@ KEITH; nice M5 and congrats on the completion.

@ Wayne: I love the color of your Stug. Tell me what brand, or mix did you use.

Bob

hi bob i used vallejo 128 german cam orange ocher for the base coat and vallejo 119 green ocher (which is vallejos choice for dunkelgelb) shaded over the top.thats why i like vallejo paints so much they have lots of colors that are just abit lighter than the next glad u like

I saw this campaign a few months ago, but am just now getting around to enlisting and posting my pictures. Here is what I am building - the old Bandai 75mm Pak 40 towed by the new Tamiya/Italeri Opel Blitz in 1/48 scale:


I used a drill on the gun shield to give the impression of the double armor plates:

Since it is being towed, I cut and reattached the bottom part:

and I replaced the kit barrel with a brass one from Track 48:

Here is the gun built:

and here it is wearing its coat of paint:

I still plan to add some foliage camouflage on the gun shield.

Nice going, Jim!
Isn't it amazing how few parts gun model used to have only 10 years ago. Today even smal pieces like a Pak 36 has tons and tons of parts.

I have invested another 10 hours into the base for my M18 and am pretty much finished. Here's what I did with the MiniArt base with a little help from the spares box and Lion Roar PE Ivy. Colours used are mostly artist's acrylics or Vallejo. Pigments used are from MIG, Artitec and Life Colour.

It's my first base and I am quite happy with it. However I am looking forward to hear tip from the pros in the these parts.

















Tomorrow I'll start the figures.

Cheers,
Guido

Guido, excellent job on that base, way better then what my 1st mini art base looked like I am by far no expert on the subject but I think the white wall may be a little to bright, maybe tone it down a little with a brown wash or wait for the real expert, Meatyhell Hound to comment, his builds are amazing

I agree, looking awesome Guido! Sal may be right about the light, but I can't tell if the base appears brighter than it is because of your lighting setup.

Jim: You're making that old Bandai kit look good!

Wayne: The subtle shading is turning out real well on your Stug

Keith: Tracks actually came out well, aside from that floppy looking roller. Not sure about the sag being so pronounced though.

Warren: I'm thinking British would be good?

Thanks for your kind comments, guys!
Indeed I was aiming at a bright surface simulating limestone which is and has been a very popular cover stone for buildings all around Italy. I kept it creamish-yellowish white. Maybe I shoudl dab on some more grey chalk for lichen and green for moss to tone down a bit.
Indeed the lighting for the photoshoot pushes the white aspects a lot. I'll try some different light setup later today.
Cheers,
Guido

Yeah, go ahead and do that before you change anything on the base. I know that unnatural lighting setups can have a washout effect on the subject being photographed, which is what looks like is going on here, at least to me.

I think I'll try a lighter backdrop and less light. 3x 5000k daylight might be a bit hard on the lighter shades. It's quite common problem that if you want a good pic for the internet, magazines or books, the painjob has to be exaggerated to really show off all the effects.
Cheers,
Guido

Floppy rollers....story of my life!!

Thanks for spotting the error.

Now been fixed

Cheers

Keith

Sorry Jeremy but I went with Polish markings as they have nice, bright yellow in them. Brighten up a drab subject, colour wise anyway!

Gentlemen-
Follwing your valued comments, I sat down and added some more colour to the wall: Some chalks in shades of grey and black-brown earth to take out shine. I added light sienna calk to the sidewalk to lighten it up and thus tone down colour contrast between between it and the wall.
Now I have taken some shots with reduced light coming from above or above and behind; no frontal lights this time. Combined with a light grey backdrop I think the base looks much improved.









More comments welcome!

Cheers,
Guido

Guido,how did you attach the folage to the brick it looks great.

Bob

Guido: I agree, I think your painting is probably just fine, especially based on all of the excellent aircraft kits and such that I have seen from you.
I too am curious about how you attached the plants...

Keith: Lol, some of those little rollers just don't fit well on their assigned pegs. I've even had pegs basically missing all together which makes it really odd to attach the rollers and line the track up.

