Category Archives: 5. Resources

A Quick Look At A Few Modelling Books And DVDs

  By Dean | December 5, 2011 - 10:55 am | 3. Articles, 5. Resources, 9. Other, Resource/Reference, Website News
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This is the first post in what I hope will be a weekly feature where I plan to introduce you good folks out there to some of the various book titles ( and occassionally DVDs ) out there that may be of interest to modellers. I’m going to try and theme each week and I figured the logical thing to start off with was just taking a look at a few books that deal with Armour Modelling in general. Two of these ones listed here are DVDs ( “Modelling and Detailing German Armour” and “Military Vehicle Modelling And Conversions” ), the rest are books

Just click on the images for more information on each book.

         

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Painting Your German WWII Tanks – A Very Basic Guide

  By Dean | September 12, 2011 - 3:15 pm | 3. Articles, 5. Resources, Hints And Tips, Resource/Reference
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Okay, so if you’re the sort of modeller who goes a little beyond what the instructions say then you’re most likely aware that painting your average German tank is a little more complicated than just painting it dark grey or dark yellow. I’m going to try and give a very basic guide that outlines the general colours used and the patterns used, as well as when and where they were used.

To keep it simple I’m not going to quote official RAL colour names and numbers, I’m going to use plain old simple English, and then it’s up to you to decide what paint to use. I find it pointless to try and give the “best match” in any given paint because there are just so many variables from simple fading and wear through to camo patterns that were thinned with water or petrol and applied by hand which results in a huge variation of the base colour.

For those who do want “best match” my suggestion would be to use either the Vallejo or Panzer Ace sets as they do the job nicely.

So this is it in simple terms ( if anyone thinks I’ve missed anything important or got something wrong feel free to point it out ). Keep in mind that these generally only apply to armoured fighting vehicles in the Western European and Eastern front theatres. We’ll deal with North Africa/The Med separately in the future.

Pre war, 1927 to 1937. A three colour scheme made up of desert yellow, olive green and red-brown applied in a wavy soft edged pattern that looks similar to the U.S. Woodland pattern camo ( in style, not in colour ). These were painted at the factory prior to acceptance into service and each vehicle was painted differently.

Pre-War/Early War, 1937-1940. Dark grey covering 2/3 with the other 1/3 covered in dark brown soft edged random splotches as seen on one of the Cyber Hobby Neubaufahrzeug paint schemes. Note that although this scheme replaced the earlier scheme only new tanks were painted thusly, with existing vehicles only repainted from the 3-tone as they were repainted in the normal course of their maintenance so there are examples of vehicles in three-tone during the early stages of the war. Also trucks were usually not camoflaged so were just painted in the base dark grey.

Early War/Mid War, 1940-1943. From June 1940 the change was made to just painting everything dark grey. Tanks in the field were supposed to be repainted but as above you could see the two tone patterns through into 1941 often only getting done when needing a repaint anyway.

Mid War/Late War, 1943-1944. From February 1943 the base colour changed to dark yellow with the crews being supplied with dark yellow, dark green, and red-brown paint to apply camoflage patterns to suit their environment. The paint was supplied as a paste which was thinned ( petrol or water ) and added with anything from a basic spraygun to brooms. The most common camo pattern was wavy soft edged lines of dark green and red-brown but there were a LOT of variations. Vehicles that were already in the field in dark grey stayed with a dark grey base with the camo paints used to paint patterns over that. A common pattern was dark yellow spots over the grey base or one reminiscent of the Malta camo which appeared to be mostly yellow with grey lines but was actually yellow over grey.

Late War, 1944-1945. From November 1944 the camo known as “ambush” pattern came into use and was applied at the factory. This has red-brown and olive -green stripes over a dark yellow base with small “flecks” of each colour scattered over the others. This wasn’t “retrofitted” to vehicles in the field and appears to have not been applied to the StuGs ( though there is one interesting photo of a StuG with disc style camo on the Schurzen ). Other late war patterns such as the “disc” pattern on the Panther were also factory applied.

The End, 1945. The last type of paintjob was the vehicle being sent out in it’s primer undercoat with dark yellow applied over the top as a hasty form of camo. Others just went out in plain dark yellow. ( worth noting here that this is still a subject of hot debate as to whether the colour is indeed exposed primer or the red-brown colour used in camo patterns ).


