Modern US Army: MH-6 and AH-6J "Little Birds" finished

The 160th SOAR "Little Bird" helicopters are finished. The BlackHawks will be started soon.

They don't call it a "Predator" for nothing... MQ-1 Predator UAV - DONE !!!

Well, what can I say? It's finished. :-)

They don't call it a "Predator" for nothing... MQ-1 Predator UAV (cleaning and touch ups WIP)

All right, so this is where the magic happens: I tried to remove the excess of oil paint from the panel wash (mind you - its more than 36 hours later!) and guess what: it works ! ! !

I never tried this technique before and I am stunned how good it works.

Just compare the pics from yesterday with those I made just a couple of minutes ago.

Thanks to the gloss varnish before adding the panel wash, I could simply rub off all excess of oil paint wash with an old cotton cloth onto which I applied some turpentine.

shot from above - now I am off to apply decals!
sensor turret details

Stunning: all those nice rivets and panels of the access lids

The panel lines now really stick out nicely.

Even if those panel lines are very very narrow, they still "pop out" of the grey now.

Britannia Miniatures and Grubby Tanks - UPDATE

Piers asked me to post this:

"Spoke to Andy briefly last night and he has started production again of alot of the Britannia lines. He has been working pretty much flat out to get things going so if you are after stuff, drop him an email. Word of warning - Andy is REALLY busy so dont be surprised if it takes a day or two for him to get back to you. Finally, Andy hopes to get a new Britannia Miniatures website up and running. He has asked me to help illustrate it with pics so I hope to help him build something that will drive the business forward. He has also not forgotten Grubby Tanks and has loaded up several new images there too. All in all, he is working hard to get things sorted and he seems to be doing very well!"

They don't call it a "Predator" for nothing... MQ-1 Predator UAV (panel wash WIP)

20mm SSgt Randy Sykes for a size comparison...

As you can see I have applied the oil paint panel wash. There is some excess oil paint scattered around the model, but thanks to the gloss varnish I will be able to remove that with ease tomorrow.

They don't call it a "Predator" for nothing... MQ-1 Predator UAV (painting WIP)

Next steps completed:
I sprayed the entire model with Light Grey and painted the details with various Vallejo colours (not many details to paint; missile, propeller, sensors, landing gear).

Today I applied a satin varnish (gloss would be recommended, but I didn't have any).When this has dried, the panel wash with oil paints will be done next.


So far it looks like that (crappy pics, sorry)

They don't call it a "Predator" for nothing... MQ-1 Predator UAV

I wanted to finish the Little Birds today but somehow got distracted by this lovely little quick-build: a MQ-1 "predator" UAV.

It was a RQ-1 Predator (which is not armed) from Italeri which I upgraded using resin parts from Unicraft. The MQ-1 can be armed with up to two M114 Hellfire missiles. I didn't like the resin missiles so I took one of my unbuilt Apache helicopter from HobbyBoss.

I will have to build a very large flying base for this one, but I simply wanted a model for the appropriate Fog Of War card in Force On Force. *evil grin*

No, the GW base won't stay - it only helps to paint this beast.

Modern US Army: MH-6 and AH-6J "Little Birds" work in progress (3)

Both "Little Birds" on their flight stands. Not really completely finished, but it gives an impression of how its going to look like.

The MH-6. The glass section of the canopy is a pain to fit. :-/

The SHQ pilots. Normally for Vietnam - but I think they well look the part for 160th SOAR from Mogadischu all the way to Iraq 2003.

The Business-End of an armed AH-6J "Little Bird". Ever since I was watching Black Hawk Down for the first time I adore those awesome little combat machines.

7-shot Hydra pods and M134 Miniguns...

Now I will need to put finishing touches to those models and start with the MH-60s.

HUMINT, May 2011, Vol. 2: new releases for gaming "moderns"

HUMINT = human intelligence. A new series of posts on my blog about news of various tabletop miniature producing companies concerning "moderns". The pictures were taken off the producers' catalogues with their prior permission. Cheers for that guys!
Links to their webshops can be found within the right column of my blog (see sources for 20mm....).

S&S Models releases for this month:

Taliban gun crew for ZSU-23-2 aa gun

a shot up pick-up and rubbish skips barricade

the shanty's are finaly ready to buy, either singley or in packs of 5 assorted

we also have a few more types of burning tyres and hasty barricades

a 6 fig range of again non specific usa gun armed, (m4's, minimi, ect), modern body armoured troops with bare heads or basebal caps (SOF, advisors, contractors, mercenaries etc)

"school bus" barricade

new items have been added to the packs to give more variety

Taliban gunner for aa gun

some police type paramilitaries, a range of 10 figs with berets and russian weapons

population, a range of african youth militia -

armed with a variety of weapons, ak's, pkm's, rpg's, fn's, gpmg ect, some are fully clothed others not,typical of the sort of child soldiers used in africa

ZPU-1 AA gun

the shanty detail pack:

20 piece random assortement of useful details like, washing lines, water tanks, tubs, girders, corugated tin, oil drums, doors and other usefull stuff

106mm recoilless rifle

the weapons fit into the resin technicals (note: there are ground and vehicle mount tripods)...

recoilless rifles fit the back of the HiLux and other technicals

african gunners for the aa gun

TheHobbyDen releases for May 2011:

Toyota HiLux without rear cabin.