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.

US 105mm Howitzers

Hello everyone.....

It's been a long long time since my last post (more than a month dare I say). 

The temperature here in Athens was escalating in heating terms, this past thirty days and my appetite for painting was somehow wrenched....

I wasn't sitting on my buttocks though. Even though I didn't feel like painting, I managed to read four books, visit Norway (for my work), and I tried to begin writing a book (in Greek, so no worries boys and girld, you won't feel appalled by a possible lewdness to your nice language). For this project (they are piling up once more), I bought (after a long argument I had with my bank account) a new laptop!!!! I'm now, in what you call 'stalemate'...but the muse will visit me again (soon I hope)! I can use it for my hobby though (now...I have to learn to use Photoshop....hmmm).

Anyway, enough with my excuses. I tried to visit as many blogs I could (even though I didn't comment much) and I noticed that you've been busy painting and modelling. Bravo!! :-)

Below you will find some photos, showing US 105mm howitzers. I bought these models (metal ones) from RAFM Miniatures (link) for quite a bargain price for each. For the crews, I used Waterloo's #038 American 75mm Mountain Gun figs, which (in my opinion) are very well sculpted. If you are looking for US gun crews in plastic, don't look any further, this is the kit you were looking for!

So....on with the photos!

I hope you like 'em!

C&C are always welcome!

T.

Last weekend's work and a new adventure!

Good day and good week guys!

In my last post, I was telling you about the preparation of my newly arrived kits and figures for my WW2 armies. On the photos below, you will see that I painted the figures (after the basic priming which was done with sprays - in colours as close as possible to the uniforms colours I wanted to paint) with the first colour, which is usually the flesh. 

As you will see, not much is done, but, late last night I managed to paint the basic uniform colours for all figures (which was rather time consuming - and boring, in terms of painting almost 60 figures with only two colours, VMC 70.879 Green Brown, and VMC 70.873 US Field drab). Unfortunately I don't have any photos related - I will make it up to you in my next post! :)

What was really interesting from last weekend though (and the main reason I didn't paint much), was an invitation that I got from a friend, asking me to participate in a ''Wings of War'' board game, even though I didn't have any previous experience (imagine how well I deceive people, that they think I can actually play a game).

The game by itself was simply fantastic, each player would choose a 1/144 (scale) WW1 plane (don't ask me which was my choice, I don't have a clue, I chose the ones with the funniest colours), and the basic strategic plan was to give your opponent a ''hard landing''....The game is played with cards and without dices and the rules are really straightforward. What more could a mere clueless wargamer (such as my self) ask for??? :-)

For these reasons, and of course my beginner's luck, I managed to win the first game, and lose the second (but not without bleeding the nose of my opponent)! All in all I was very pleased with the result.

It was a nice experience to find people who share the same madness with me (it's like in the movies, where there's a moment in which the actor, with the help of some musical accompaniment, feels like he's in heaven, and everything falls into place...).

If you guys care to join this club (I am referring to my fellow Athenian Greeks - or anyone else, discrimination is  out of our vocabularies, that are searching for meeting new people with the same interests) this is the link: http://wgc.wargamer.gr/ . You could either email me if you need any further information. It will be my honour to get to know you in person (as long as you don't ask for money, you won't find any I'm afraid...). :-)

Have a great week guys (and keep on smiling)! 

T.

Reinforcements from the post!

Good day everyone!

These past few days I am trying to create an ''inventory'' of what I've painted so far and what elements I should add in order to include all the ''arms'' of my small Axis and Allied armies (Artillery, A/T guns, A/A guns, Halftracks, Trucks, Mortars, Infantry etc.). 

In the meantime (that's the good thing about working for companies of the private sector, you can do many things simultaneously!), I placed some orders through the net and I was waiting to receive them. Yesterday morning I received some kits that would be used as complementary to the artillery forces I planned to create. 

I had to buy two additional 122mm Russian howitzers (Zvezda #6122) some crew for them (Orion #72041) and some crew figures for my US artillery battery (Waterloo #038 75mm mountain gun) - I still don't know what to do with the guns, perhaps I could use them for my US paratroopers forces (if I manage to find the appropriate crew figures)!!!!

Last night while watching football on the telly (Europa League championship), I started preparing all these figures and guns, in order to start (hopefully in the w/e) painting them. It took me almost two and a half hours to complete the whole process (remove the flash from the figs - Orion's figs had quite a lot, a good kit nevertheless, basing and priming), which is not too much if you come to think that we are talking about 52 figures and 2 guns)...

I am still waiting some additional models (105mm US Howitzers, GAZ trucks, GMC trucks etc..), but until I receive them I think I have plenty of things to prepare first! :-).

So as my friend from NZ Paul says from Plastic Warriors blog (an excellent blog by the way, truly consistent in terms of posting new posts, updated and very very inspiring), ''Model on''!! 

P.S (I hope you don't mind Paul, but, if you do I'm willing to pay the copyright expenses)!

Cheers all!

T.