Basement productivity at it's finest

Happy Halloween!!! So yes, it's Halloween, dress up in your spooky costumes, go trick-o-treating with the kids, pass out goodies, sit at home and veg while eating candy and watching scary movies or go about your day like I did.

With the recent Nor-Easter (as they're called here), I've found myself with extra time on my hands, trapped in the house. So I've gotten around to some minor upkeep around the office.

Here's the old office. Yes, I do have a poster to a movie that I didn't like very much. What? It was on sale...

I made my own turf mat, replacing the old tiles. I basically just took some brown construction paper and some modelling flock followed by tonnes of glue. I then stapled it down to the table.

I began working on the new moderns. However, I'm a little bit short on primer, so I sprayed what I could out of the can onto the miniatures and found that I could only completely cover 3 total. I haven't yet decided who to assign the British and the Americans to. I'm debating whether or not to assign the British in this set to the 5th Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment (I like the Irish Regiments and the Welsh Regiments in particular) and the Americans to the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment. I tampered with painting them a desert camo, but I like woodland camo.

Here's the British section leader.

And the 2 yanks.

So have a fun and relatively safe Halloween!!!

British and American set by Elhiem

I got these in the mail today. Very glad I got them. It's my first time painting U.S. miniatures, so the painting might be somewhat experimental.

An overview of the yanks in the foreground and the Brits in the background.

Well stay tuned, folks!

A, B and Recce Company of the 435th Battalion finished

Today I put one of the last soldiers of my Givati Brigade regiment, the 435th Battalion.

A Company (in 20mm) is 8 Men (or in this case Women too, there is a woman soldier in this battalion), B Company is 8 men and my Recce Company is 8 men as well.

Here's the 435th in all it's glory. The pictures are a bit dark, but it still shows all of them.

Here's the Sayeret Coy. Sure, it's only got 7 men (I've added one since), but they still give me some good ol' fashioned reconnaissance!

Here's B Company. Its more of an assault company, with a majority of officers, support gunners and grenadiers.

And finally A Coy. A Coy. is more of a specialized unit. It is better for keeping back and sniping (hence the sniper) and for covert operations (the Frogman).

That's all for now! I've already begun assigning my next 24 troops to the 890th Battalion of the Paratrooper Brigade.

A Coy of 4 Bn, Parachute Regiment: (Almost) Done

As fall rolls in, I find myself making more and more preperations for the winter, which is coming very soon.

Here's A Coy. of the 4th Para. Bn. Minus the Sterling gunner who is the Company Commander, the company is so far done.

Though the picture is pretty blurry, it's one of the grunts on the company.

Another grunt. I used a different paint for the DPM pattern, and I painted on large blotches of green first, and then added some brown stripes and splotches over that. I like it a little more. 

My favourite one so far.

Here's the one that I showed you guys for the DPM tutorial.

This was the first one that I painted of A Coy.

That's all for now. When I do get some 20mm miniatures of the same era (the Cold War) I will make another company.

Painting British Cold War Infantry

Well, this is a first for me, a painting tutorial. I've never really done this, but I do think I can do it!
We're going to be painting British Army infantry from the Cold War, particularly the 1970's or 80's, at the time of The Troubles was in it's prime.

Here's the figure for the tutorial. It's from Mongrel Miniatures, and it's the British Marines set which I showed you yesterday. Well anyway, put the black basecoat on, let it dry and then begin painting.

First paint your webbing. Paint it Humbrol 117, which is a dark green.

Now for the uniform base. It's Humbrol 71.

Okay, now for the beginning of the DPM pattern. First paint the brown swoops, I used Humbrol 70 for that. Some of you may be wondering how to paint consistant swoops, well I have an answer. All you need to do is just paint letters. Yup, letters. I find that the letters e, f, an upside down y, p, x, z, c v and j tend to work really good. Also and upper-case L. Those all work good. Make sure to fill in about 2/3 of the uniform base.

For the SLR L1A1 I used Humbrol 70 as well.

Okay, now for the green splotches. Use Humbrol 86 for that. Do the same letter before, except fill in the spaces that you left. Just leave some base showing.

For the squigly black lines, those don't really have to be a letter. Any shape does fine.

For the flesh I used Humbrol 61.

I can't remember what paint this is, all it really is is just some red paint I got at AC Moore. However, you don't have to paint it Red for the Paras, you can paint it an colour you want.

After I washed it, painted the eyes and everything, it came out okay. I think the DPM came out more when I washed it.

Well that's all, folks! If you have any questions at all just leave a comment and I'll answer them.

Mongrel Miniatures 28mm British Infantry

I got these today, very happy! I've been looking for some good 28mm Cold War miniatures, and it looks like I got my first set. I ordered the set NATO 01 and BRITISH MARINES WITH SLR'S. They're both from Mongrel Miniatures.

Here they are, all 8 of them. It's 4 in a bag each.

Here's a British soldier with a Sterling (all of the others have SLR's)

Looks like he found contact. Maybe an Irish rebel or an Argentinian conscript.

Sorry it's a bit shaky.

Another one... sorry!

Here's the first of the Marines. I might paint them accordingly to the Paras, though.

Shooting.

He must be marching. 

A big thanks to Mongrel Miniatures for giving me these awesome minis. I should have them painted soon.