Lots of stuff

 I have been lazy about posting, but lots of stuff painted over the past few weeks while I took some time away from work.

Bolt Action US Paras:

Grenadiers

A Hanomag with magnetized MG or PAK36 options:

An early war Panzer IV - I think I am getting better at this weathering thing.

A Puma

Warlord French support group - the start of an early war Bolt Action French army!

Nice figs - I especially like the officer with the Gauloises!

Wargames Factory British chariots for Jonathan

A regiment of Dragoons (20mm Newline) for the Lasalle project

And some of the goodness that is the Invictus box set for 40k 9th edition! The models are fantastic, the Skorpekh destroyers and Lord are pretty hit hitters in melee

And another batch of vehicles - early war Krupp truck, Pz38t and a later PzIII.

And early war German infantry with a few more Airborne weapons teams

Building hedges and other stuff

With my move to 28mm I decided to upgrade some of my terrain, starting with building new hedges from cork, furnace filter, and flock.

Here's how it went - I think the pictures tell the story:

Cutting cork base

bevel the edges

cheap furnace filter from Home Depot

hot-glued to cork base

cut to look hedgy

brown spray paint near the base

green spray paint the bushy part

spray adhesive and flock with dark green coarse turf

and some light green

mostly done - turf still loose

dilute white glue - spray and soak, repeat

finished sturdy product

And some updates on painting progress:

10mm command stands for Byzantine and Arab Conquest armies

Some new 28mm ruins

Another Warlord titan for Adeptus Titanicus

More 28mm Ancient Britons for Jonathan

A P-47 for Bolt Action air support - Academy models 1/72 kit

And a somewhat better weathered M-10 tank destroyer, this time using Vallejo mud 

And my last regiment of 1/72 French Line infantry!

More stuff and some dabbling with weathering

More progress on the ongoing projects:

A squad of Ancient Britons for Jonathan

Another regiment of 1/72 French Line by Italeri

And now my experience with weathering a 28mm tank model. I have never tried weathering - my stuff typically looks like it came right off the assembly line.

Here we go:

The kits I used:

 The model parts:

The model cleaned and assembled:

Step 1: US Olive Drab primer applied by airbrush
 

Step 2: Yellow Olive shade applied by airbrush

Step 3: US Dark Green shade applied by airbrush

 

 Step 4: US Olive basecoat applied by airbrush

Step 5: Grey Green highlight applied by airbrush

Step 6: Decals then Satin Varnish applied by airbrush

 Step 7: Camo Brown tracks and chips

 Step 8: Camo Brown with Buff track & chip highlights

 Step 9: Dark Brown Wash on tracks

 Step 10: Dark Green wash everywhere, and I should have stopped here ...

Now the ropey part....
Step 11: Pigment application followed by Binder - I used pigment wetter with water on the tracks for mud accumulation, followed by a dusting overall of pigment for road dust, then tried to fix that in place using binder. Then dullcote over top. 

I am unhappy with the binding step - it pooled pigment in the crevices and it was lost from flatter surfaces. Maybe dullcote contributed to that. Here it is with some newly painted Airborne dudes.

I tried an overwash with Agrax to tone down the stone grey dust, and reapplied dry pigment to the tracks, but I think it looks like shit

My chum Kevin tells me he had the same experience with binder, and the only solution is to throw out the model...

I am way too cheap to do that, so it will just have to play with it as it looks.
 

I need more practice with pigments!