Warren: I think they're all awesome man

Good evening Bob and Jeremy!
The Lion Roar Ivy comes in string about 4" long with several smaller branches. I painted the backside in medium green and the front side in dark green. The front side, showing fine relief etched leaf structures, received a dry brushing with duck egg dreen. I hand painted the backsides of the stem and branches in buff and the front side in dark red brown. Only then I cut the hole string from the fret. The tips of some of the of the smaller branches need to be detached from the main stem, so you can spread them out later.
I choose a point of start and apply a bit of superglue gel to the backside at the bottom of the string, which is then glued in place by pushing it against the wall near the ground with a toothpick. Preferrably the base of the plant is hidden behind a stand of grass or something like that. Form there I use a second toothpick to apply small amounts of superglue gel to the back of the stem while supporting the string with the other toothpick and then pushing it into the desired position. The leaves will basically go flatly onto the wall. So I progress about a half an inch at a time. The PE can cleanly be bent cleanly around any corner and curved to your liking.
When I reach the desired height above ground I just cut the string and use it to branch out the plant. The smaller, atached branches should be spread out to show the ivy's tendency to have more vertical growth than horizontal growth.

Frankly speaking, I was surprised how easy it was to "plant" the ivy. Lion Roar has issued 3 or 4 different tendrillars and Lea sets, which can be used in the same or similar fashion.



HTHH,
Guido

Wow, great explanation Guido! You've got me itching to try out some ivy now

Hello

Sorry for the rare comments. nice dio Guido, I have a tip: your red bricks on the end of the wall are a bit glossy so if you can put a flat coat on it, it would be nice. Changing the color of some bricks can also be nice

My dio is progressing well but its my first one so its longer. Just to give an idea where I am, the next step is putting plaster on it.

nice progress with all your models.
Gabriel

Hi, Gabe!
Thank you for your kind comment and tips.
Indeed the bricks are painted in 3 or four shades. Probably they are not differing enough, I may go at them again. The whole assembly received a flat coat from Vallejo, but it did not make them dead flat. I have Testors Dull Coat on order which should do the job.
Cheers,
Guido

Hi All:

Guido & Jeremy, thanks for looking and posting your kind comments.

Guido, with all the effort you spent on the base, which looks fantastic, I think you should forget the Hellcat and just have an Italian soldier playing the mandolin on the corner so your base is the centerpiece (- just kidding!) Can't wait to see how the whole scene shapes up.

Hoping to do some more work on my project over the weekend.

Jim

I may have to make a vignette of my build just to keep up. Just bogged down in a few campaigns and personal builds.

Hi all,

Here's my progress so far. I'm building Italeri's Panther A (#270) and in order to overcome some of it's deficiencies I added quite a lot of aftermarket. This is the first time I'm using so much aftermarket. I think I'm about halfway the build now...



The PE is from Eduard and the zimmerit is from Cavalier. I managed to buy these (and the kit) very cheap through ebay. I took the tracks out of a Tamiya Panther G kit. I learn a lot from this build and that's fun, but I'm looking forward to build a more recent Panther kit (from Dragon and/or Tamiya) later on.... I gotta clear the stash though, and this kit has just as much right to be build as the more recent ones... It just needs a little bit more TLC (and aftermarket).

Greetings,

Max

Hi All.

Here is my finished 75mm GMC used by Polish Forces in Italy in 1945. It is Dragons 1/35 kit with an RB barrel.


One strange thing did happen right before I was going to take the photos, I looked down at the floor near my workbench and caught a glint of brass from the carpet. There was a part I lost near the start of the build! Seems the carpet Gods are smiling on me at the moment.

Keep up the good work guys and gals.

Nice work there, Max and Warren!
How about some dry brushing to pick out some highlights on that gun carriage?

Gentlemen-
I have been spending the complete weekend (some 20 hours) to build the figures for my diorama. I always forget how long it takes me to build and paint these figures. So here we go:

This is the guy standing on next to the tank and some ammo crates:



This guy is standing on the tank and passes on a shell to a guy standing in the turret:



This is said guy in turret reaching for the shell:



This guy is standing watch while the tank is being replenished:




Seing the magnifications now on the net, I'll definitely go back and do some more touch up and have another go at some of the guy's eyes.

In the backdrop of the loading scene we will see a civilian women and her child using the relative calm to fetch a bucket of water from a nearby fountain.



Next all the clutter (ammo crates, boxes, canisters, etc) needs to be assembeled and painted to fil the dio with life. I hope to do it tomorrow. Wednes to Saturday I will be on nightshift so I'll probably not be making anything.

Cheers,
Guido

Hi Folks,

I am still working on a Firefly for the Sherman campaign but just realized how fast time has passed and decided I better get started on my build for the Blitz 3 Italy Build.

Here is what I will be building for this campaign.



Eric

@ Guido: nice figures, you are the man.

@ Eric: welcome aboard.

@ Warrern: another vehicle with my favorite color and nice job.

@ Max: your build is really clean so far.

Bob