Bits Bits and Bobs

Alot of how much we are willing to pay for something comes down to how much of it we get. There's also the detail, accuracy and quality of sculpting, etc. But most things in miniature modelling on are a similar level these days and fall into similar price brackets. If you are a student scumming off my parents like I am, or have screaming kids, or are just plain old fiscally aware (Scroogey) then we really want to save money while still enjoying ourselves in our hobby.

I thought about it long and hard. Then I decided I would sit down and compare some similar kits from different companies and see what kindof quality and volume you got from them.

Then I thought this was boring and thought I would make use of my intense gymnastic and martials arts training as a young, orphaned child and instead dressed up as a catwoman/ninja and broke into a Modelzone warehouse to steal tanks and glue. Previously I had only used my skills for breaking into fine art institutions containing legendary works of art or the guarded houses of old horrible ladies owning piles of jewels. Silently and invisible skulking around buildings, ducking out of sight of wandering flashlights and the gazes of portly underpaid security guards. Applying amazing strength and finesse to bound over complicated sensors and detection systems.Sneaking up on highly trained guard dogs to give them paralyzing belly rubs before they could scent me and become aggressive.

The warehouse was different. It wasn't easy like stealing a Faberge Egg. I couldn't put swanky music and a suit on and just whisk it out from under someones nose in an overly complicated but dull series of stupid coincidences and waste of acting talent. This would take planning, practice, and skill.

I planned a route through the building. I could get in through a small window on the top level of storage, but I would not be able to leave through it again with a full bag on my back. Thinking back I could have pushed the bag through first and then followed myself, but it's too late now. Maybe next time I crave hundreds of tiny contacta glues I'll try it.

Entry should have been simple. I just had to climb up the side of the building using the guttering and then swing myself through the unlocked window. I should have been wearing my giant whiskers; my ass got stuck and I made a loud ooph noise as my momentum was stolen. Approaching footsteps told me that the men working the night shift were not accustomed to their boxes making oomph noises and had come over the see if there was anything happening. I saw his belly round the corner first and began a desperate wiggle to escape.

You may think you have wiggled desperately, but until you are stuck halfway through a window with your arse in the rain and a fat man waddling towards you with a flash light you haven't wiggled at all. It chaffed slightly.

I can suck my stomach in. I haven't worked out how to suck my ass in so decided to abandon the window idea and finally pulled myself out. My swearing and clanging on the metal of the walls had made quite a racket and attracted the attention of the men doing inventory overnight. They had all come to my position, and as I clung to the guttering outside I could here someone getting the lift over to check the window.

A graveyard shift - not many of them in the building. I slide down the soaked pipe with much swearing and I think I ripped my trousers too. I legged it as fast as I could to the side door, propped open so the blokes could stick their head out for a cigarette every so often. Luckily the downpour was heavy, as I ran like a cat being soaked in the rain - yowling and hissing everytime my foot hit a puddle and arching my back and baring my teeth when water sloughed off the side of the building down my back. I poked my head in and grabbed the first small box off a shelf that I could see. Then I popped back out and splashed home in the rain, elated with my success.

Sitting at home I decided although I had the option of employing years worth of intense training and skill, I should use it for good - like Batman. That was why I had chosen to emulate catwoman after all. And ninjas. There were ninjas in the first Batman film. So here's a comparison of what you can get in different boxes, and what kindof price you can get them at.

My father and I sat down together to build a Revell Truck thing from the 1950's or sometime around then. I'd picked up the thingy and a Sherman tank by Revell for about £8 each at Modelzone on sale. They are 1:35 scale; a tiny bit bigger than 40K scale.

This was the beastie we were putting together. I didn't think it would be too big a deal - then I pulled out the sprues and saw the hundreds of tiny its. Father and I decided to go crazy and follow the instructions. It started us off building the engine; we were building from the inside out.

Yes I understand this

 Here's the sprues

These are the canvas sheets that cover the form of the track, and some external accessories like the jerry cans. 

