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I usually play with all the models I paint and these are no exception. These are my Brewster Buffalo US Navy fighters painted up in the colors and markings of Marine squadron VMF-221. The famous squadron at Midway that rushed into the Japanies forces in the begining of the fight knowing that they had crap aircraft and inferior training. Unfortunatly most of them died but their deeds will live on forever. I painted them up for use in Blood Red Skies. Like the real planes, they are also crap in the game but I just had to jump at the opportunity to do my little tribute to them.

It is never a good idea to play a alternate history video game when you own a 3d printer and love history. My first mini off the the printer is the T95 tank destroyer It was an American prototype. This is in 1/100 scale and it is big for that scale. It will need to be cured tomorrow and cleaned up for assembly. Here it is mock assembled next to a Flames of war 76mm Sherman. Currently working on tiger 2, 105 Pershing and E-100 Turrets. The hulls will come after that. Now to find a good looking Maus Stl .

Yes! We can do it again! Let's make a tank! Let's make a beautiful tank! Once again, it's a diorama project based on a game scene, once again, it's Combat Mission. In this particular diorama, the commander of a Panzer III M is a reallylucky person. In a shootout during the Let's Play of German wargaming channel "TaktikfuchsTV", his Panzer III got hit around 20-25 times, prompting everyone to believe that this particular tank was dead. And I mean ... DEAD! But to everyone's surprise, the crew reentered the vehicle and drove away - going like: Here's the scene: Kauder reenters his tank (In German) So I got me a commanders figure and a tank ... First off, some pictures to see what this project will look like: So I got me a Panzer III from Tamiya and started to do some minor conversions ... and over the course of one afternoon, this vehicle was finished. I am really proud of those selfmade smoke launchers. The vehicle will be displayed with open hatches. That's a challenge due to the really lame interior, but that's not a problem. I'll use colors to make the less detailed parts dark and the detailed parts white - I hope that will work! Tomorrow I'll go over the armor and do the shell damages. The only thing I am not certain about is the frontal armor provided by the spare tracks. I don't know how those look when they are hit. They are pretty massive and I simply cannot imagine them looking the same way as a normal armor plate when hit. I've got to dig deeper into it.

Hello everyone, A new piece of work. This time it's a WWII themed diorama, 1/72 scale (which makes around half the size of a 28mm figure. The diorama itself has around the size of two smartphones. The whole project is my entry to a painting competition in a German forum and the first finished work since February 2020 - so one year ago. The main model, PzKpfw IV Ausf. J, is almost 25 years old. I got this model when I was a kid, and I painted it thickly using email colours, but I never assembled it. Last August, when I moved, I found the model and gave it an overhaul, and when February arrived, I took my time to paint it, do the figures and the diorama. As always: If you like what you see, and you have nothing more to say, leave a like as a nod to my participation in the forums. I don't need "nice", "cool", "excellent" or "awesome", because those words are used way too frequently to mean anything. // // When I have got time, I need to get some plywood to cover the outside of the diorama, but, to be honest - I am way too lazy to do it now. lol. Check my Instagram page for other work, if you like: https://www.instagram.com/sistermarynapalm/

