1982 Falklands Air War

I have been putting off this project for months, (actually almost a year now!) But as I am currently not in a Napoleonic mood and painting the VC is turning out to be really boring (so much black). I finally broke out the airbrush and went to work on the Argentinian Mirages and Skyhawks, as well as the British Harriers.

Kind of a pain setting up (and taking down) the airbrush "station".

 

I have an Iwata HP-C (dual action) and have recently purchased a new compressor that has an air tank attached to it for a much smoother air pressure.

 

I am trying a new technique for the camouflage to get a "hard" edge. After spraying the light color (in this case brown), I used "blue" tac to cover up the lighter color and then sprayed the darker color.

 

First up was the Argentinian jets. I have already sprayed the brown, and then added the blue tac. I then sprayed the mirages bright green. Added some more blue tac (see the l9ighter color snaking tac by tail and wing edges) to cover the bright green, then sprayed the dark green.

The hard edge worked great, the two tone green not so much. I should have really brighten up the light green, but very workable game piece.

You can barley see the lighter green on the forward edge of the wings.

 

The skyhawks are pretty much the same camo scheme,
though they did not have the light green added. 

 

 

Up next were the British Harriers in the Extra Dark Sea Grey (EDSG) scheme, though in hindsight I should have done the Medium Sea Grey (MSG) as the colors are very dark on such small miniatures.

 

I sprayed the grey first and then the dark green.

I will only need four harriers for most of the games we will be running.

I am also using blue tac to "attach" the jets to the bases.

 

Next up was some detail work and the decals. At first I was going to do "white" canopies, but I thought it too stark a contrast, so went with light blue instead. Then added some black/grey to the engines and air intake ports. I decided against black lining all the groves on each jet, too many, too small.

 

 

Not a lot of decals two to four per jet ... and I think I'll put on some solvent tomorrow to see if I can get rid of the decal outline.

Might try and clean up the yellow ... I should have masked it and airbrushed the panels, but only two of the jets were getting them, so opted for the quick paint job.

Not the right Harrier for the period, but have to make do with what we have available.

 

All the jets we'll need for most of the scenarios, and took the better part of two days to complete fourteen jets ... though if I am feeling brave I might still go paint an Argentina flag on both sides the tails.

 

We'll be using Jet Age for the rules and already have an idea to print out top down views of the ships and mount on card stock for any ships needed.

 

 

 

 

Thirty Years War - 28mm P&S Project

As a few of you may know, Pat C. is working on a 30YW Pike & Shotte project, specifically he is concentrating on the Swedish army from the 1632 Battle of Lützen. I won't be doing much for this project (have enough of them already!), mainly just converting a few ECW regiments to Imperialist regiments.

Pat has three units already painted up, and I thought it would be of interest to some to get a few photos of the finished unit.

Up first is a regiment from the Blue Brigade:

For Pike & Shotte the regiment is comprised of three units, one Pike block and two Shotte sleeves.

The Pike Block is comprised of 16 models on four 40mm by 40mm bases.

 



Each Shotte Sleeve unit is comprised of twelve models ...
based four figures on a 40mm by 40mm base.

 

The illustrious leader of the brigade.

 

 

There will be more units to follow as he finishes basing up painted figures. His first wave will be five regiments of foot, three cavalry regiments, two guns and several leaders.