Today’s Handy Dandy Tip – Adding Sling Swivels To Your 1/35 Scale Weapons

  By Dean | August 4, 2011 - 3:07 pm | 3. Articles, Hints And Tips, Resource/Reference
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If you’re like me you’ve been through the whole evolution of the scale rifle sling. First it’s no sling, just glue the gun to a hand ( or a back ). Then it’s the single strip of whatever material with one end going to the back and the other end going to the front. Then you get fancy and fold the sling over for 2/3 the length to make it look a bit closer to the real thing but it’s still a couple of blobs of glue fore and aft that hold it in place.

And if you’re really like me you end up making semi workable slings with sliding keepers and the whole blob of glue attachment point just doesn’t cut it anymore. I used to glue tiny little plastic swivels on but they looked too oversize and these days with failing eyesight and sausage fingers that was becoming more and more difficult. Magnifiers help the eyesight but I’ve yet to find a tool to deal with sausage fingers ( a good range of tweezers helps ).

So these days I do my sling swivels like this :

You’ll need fine fuse wire, a small drill bit ( I use a #80 ), a strip of 0.25×0.8mm styrene strip and some superglue. And if you’re like me a good freestanding magnifying glass or Optivisor.

First drill a hole through the point where the swivel will mount. Then loop your wire over and feed both ends through the hole. Pull the wire through until only a small loop is left, then insert the end of the styrene strip into the loop and finish pulling it tight from the other side. Make sure the strip is hard up against the weapon. Pull the wire tight and twist it around to hold it in place.

Then add a small drop of superglue, enough to fill whatever hole is remaining and keep the wire in place. I use a shaved down toothpick for this. Leave it to dry then shave away the excess wire ( you can add a drop of Mr. Surfacer 1000 to cover up any hole that remains ).

Now remove the styrene strip ( if it’s too tight just cut it as close to the swivel as possible without cutting the swivel ) and use a pair of broad nosed tweezers to slightly flatten down the swivel. There you have it, one swivel.

Now just feed your sling through and finish it off however you normally do ( I usually make workable slide keepers so that once everything is dry I can then slide them up to secure the sling at the swivel as the real ones do ).

And don’t forget to remove those mould seams from the butts.

Focus On Lesser Known Suppliers – Reality In Scale Diorama Studio : Diorama Accessories

  By Dean | October 31, 2010 - 11:13 pm | 2. Reviews, 5. Resources
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In the Focus On Lesser Known Suppliers section we take a look at some of the lesser known manufacturers and suppliers that are out there serving the modelling world. These manufacturers and suppliers are ones we feel offer something that benefits modellers but who may not be as well known as they deserve to be. This section is NOT paid advertorials, for a manufacturer to be here means I personally felt that their product is worthy of spreading the word. Often I will use info supplied by them for background, future intent, etc but I won’t endorse something I don’t personally believe in.

Reality In Scale Diorama Studios

RiS Diorama Fountain

If, like me, you’re a diorama lover, and if you’ve never heard of Reality In Scale then you’ve been missing out because the range of diorama accessories that they offer is absolutely brilliant. From real cloth carpets and flags, through stain glass window, wallpaper and wooden signs, to gates, fountains and the more usual odds and ends essential to that wartime european city/town/village that many stay away from these guys cover it all. In fact the bits and pieces they supply make you actually WANT to build more dioramas with buildings just to be able to hang a tapestry.

Currently people like Verlinden and Plusmodel gives us a broad assortment of furniture and household items but I’d love to see Reality In Scale’s take on these sorts of things if they ever decide to do them because I would love a set of furniture for a little elfresco dining at a Parisian cafe or something to be seen through a second storey balcony with wide open French doors. Sometimes I do get a little tired of every building being blown up and it would be great to see more in the way of fitouts for buildings that haven’t been on the receiving end of a Lancaster.

Reality In Scales line-up falls into eight basic categories including a new line-up of textured terrain finishes similar to those that Tamiya has recently started doing.

Miniature Architecture 

This includes things like small and large building facades, small out bulidings, fountains, pillars, and entry gates.

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Resin Accessories  

This includes all the little bits you expect to find around the place like outhouses, small fountains, clocks, street signs, statues, mirror frames and the like.

 

Printed Accessories 

These include stained glass windows, table clothes, flags, business signage, maps, and carpets and tapestries printed on real cloth.

 

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Vignette Bases  

These are exactly what they sound like, small bases with small architectural features intended for use in making small diorama displays.

 

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Figure Bases  

Again pretty much what you would expect from the name, smaller bases designed to be used in small figure oriented dioramas.

