How to make wood pallets for Artillery Missile Crates

Hi everyone!

I recently bought a book from Osprey publishing. It’s Warrior 93 - German Infantryman (3) Eastern Front 1943–45. From the front page as you see in the photo below, you see some Artillery men preparing some missiles by putting the fuses on their tops. If you look more closely, you will see that these missiles are being put on a wood pallet, to keep them dry.  See where I am getting to??? ;-)

I thought that I could make some on my own, with what I had in hand. Some balsa wood, some matches, a pen, some PVA glue and some acrylic paints. 

The photos can help you see the procedure I followed for making them. Assembly and painting, simple as that. 

Below you see the finished pallets. A quite generic and simple terrain piece, but I think they would complement my ammo crates sufficiently. After their assembly, they were painted in a dark brown colour, highlighted with some Panzer Aces Old wood and some VMC Green Grey. Same thing as my Eastern Front wooden gates I did a while ago.

As you see in this photo, I used one figure from my newly painted Artillery crew figures from Hat (#8256). They fit in rather well.

I hope you like ‘em!

T.

ZVEZDA's #6115 - 37mm AA Gun - Painting Tutorial

Good day mates!

A new week has started today (with some heavy clouds above the Athenian sky), with me trying to paint as  much as possible, while trying to run a house, its errants, some extra work and a girlfriend!

From my last post, most of you have seen the kits I bought last week, so these past couple of days were 'washing, priming, painting, weathering, varnishing' and some more! Going mental, to say the least! :-)

Mental I went, but not in vain. I managed to prepare most of them and I actually managed to finish Zvezda's kit #6115 - 37mm AA Gun. In addition to that, while painting it, I took photos in every stage of the process, so as to upload a post with a tutorial to use it as a reference, if you think it may be of any use to you.

So, enough with the talking, let's move on to the photo scroll...


Step 1.
After assembling the model, I used some FOW War Spray (Soviet Armour), to prime it.

Step 2.
After the priming, I used some GW washes (Badab Black and Nuln Oil don't worry, it's the same wash - it's the never ending new policy from Citadel - same products, different names, pls don't get me started...).

Step 3.
After the washes, I used VMC 70.894 Russian Green, to drybrush (heavily mannered) the model.

Step 4.
Carrying on with the drubrushing process, I then used VMC 70.924 Russian Uniform, to drybrush the model, in order to start giving 'depth' to the various layers of surfaces of the model. You can see at this stage, that colours are beginning to get more distinctive, and they start to show the details of the model.

Step 5.

For the final part of the drybrushing process, I used some VMC 70. Green Grey, to drybrush (lightly) the model. You can now see, the nearly finished model.

Step 6.
I used some VMG 70.862 Black Grey to paint the tyres.

Step 7. After some weathering (painting some Black and Brown washes), in order to give a 'dirty' look, the model is ready to get on the table and be used (for wargames purposes)!

I haven't post any details regarding the figs' painting procedure - one of my following posts, will be a relevant tutorial for my Russian comrades - so stay tuned! :-)

I hope you found this tutorial useful.

Have a great day guys!

T.

Russian Artillery (Part 9) - Steppes Variant

Good day gentlemen!

As promised in my last post, today I will be showing some photos of the Russian Artillery section, destined to be used for the steppes (dirt bases). This is the second variant of the three.

It is consisted of the basic elements (what I consider basic in my mind anyway): four guns, crews, four GAZ trucks, officers and ammo crates. The guns and the trucks are the same for all variants. I wanted to be able to use them in every occasion and that was the main reason I didn't base the models (you have to be frugal these days...).

Some closer looks on the figures.

Officers

NCO

Radio man and runner

NCO and gun crews

I hope you like them.
As usual C&C are more than welcome!
T.