I know there are a few folks that do Bolt Action and similar 28mm wargaming (@buglips), so I thought I'd bounce this out there. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tftb/world-war-ii-soviet-railroad?ref=discovery_recommendations Story Railroads are an important means to transport troops, equipment, ammunition and all other kinds of supply to the front. Especially in a country as vast as the Soviet Union with it's endless steppes, only few reliable roads and no major rivers running in the direction of the German advance during Operation Barbarossa in World War II. With this set of detailed buildings and rolling stock in 1/56 scale for 28mm figures you get the opportunity to recreate the crucial fighting around the Soviet railroad system. The kits focus on the major pieces of rolling stock available to the Soviet defenders: box cars, gondola cars and flat cars. And the mighty ALCo RSD-1 Diesel Engine which was made available under the US Lend-Lease Act. Also included is a typical rural train station with optional additional platforms for all who want to depict a Soviet - or captured German - supply depot, where heavy equipment like tanks and guns are being unloaded. And for all of you looking for an armored train - don't worry! We have you covered. Talking about railroad tracks: We did not see the need to reinvent the wheel, so all kits are designed to be used with 4Ground Railroad Tracks (available as add-ons to the Kickstarter) or O Gauge Model Railroad Tracks The kits include optional parts enabling you to choose your favorite system while assembling. Going this route has allowed us to concentrate on designing and producing the rolling stock only, which has the advantage of an earlier fulfillment date for the Kickstarter. All models are highly detailed on the outside and inside. The interiors are easily accessible, as roofs are removable. In addition, all doors are moveable, which means you can open or close them during gameplay.

Friend of mine asked me to paint these for his Flames of War army. He did the assembly and primer, and will be adding crew and markings. He likes painting 15mm infantry and can't stand doing vehicles for some reason. I'm pretty much the opposite! Anyway, I'm assuming they're Battlefront models. Base colors were airbrushed with Tamiya. Details and highlights were Reaper and Vallejo. Tried using oil paint for the wash for the first time and 'm really impressed with how well it works for this application. Surface tension is a LOT lower than using acrylics so it's a lot easier to get the wash into all the nooks and crannies. Used pigments to add 'texture' to the tracks and dirty up the fenders. All the 'metal' bits are actually done with a mechanical pencil and 2b lead. Pretty happy with how these turned out.

The nice detail of this game is it can be used with just the Aircraft Cards without the miniatures if you need to travel light. So now the WWII game:With all the planes to scale, makes the bombers huge. As I said, there is more to come, stay tuned.

Hello everyone, Some of you already know my Roza Shanina build (Check here ->Let's present ... Roza Shanina<-) and my Russian tank commander and tank rider build (Check here ->Painting female Soviet tank commanders and tank riders<-) and some might have noticed the little glimpse of what I was working on at the headswap topic (check ->here<-). But now it is time to present the project as a whole. Whoever is interested in the background of the project might find an answer in this post ->here<- So, let's get started. As at the the time I started the project my sculpting skills were far inferior to what I am able to do today, I needed some plain surface for sculpting female attributes onto the body. Luckily Warlord Games had just released a number of Soviet Russians in winter clothing, so I took the opportunity to get me a box of them and started working. Unfortunately the heads I wanted to use were unavailable so I began working on the bodies alone. Not a problem for me. I am running around headless most of my time, so I know what I am doing. After having cut out and cleaned the bases, it was time to go onto the bodies. Using some greenstuff it was rather easy to make males into females. And luckily there are a lot of reference pictures of real female soldiers in WWII. Yeah - well. Those who know me know that I normally reject reality and substitute my own. Therefore - mixed real and anime approaches to make the girls visually appealing on a greater distance. Time to dry!

These have been in the WIP section for a while now and I finally finished them up. If your are curious about the process I have a complete list of links to my blog detailing everything that was done. I finished three of these but figured you only need to see pictures of one of them, they are all very similiar. The U304(f) are captured WWII French Halftracks (P107) which were armored by the Germans and served with the 21st Panzer Division in Normandy. They are among a large number of conversions of French vehicles created by Major Alfred Becker. https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/04/world-war-ii-project-return-to-normandy_30.html [The Beginning] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/05/world-war-ii-project-return-to-normandy.html [Axles] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/05/world-war-ii-project-return-to-normandy_4.html [Windscreens] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/05/world-war-ii-project-return-to-normandy_5.html [MGs] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/05/world-war-ii-project-return-to-normandy_7.html [Primer] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/05/world-war-ii-project-return-to-normandy_11.html [Base Coat] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/05/world-war-ii-project-return-to-normandy_12.html [Decals] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/08/world-war-ii-project-p107-fu304-f-21st.html [Paintwork] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/08/world-war-ii-project-p107-fu304-f-21st_25.html [Paintwork con’t] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/09/world-war-ii-project-p107-fu304-f-21st.html [Chipping] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/09/world-war-ii-project-p107-fu304-f-21st_10.html [Streaking] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/09/world-war-ii-project-p107-fu304-f-21st_17.html [Dust & Dirt] https://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2020/09/world-war-ii-project-p107-fu304-f-21st_10.html [Tracks & Wheels]