 

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Roads & Sidewalks  

These come as either resin roads and sidewalks, or lasercut heavy card roads and sidewalks and in a variety of styles and sizes, as well as indiviudal curbstones and cobblestones.

 

Wall & Floor Covering

This includes printed wallpapers, printed tiles, printed floorboards including parquetry, and fabric curtains.

 

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Mud-in-a-Pot  Snow-in-a-Pot  Forest-in-a-Pot

Essentially thick, textured paints and/or foliages that allow you to add instant mud/snow/ice/deadfal etc to a diorama. I’m actually really keen to try the snow and ice in a pot ones myself to see how it compares with some of the other similar products.

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I’ve got a selection of their stuff and it really is first rate, in fact I’m currently planning how to incorporate a lot of it into a two-storey farmhouse of upper-middle class standing. I can highly recommend this stuff.

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Focus On Lesser Known Suppliers The Oliver Publishing Group : Armour Related Books

  By Dean | October 18, 2010 - 2:17 pm | 2. Reviews, 5. Resources
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In the Focus On Lesser Known Suppliers section we take a look at some of the lesser known manufacturers and suppliers that are out there serving the modelling world. These manufacturers and suppliers are ones we feel offer something that benefits modellers but who may not be as well known as they deserve to be. This section is NOT paid advertorials, for a manufacturer to be here means I personally felt that their product is worthy of spreading the word. Often I will use info supplied by them for background, future intent, etc but I won’t endorse something I don’t personally believe in.

www.oliverpublishinggroup.com

Today we’re taking a look at The Oliver Publishing Group, a book publisher based in Australia who provide a high quality range of reference books on armour who began trading as The Oliver Publishing Group in May of 2009 when they broke with The Factory Publishing ( themselves a publisher of armour related books ). 

Since breaking away they have released 4 titles and have another in the final stages of completion which will be released this month. All these books are A4 size and made up of 36 pages including the front and back covers, and currently belong to one of 4 series :
 
Under The Gun

This series uses photos of disabled or captured vehicles. Panzers in the Bocage : German Armour in the Battles For Normandy was Oliver Publishing Group’s first independent title and the first in this series and will be followed up this month by First Blood, focusing on the U.S. 1st Armoured Division in Tunisia.

 

Combat Camera

This series is very “photo heavy” with many being taken by ordinary soldiers rather than the authorised – and often sanitised – versions from official photographers. Onslaught : The German Invasion Of Soviet Russia was the second of this series ( although it was ready for printing first ) and was made up entirely of “photo-snaps” taken by German soldiers during the invasion of Russia. The Cromwell and Centaur : British Cruiser Tanks in NWE book was something of a break from the basic philosophy of this category but due to having so many photos ( the author being the Curator of the IWM photo archive) that it was hard for them to know where else to put it. Both these titles only included a single page of colour artwork but due to requests for more all future books in this series will contain 4 centre pages and the outside back cover in colour as a minimum.
 
In Colour

These books feature mostly colour illustrations with only a few photos and a small amount of text and so far To The Last Bullet : Germany’s War On 3 Fronts. Part 1 : The East, the first book in this series, has been their most successful title. That book features 25 pages of colour artwork, text, black and white archive photos - most never seen before – maps and organisational charts.  
 
Battleline

No books have yet been released in this series but they will have a high narrative content as well as colour artwork. Long Road To Victory, the first of the Desert Rats trilogy, is expected to be the first book released in this series.

 

 

As far as upcoming projects go they have a number of books planned for 2011 including the next part of To The Last Bullet, another mainly artwork book on British and Commonwealth Shermans in Italy, more titles from Claude Gillono including a Combat camera book on the Panzer III in North Africa and French tanks of 1940 and several titles on British Armoured units in North-West Europe. As with previous titles they will be trying to arrange with decal – and from next year possibly model – manufacturers to release products based on the artwork in these books.

 

I have a couple of their books and I can say unequivocally that the quality and content is superb, and the possibility of the artworks being translated into decal sheets is in my opinion a great bonus as I find the colour reference plates in these books to offer some great build ideas. I also particularly like the large unit insignia images that are included on the colour plates. In the next couple of weeks I’ll get up reviews of the ones I have but if like me you’re the sort of builder who likes to know who had what, where, and when and what they looked like at the time then these, and especially so the In Colour series, are an excellent resource for covering those simple basics that allow you to feel happy that you’ve set your model in an historically correct setting. Obviously in 36 pages you’re not going to cover every unit in every theatre but what you do get is still a heap of useful information.

Click on images to enlarge