Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Analogue Hobbies Entry #5: Ivan's Big Ride To Berlin

"Berlin Is Our Common Target, Comrade Boris!" "Da! And the view from this big ISU 122 is sweet, eh, Comrade Natasha?"

One of my brush dreams for the Analogue Painting Challenge was to get these two bruisers finished. Secondary goals were to get some more experience using my airbrush, and to play with some of that newfangled pigment that all the cool kids are using these days. All goals met.

These two Bear Battle Buggies are from the Italieri ISU 122 1/72nd scale Fast Assembly Kit (Italieri Part No. 7503).

After spending an hour this evening faffing about with an old Nitto plastic kit, which I have pretty much wrecked due to the awful diagrams and myriad of small, badly moulded parts, the two models that you get with the Italieri box are a treat to put together, and are moulded to a reasonable wargamer standard. For the initial colour I used Vallejo 70894 Russian Green, airbrushed in two coats over the hull. Following a suggestion in Ruben Torregrosa's excellent "Painting Perfect Panzers" article in WSS 63, I then mixed the Russian Green with a little white and drybrushed the top and side corners of the hull. I used Army Painter Dark Tone as an overall wash, then lined out the details with Citadel ink. The tracks were painted with Army Painter Gun Metal, washed w AP Dark Tone, the track sections were lined w Citadel ink, and then washed with a Tamiya rust pigment. It all seemed like a lot of work, but the results are worth it to me.

Reasonable wargamer standard does not mean stowage. Some of you chaps make stowage out of green stuff, plastercine, old cigarettes, etc. The items here are from a RAFM set I bought at Hot Lead last year. Evidently I have more money than I really need. It does give these guys that lived in look, however.

I've never made bases for vehicle models before, but they look rather nice on places like The Guild and I thought they were part of Curt's draconian rules for his Challenge. In making these, I stole some ideas from Sidney Roundwood's lovely WW1 bases, currently seen on his blog. The bricks are plaster of paris, from one of those mould systems, I think from Litko? Not sure. The point was to give an urban, Fall of Berlin kind of atmosphere.

One drawback to this kit is the complete absence of decals. I had some cheesy red stars from a Matchbox T34 kit but opted instead to try my hand at Cyrillic, using some slogans ("Cut the Bastards!" and "Fight to the Death") from a fine collection of Soviet propaganda posters. I chose these slogans because they were short. They still managed to spill over the edge of the hull.

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The dirty bottoms are courtesy of Vallejo 73109 Natural Umber pigment, which I mixed with a little bit of water into a goopy mass and liberally brushed onto the lower hulls, bogies, and tracks, with a little tossed onto the upper hulls for good measure. I liked the effect when it dried but in future the less is more rule will apply.

These big monsters were entry 5 for me in the painting challenge, and Curt kindly awarded me two extra points for presentation. Thanks, Curt. I am no threat to the leaders but I am having fun.

It rather looks like February will be the month of the Russians here at the Mad Padre's Painting Chapel. The Cossack love slaves are celebrating.

10 comments:

  1. Very nice, Padre! I suggest getting Caesars set of ISU 152s as a companion team to these, built them a few years ago and they are great.

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    1. Thanks, Sir Penguin. I need to check out the Caesars line. I hear good things about Zsveda as well.

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  2. I like the mud splatters. Add a good touch of realism. The slogans are funny too! Well, they weren't very funny to the Germans. . .

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    1. Thanks Sean. I dunno, I could think of some funny slogans, like "Adolf Has A Teeny Weeny" but even if I knew how to write that in Cyrillic, it would probably be a lot of letters!

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  3. Lovely work Padre! In particular the bases and slogans. With the mud, there's definitely too much in the tracks - if it's not too late, you might want to clear it away where they would have passed under the wheels.

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    1. Thank you Tamsin. Alas, your advice comes too late, that pigment has set like concrete now. I will definitely heed your advice the next time I try that technique.

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  4. Nice work Mike. Love the weathering on the tanks. I would suggest a bit more rubble around the tracks to ground them more. Right now it looks like they're floating a bit.

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    1. Thanks James. So you obviously don't have the Osprey #457.4, "Stalins Hover Tanks". Hmmmm.

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  5. Definitely well worth the extra effort, they really look the part Mike. Very nice Cyrillic as well. За Сталина!

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  6. Mighty fine work Padre. I love the slogans, very realistic!
    FF

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