I finally finished some of the WWII German tanks that I have in the stash. These are a bit on the unusual side even for the Germans. The 21st Panzer Division was part of the German’s D-Day defenses but had not really been properly equipped. Major Alfred Becker converted Obsolete French tanks and carriers to help equip the Division. These are from Mad Bob Miniatures, they are all resin and only require a bit of assembly. The resin is a bit on the soft side and the longer gun had to be straightened. The castings are a bit rough as well but since they are gaming pieces I didn’t take the time to smooth things out, just normal prep. I would have liked something a bit more detailed but, for the price and the amount of use they will see, they are about perfect. , Here are the ones I have completed so far: Starting off with the mSPW S307(f) with a Pak 40 ATG Then 3 self propelled artillery pieces, SdKfz 135/1 “Lorraine Schlepper” These are relatively small vehicles so they don’t need a lot of storage room. Since they are open topped they will be getting a few crew figures at some point as well. The 135/1 should have a blade in the back to absorb recoil when the gun is fired. I’m still considering scratch building these because they seem a bit incomplete right now.

Today marks the 76th Anniversary of what has been dubbed "The Longest Day", when the push to liberate Europe from NAZI Oppression and predation set foot on the beaches of Normandy, France. Please keep all the brave men [and the corp of Nurses who didn't have to but volunteered anyway] who sacrificed so much for all of us in that and the subsequent days and months. GEM Proud to be a US Navy Veteran

The Show-Off thread for my Soviet Russian female Batallion project. You can find the WIP-thread here: ->Let's make ... Soviet Russian Female Battalion for Bolt Action<- So ... without further Ado, let's get into the presentation ... The first three figures are done. C&C are welcome. Next group is already on its way.

Didn't order this fella; there was a minor mixup in my order (which was corrected, I must say, with incredible speed--thank you, North Star/Artizan customer service!). BUT--I'll not complain about more pulp-era characters to paint! The Desert Fox is pretty useful for a variety of campaigns of varying pulp levels. Tried to make the colors match his official portrait. Here he is in a North African setting, with a toy car that is historically inaccurate but a good color match. A tank would have been better, but as we all know, a field-marshal goes to war with the army he has, not the army he wants. Other angles below. I call this one "Erwin Has A Bad Day." Special guest appearances by WWWOz Lion, Zenith, and Frank Buck.

This implausibly zaftig Soviet lady (50226) has been painted up for well over a year, but I didn't want to take pictures until I had a good background. The propaganda posters for the Moon Communists took care of that problem, though! Comrade Kozlov comes with some rubble, timbers and a brick wall, which I elected to use as set dressing, A few coffee stirrers made a barricade of the right height for her to lean on. Give her a line of sight down the Stalingrad streets and she will be Death in high boots. I'm not even going to make a pretense towards accuracy on the uniform. I just like that pale greyish purple. (I think it was Slaanesh "grey" mixed with a drop of dark blue or maybe purple wash). More Soviets inbound!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/fabled-wwii-aircraft-carrier-discovered-77-years-after-it-was-sunk/ar-BBTug8u “The ship was found more than 17,000 feet below the surface, on the floor of the South Pacific Ocean near the Solomon Islands. The USS Hornet is best known for launching the important Doolittle Raid in April of 1942 and its role in winning the Battle of Midway. Richard Nowatzki, 95 now, was an 18-year-old gunner on Hornet when enemy planes scored several hits, reports CBS News' Mark Phillips.”

