Armed and dangerous

Progress has slowed somewhat on this, not a great time of year unfortunately, work gets very busy on the run up to Christmas.

Anyway, got the butt pack painted and finally got the right arm with the M79 mounted, just need to finish off the tiger pattern on the sleeve and I can start work on the trousers.

Tried a different approach on the metal parts of the M79, usually I use Gunze Sanygo Gunmetal which you can buff to a shine when dry. This time I just painted the metal parts with Vallejo Black Grey and used a make-up applicator to apply powdered graphite from a 4B pencil. Looks alright to me.

Get some

I have decided that I'm going to do the UH-1C as a Gunship of HA(L) 3 Seawolves. Having read the book of the same name, the door gunners would have a "free" M60 and pretty much stand out on the skids to fire it, unlike the "slick" gunners who generally had a fixed gun mount.

So messing about with some figure poses I came up with this for the port side guy. Just a mixture of Dragon and Academy upper parts - which will be seriously improved with a little scribing - and some Hobby Fan resin legs.

I think he looks quite the part so far.

Bang Sticks

I'm not sure which weapons configuration I am going to use yet but thought I would have a little fun improving the kit parts.

First up is the M134 Minigun. As you can see below, the RB models turned brass set is a slight improvement over the kit parts !

Buoyed by my success, I had a go at improving the M158 Rocket Launcher pods. Not very much of the kit parts left here now. I used MBT20 brass tube from Albion Alloys and scratch built the rear contacts and attachments.

Just have to repeat all of this work for the other side now !

Does my head look big in this ?

Out of my comfort zone I have decide to build a 1/35th Huey gunship so slowly starting to make progress on some of the bits, first up the figures.

Well it would appear that no-one makes an aftermarket helicopter head so I had a quick go at improving this one from Academy.

Obviously plonking the hollowed out helmet on a Hornet head makes all the difference too !

More old stuff - Fallschirmjager

A couple of figures from a while back, Dragon Fallschirmjager with Hornet heads; Tried a few different types of camo jump smock here.

Old Stuff

Not finished yet, still have the rifle sling and helmet strap to add.

Dragon Guadalcanal, out of the box.

Progress - It's all the little bits

Little more done.

Those Bravo6 smoke grenades are beautiful, the decals come in the box for a variety of colours and types.

More freakin' stripes

Little more done today, stayed off the coffee so I could paint some more stripes :-)

Green, everywhere

Started working up the equipment trying to keep each piece distinctly different and try to add a little variation. I used various Vallejo colours here as well as several tones from the excellent Lifecolor US uniform sets.

Interestingly, I have been told by an ex-Recon Marine that the buttpack wasn't usually carried in this position, but higher up, and I should be adding more gear to the rucksack frame. I have to agree, it doesn't really make sense for this guy to be wearing this frame with very little attached to it, yet carrying a rucksack over his shoulder.

Adding more equipment obviously means covering up all of that strapping I have just finished but it does make a lot of sense. I have a 2 quart water bladder from Bravo 6 which fits the bill here I think so will add that in next and continue to work up the uniform.

Tiger, Tiger

After several attempts, I thik I have managed to come up with a decent representation of one of the tiger patterns. This is the Late war Heavyweight Dense pattern, or LHD, copied from the excellent book "Tiger Patterns" by Sgt Richard Johnston.

For the base I used Stone Grey, the black stripes were Black Grey and the intermediate green is Russian uniform WW2. There is no shading or highlighting as yet, this is just the base colours blocked in on a spare torso to try and get the pattern right.

Men with Green Faces

Ranger, LRRP, SEAL, whatever this guy is supposed to be, they all went by the nickname "Men with Green Faces".

Whilst I was playing with different colours to get a pleasing result for the tiger stripe pattern, I decided to have a go at the camo face make-up. I have seen this done very well on large scale busts but have only tried it once before in 35th scale, I only used a dark green then and it ended up looking a little like batman !

Not deterred however, I decided to have another go on a spare Hornet head just to see how I got on

I painted the eyes first and then outlined them with my flesh base tone, 804 Beige Red in this case. The light green, 922 US Uniform Green, was then applied in thin coats. For the dark stripes I used 889 US Olive Drab then highlighted both colours by adding a little of the flesh mix to each one.

Honestly ? I'm not sure I like it, I think it may just overpower the figure once the camo pattern is painted on the fatigues. Luckily there is photographic evidence that these guys went out on patrol without camo make-up so I may just use some artistic licence and not bother.

Until the next episode...

US Airborne Reference

Took these shots of re-enactors at the Yorkshire Wartime Experience earlier this year, great event and great reference material.

Head for the Huey

Well the postman delivered the final piece in the reference puzzle, Schiffer's Tiger Patterns by Sgt Richard Johnson. Think I have enough to begin on the painting now !!

All together now, " I see a red door and I want to paint it....." GREEN

Head for the Huey

Been a long time getting to this bit, mainly because I mis-judged just how much detail was in this guy, but I think we are about ready for some paint. Yay !

Still need to add a sling for the M79 and the arms and backpack are just tacked on here. It would have been far too complicated to paint this as one piece so I have kept some bits separate.

The smoke grenades are again from Bravo 6 and these come with photo-etch pins and decals for the markings, these too have been pinned and loosely fitted so I can remove them for painting.

So, on to some practice painting that Tiger Stripe before I commit to a pattern (there are several).