commander-in-chief of the army, accompanied by a musketeer and a mounted trumpeteer.

my inspiration was this painting:

            mounted trumpeteer on the left, on foot, and William on the right, dressed in green

The miniatures are from Warfare Miniatures and North Star 1672; 

-William is from Warfare Miniatures, unmodified, I have only added some shoulder ribbons (from Front Rank), the miniature is a good sculpt, very recommended. I have painted it inspired by the aforementioned painting. he is riding a white horse. For the painting I used Vallejo and Foundry paints, especially for the horse, I used the Foundry Triad of "Artic Grey" until reaching white, I am satisfied with this triad because it makes smooth transitions between triad colors, and as the paint has little covering power , leaves a subtle transition from grey to white. As a negative point of these paints, is that painting over the dark gray primer is very time consuming because they cover very little and several layers are needed ... so my strange advice is: paint the first layer with a grey (Vallejo) and over it, paint the Foundry triad.

                                               

-The musketeer is a Dutch musketeer from North Star 1672, painted as a member of  Konigsmark regiment, inspired by the fantastic illustration in Bruno Mugnai's book, "WARS AND SOLDIERS IN THE EARLY REIGN OF LOUIS XIV VOLUME 1 :The Army of the United Provinces of the Netherlands 1660-1687" this book is an absoluty MUST for all of you interested on Franco Dutch war or Dutch military...   The painting was fast and simple as it is only in blue. I used Foundry blue triad.

                                                       Konigsmark's musketeer on the left.

Finally, the horseman with the trumpet is from Warfare Miniatures, from Gardes te Paard, with his characteristic uniform, with the loose sleeves,  sold by Barry Hilton's great range of late XVII miniatures.  I painted it in red, like in the painting in a different color than the rest of his unit, typical of the musicians of that time. I was not brave enough to paint the "W" and the crown over it in the back of the trumpeteer's coat... maybe in the future, when I paint the whole cavalry unit.

                                                

On the cornet "pennant" or whatever is called in English the cloth that hangs from the trumpet/Bugle I have tried (within my limited possibilities) to hand-paint the Orange-Nassau coat of arms, I hate painting those little things and I am a huge fan of decals and pre made flags, but in this case I had no choice but to paint it free hand, please don't judge me harsly.

The base is mdf with a little bit of DAS PRONTO putty in order to place William on a somewhat higher ground.