After I started working on my Soviet Russian girls, I soon noticed that I missed some usable terrain. So it was time for me to start making some. I checked my stuff and ... unfortunately I didn't have got any usable terrain. But I had some 28mm Warhammer 40k barrels and boxes. So ... what to do with those? ... Luckily I am a person full of ideas and dreams and melancholy. So I remembered back in the days when I was young, I played a game called "Blitzkrieg". "Blitzkrieg" was a lovely game using a lovely graphic engine for displaying things. And they had this wonderful supply depot, which I think would be perfect First off I have have to prepare some boxes to later have a good foundation for the blanket. ... which ended in in looking like this: Time to paint!

Hello everyone, So this is my first project ever posted in this forum - yay. I am so excited. Anyway - I have to admit I am not the best miniature painter - I am far away from that. I can't understand color theory, keep forgetting important steps and in those moments where I should be patient, I can't wait and ruin everything. Haha - nevertheless I try to become better and therefore I started this project. Some time ago I came up with the idea to create an all-female soviet infantry battalion for the Bolt Action wargame. If you want to know more, please check out this link: Strike Witches - All-Female Soviet Infantry Platoon (Warlord Games Forum) It soon became apparent to me that the use of infantry alone wouldn't make any sense, so I decided to get me some tanks and personnel to man them - tank riders and officers to command the vehicles. My army itself is painted in a merely tabletop standard, but as I am always flashed by what a good painter can achieve, I want to take the chance and try to enhance my skills by reading and watching tutorials on how to improve certain aspects of my painting and as the tanks will be standing out of the masses of infantry, I want their commanders to stand out, too. That said, I started painting the three ladies using i.e. Corporeas face painting tutorial, didn't like the outcome, stripped them (*chuckles*) of all the paint, started painting again, ruined the job once more, stripped them again, painted once more, liked the face, ruined the leather, stripped them again and so on - I guess a plastic kit would be molten by now. After a longer time without having the ability to paint, I returned to the painting table just to figure out I had forgotten almost everybit of knowledge I aquired regarding painting. So I went back here, but unfortunately Corporeas Tutorial was not "illustrated" anymore, thanks to photobucket. So I decided to join the forum to inspire myself how to paint and to make some steps forward in painting miniatures. Let's go. The original figure I got looked like this: Due to some ... breast issues in the wargaming forum I was present at that time ("Well, we like to play armies who in reality commited mass murder, but - oh my good - did you attach boobs to this figure?! How dare you?!" and so on) I decided to fuel the fire - and I really like the outcome. It reminds me a bit of anime figures. Haha. She looked like this: But as I wrote, I then totally screwed up the paintjob like a complete idiot and now I am back to square one. Well then ... here we go again. I had to correct some scratches in the Greenstuff, so that should be dry by tomorrow, then I'll base coat her and will start painting. Slowly and steady. One step after the other - and we will see where this ends. See you next time!

An Australian documentary about the Bristol Beaufighter serving in the South West Pacific during WWII... Interesting for an American to see something like this, as most documentaries I see are either American, or British....

Hello everyone, New (or rather ... old) Show Off. Some time ago I read about Roza Shanina, a Soviet-Russian sniper who fought during WWII on the Russian front. So ... I kind of got bewitched by her. So I when Stoessis Heroes (small company's range of more or less famous heroes of WWII) started to produce a miniature inspired by Liudmyla Mykhailivna Pavlychenko, I had to get it, convert it and paint it. The picture that inspired me aaaaaand .... the outcome of my work.