Here's a mix of things including shocks, window wipers and strange magical components that make vehicles go broom broom.

Some more external components like the wheel covers. 

The set even comes with tiny window wipers and mirors.

It took damn well ages to get anything put together. Here's what we managed to get assembled.

We realized as we tried to go further from here that we were putting together very fiddly things that we kept crushing with our stupid impracticed hands like the clutch pedal. Instead we decidedto start building things from the outside in, and see what bits were left over.

Essentially the truck is a cube and therefore only requires six pieces to complete, give or take a few. There's so much on the sprue that is aimed at people wanting historical accuracy but in reality there's not much needed for the model to work structurally. Most of it can be used as mechanical bits in bases or in conversions.

Most non-GW type sets come with these. Revell, Dragon, some Tamiya sets. Even if you don't want the model itself, or the set isn't the right scale these are really good to pick up when you see them on sale and use for parts. The actual outside of this truck for example would be really good half buried in a diorama.

Green, everywhere!

After the travesty of the Sammael model JK bought a painted one off the internet and sent me some of his tanks to do instead. I have three rhinos - two of which are older than I am! Two are first edition rhinos from 1988, one is normal one. The old ones are so tiny compared to new ones - it's really cute. They are also going to be Dark Angels paint scheme, but before I started I wanted to work in some battle damage. I had just gotten my hands on the Imperial Masterclass book on tanks by Forgeworld and was following a few of their guides for this.

I had tried to find pictures of battle worns tanks and damaged tanks on the net but I found that either tanks become completely destroyed - ripped apart, blown in half, torn open like a monkey too aggresively opening a banana - or looked fairly ok. Tanks either got a few bullet holes, maybe scrapped by a few bigger things, or they take a full hit and just die.

I just used a scalpel and a set of diamond files. 

My tools. Fizzy orange is very important.

I do all my painting in mood lighting.

 You can see at the top right of the front I have taken a notch out where the tank could've taken a glancing blow from anti-tank fire. I just laid my round crystal file on it and rolled it and sawed a bit until I got a good depth. 

 

I didn't take any pictures  that I can find of this process. I actually grabbed one of my metal sculpting tools and started scrapping at the centre of the spot where I wanted the damage to be. In the Imperial Armour book they used a burr on a hand tool to start wearing away parts of their tanks. After a while I started to wear away at the area around the centre. Then as you can see I added two larger streaks going across it diagonally to give a sense of directionally to whatever hit the tank. 

Then I accidentally shoved my file through the plastic! On the side of a new tank you can feel it start to thin and go but on this one I just went straight through. I just drilled it out a bit more to make it look like it was intentional! I made sure not to keep the hole neat and instead uneven and slightly jagged. 

On the other tank a got a bit more ambitious after seeing a picture of a tank that had had its roof and side blown apart by a partial hit. I started by hacking a hole in it to remove the roof that has been blown apart. 

I didn't do it straight on to make it look like the tank was being attacked from an angle rather than straight on. Then it came to sculpting the bit that had been blown up. You could have the piece of roof on either side I guess. I just rolled out a tiny sausage of green stuff, laid it on the edge and started to smooth it into the roof.

Then I took another slightly thicker sausage and placed it on the edge again. I worked it into the lower piece of green stuff so it didn't fall off and then I put my sculpting spatula (nice and flat) on the side of the hole to the greenstuff, and took my clay sculpter and started to push the greenstuff upwards against the spatula. 

I made the edge that had been attached all rough. Actually I stuck my thumb in it a few times and squished everything into a glob while I was doing stuff to the rest of the model. 

The other thing I did to this tank was to give it a series of shallow bullet holes across one of the side doors. 

I felt like I should have really done more but looking at all those photos I could only find working tanks that had a few marks on them, physically. When I have finished the main paint job I can start weathering it. 

I had a strange dream that I had found a limited edition pigment pot at a random shop and it was really cheap. It was an extra large pot too! But when I left the store the pot turned out to be the size of a thimble and I was very annoyed. 

Still kindof am.