20mm U.S. Infantry inspired by MiniStories

Several weeks ago Mini Mike posted some awesome U.S. Infantry figures he painted up for upcoming battles.  Since I thought the way he painted his figures are spot on for US infantry for WW2.  Well I email Mike to ask him want paints he used.    Mike replied by sending a complete paint guide and how to that he used.  Mike's blog can be found here: Ministories

 Here is my work in progress.  May not be as good as Mike's.  Hope you like them.

Here are Mike's steps on how to do.

. I first paint all colours that are listed first, then a wash, then the highlights. The bold lines are the main colours you are looking for..

Try it, I did way too many testruns  and then settled for this…Noticed you do 15mm as well so I included picture of 15mm painted with these steps.

Let me know if you have any questions and good luck

Jacket:

-Vallejo Khaki 988

-Warlord strongtone ink wash (the small dropper, not the big can)

- highlight 1: 50/50 mix vallejo 826 (med brown)/ 821(german wwII beige cam)..cover most

-highlight 2: vallejo 821 

-vallejo 821 with a bit of white..just 2 or 3 touches

Trousers:

-Foundry Bay brown shade A

-optional the warlord strong tone ink wash

-Highlight 1:vallejo 826 (cam medium browns)..cover most

-Highlight 2: +/- 50/50 vallejo 826/873 (us field drab)

-optional mix in more field drab for another highlight

Webbing

-50/50 mix Vallejo 886(green grey)/893 (us dark green)

-Warlord Strontone ink wash

-Highlight 1:vallejo 886

-Highlight 2: 50/50 - mix vallejo886/884 (stone grey)

Helmet

-Vallejo 887 Brown violet

--Warlord Strontone ink wash

-Highlight 1: Vallejo 887 Brown violet

-Highligh2 optional : 50/50 vallejo 887/886

-strap; vallejo flat brown with mahogany brown highlight if you want to go for it

Boots:

-Vallejo Flat brown

-warlord strong tone ink wash

-Vallejo Flat brown

-Vallejo mahogany brown

Mike Blog is listed on  My Blogs I follow.

Bruce Hazumi amazing game table

On facebook I belong to a group called ‎1/72 1/76 Model Tanks & Military Vehicles Collectors Group. There are some amazing models there.   Here is what Bruce said:

20mm ETO Game Table
Over the past couple of years I've been building and posting drop down pieces for my game table. Of lately I built a new 4'x3' grass mat that I use to photo my miniatures on. And it came to me that it can double for a small game table. So here are some photos of the layout.
Enjoy,...
Bruce

PS Erkenbrand, my Golden Retriever, was reminding me it was time for dinner.

  This would be a great table to do a skirmish action.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as I did.

15mm terrain for battle of Jena

I belong to the "15mm terrain" group on face book.  The posting below is  from this group is simply amazing. Everyone gives free information on how to make terrain.. This has gotten me inspired to finish some projects.

Dad builds the Ulimate wargame table and room.

This is something I wanted to do. But my wife took over the basement with her massive amount of wool for knitting. Plus other useless junk.  No can only wish.

Ultimate gaming room.

Romans is raising Part 3 Imperial Roman legion

First off sorry for the quality if the pictures.  My better has put some on my lighting for pictures away in the basement.   Been busy painting these troops and with two other periods of Romans.  There are 160 figures of regular legionaries,.   If you can tell I have two legions each.  The legion is made up of normal and heavy armor legionaries.  In the one picture I have part of the praetorian guard.   More pictures tomorrow of finished legionaries.   My count on troop in the Roman collection is pushing close to 600.  Auxiliary troop not in the count.
After placing the figures on the movement stands I realized I short about twenty stand or more. The stand are from Warbases in the United Kingdom.   Need to get on line to order more.

  Thanks for looking

Getting WW2 Werhmacht colors right

I been trying to paint my German troops in 28mm.  After I paint them than an article comes out said no that is wrong,  So strip off the paint an give it a go again.

On facebook this guy post the picture below.  After you see this you will change your mind.  It is basically anything goes the is dark green.

Oldhammer legacy warband.

 This morning while reading my blog list. I found on the Quindia Studios blog a painting contest on old 40K or Warhammer figures.   Well since I have a large collection of 40K and Warhammer figures from the late 80 thru the middle 90's I thought I would give it a go.

Legacy Oldhammer warband painting contest.

More here:
Realms of chaos 80's

This could be fun... So why don't some of you dig out the old figures.

Templar Knights for saga

Thought I would post some picture of my Templar in progress.   A few weeks ago I posted on TMP on what was the best way to paint a white figure.  Everyone posted the white is the hardest color to paint.  Also to get it right.   What do you think of my attempt.  Oh the one arm is missing with the shield.  As the shield needs to be putting because of the sink mark in the middle of the shield. The knight is from fireforge.

IDF M50 Self-propelled Gun addition info

Looks like I was wrong the track type.   There were some SP with the old style track.  Somewhere there are an modernization of the M50 SP.   It seems upgrades occurred on the early 70's. The filters on the superstructure had been removed during upgrade. The gas engine was replaced with a diesel  This version would be for the six-day war.  The HVSS would be for Yom Kippour.. OOPS my mistake.

M50 Self-propelled 155mm Gun by battlefront

The other day I got my M50 Sp in the mail.  One never has enough artillery in a fight.  The model is nice, but I question the type of track it came with.   I believe the M50 SP should of came with the HVSS track system.  As most of the pictures I found on the web  show this type of track system.

• M-50 155 mm - The M-50 was an open structured self-propelled artillery piece, mounting a single French Model 50 155 mm howitzer at the back of the hull, which was based on the "long" hull of M4A4 fitted with Continental engine (late production vehicles possibly used "short" hulls from other variants). The gun was developed in the early 1960s by Israeli Ordnance Corps in cooperation with France. Probably about 120 units were produced. In early 1970s M-50s were fitted with HVSS and Cummins diesel engines. Was used in the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War. Some reserve units were armed with the M-50 at least until the late 1970s.

This is what is in the package from Battle Front.

10 separate parts . 

5 parts for the 155 mm gun, two crew figures

Plastic track from the Sherman

155mm gun installed

The finished model

 Looks like I need to buy some HVSS suspension to make it correct.  The interesting part is the model master was 3d printed.  As you can see the layers on the front hull, gun and couple other spots.  Now I need to remove the tracks... Bummer.

Ancient Chinese by Watchful I coming soon.

On your mongols with have some Chinese to fight.  This new company is hope to have the first casting around March 23, 2015.   The will be starting a kickstart project shortly.  If your into Ancient Chinese Army here you go. 

Here is what the manufacturer has to said.

 

We have 3 bodies for the warriors on foot (unarmored, lightly armored, and fully armored) and they have a wide selection of arms for each type including arms equipped with bows, crossbows, dagger-axes, spears, straight swords, curved swords, and javelins. The left arm is sculpted to the body and there are two different types of shields available for the left arm. Additional bits include a sheathed bow, quiver of arrows, quiver of crossbow bolts, and 25 different heads to choose from.
The general also has a myriad of arms to select from including both right and left arms. The general has 4 heads to choose from making a tremendous amount of combinations available between the arms and heads.
Our current work in progress are three different chariots including a light chariot, heavy chariot, and a officers chariot. We will be posting some progress of these miniatures as we get closer to completion.

Watchful I Qin dynasty Chinese 

P-51 model in flight video

Okay I had to post this video.  This is an amazing RC plane.  The owner put a video camera were the pilots head would be.  Better to watch the video...

Super cool P-51