I have managed to side track myself onto another project. This is to support my WWII skirmish gaming needs with a nice selection of buildings to represent farms and smaller villages in the Normandy countryside. I have been gradually acquiring troops for the Normandy invasion (and painting them even slower) and realized that I don't really have any terrain to go with them. This first building is an exercise in using photo realistic images to replace most of the painting that is normally required on one of these. While the initial building took longer than anticipated I think I succeeded in lowering the amount of time I needed to spend with a paint brush on it. I might even explore using some of these "textures" on buildings for my western town of Calamity. There are a number of posts on my blog going through the build http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/04/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/04/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_28.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_3.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_4.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_8.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_10.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_15.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_17.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_18.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_22.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo_24.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/06/world-war-ii-project-buildings-photo.html

I have been working on these off and on since December. I just don't have enough time to paint anymore and a couple of other projects ended up taking priority. The two half tracked vehicles are the Pak 40 Auf S307(f) and the fully tracked vehicle with the big gun is a Geschutzwagen 39H(f). These vehicles are from the 21st Panzer Division during the Normandy invasion. At the time the 21st was critically short of armored vehicles so Alfred Becker setup a workshop and lead the team that converted the captured French armor. On the halftrack vehicles the designation indicates that it is equipped with the German 75mm anti-tank gun mounted on an S307 halftrack with the "(f)" indicating that it is French based. The same applies to the 39H(f), a vehicle based on the hull of a French 39H tank. If you are interested in the process here are links back to my blog that follow the whole project from start to finish. http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2016/12/assembling-wwii-german-armor-from.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/01/assembling-wwii-german-armor-from.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/01/madbobs-miniatures-prepping-time-with.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/01/madbobs-miniatures-evening-of-priming.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/01/madbobs-miniatures-evening-of-yellow.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/01/madbobs-miniatures-getting-on-with-camo.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/02/madbobs-miniatures-filters-washes-and.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/02/madbobs-miniatures-some-paint-and-decals.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/04/world-war-ii-project-return-to-mad-bobs.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-german-armor-mad.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2017/05/world-war-ii-project-german-armor-mad_11.html

Who? You've probably seen her.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/elie-wiesel-nobel-laureate-holocaust-survivor-night-author-dies-87-n603006 Elie Wiesel, author, Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has died, aged 87. His memoir, "La Nuit" ("Night" in English), which tells of his experiences as a teenager in the Auschwitz death camp, is extraordinarily harrowing and powerful. Wiesel devoted his life to peace and tolerance.

WWII was a major conflict and as such there are many model kits and miniatures out there. However it has always struck me as odd that there are so few Japanese forces made. Sure, there are some airplane kits, and some Chi-Ha tanks and a few infantry kits. But is like they were a minor force if we compare it to the abundance of German, Russian and Allied troops. I mean you can buy models from a lot of regular trucks, half tracks and such, but the Japanese only get a Tank or two? Maybe I've been looking at the wrong places. And I must admit I haven't been following new releases for WWII kits. But lately I got a little interest again. So I'm curious, I prefer 28mm metal miniatures for this, what is out there depicting Japanese WWII forces? Preferably vehicles. Anyone know of a few nice metal kits?

I'm getting back into WWII skirmish gaming so that, of course, meant that I needed a new "army". I opted for a more elite force this time and started off with British Airborne troops nicknamed the Red Devils for the maroon beret that they wore. These particular minis are from Warlord Games for their Bolt Action WWII rules. I'll be using Chain of Command from Too Fat Lardies instead. I like the "feel" of Chain of Command better and it has some interesting game mechanics. The British Airborne camouflage jacket is known as the Denison smock and consisted of a slightly greenish yellow base colored cloth painted using large brushes with green and brown swatches. This meant that literally every smock was different. The first section of troops along with a supporting machine gun are done, although they still need to be based. I ended up having to order bases which might arrive this week, I received a notice that they were shipped today. From start to finish: And the WIP progress on my blog for those that are interested: http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2015/09/warlord-games-red-devils-session-1.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2015/09/warlord-games-red-devils-session-2.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2015/10/warlord-games-red-devils.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-denison-smock-wg-red-devils-session.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2015/10/warlord-games-red-devils-session-5.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2015/10/warlord-games-red-devils-session-6.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2015/10/warlord-games-red-devils-session-7.html