Allan's 1/48 Warhawk Part i

Pictured is Hasagawa P40E marked to represent TM-N, AK863 of 111(F) Squadron, RCAF. By way of brief history, 111 Squadron was reactivated on November 3, 1941 at Rockcliffe (Ottawa) and was equipped with the Kittyhawk 1. It relocated to Sea Island (now Vancouver International Airport) from December 14, 1941 until February 17, 1942 and then relocated to Patricia Bay on Vancouver Island until June 3, 1942. From August 8, 1942 until June 1943, 111 formed part of the RCAF X Wing in Alaska combating Japanese units and Squadron Leader K A Boomer was credited with the destruction of a Rufe during this period. The unit returned to Pat Bay on August 15, 1943 and received the P40N (Kittyhawk IV). These proved unpopular and the squadron reverted with the Kittyhawk 1 obtained from other units until the squadron disbanded on January 15, 1944. The squadron was then transferred to England to reform as 440 Squadron flying Typhoons as part of 143 Wing, RCAF. Numerous pictures of 111 squadron Kittyhawks including AK 863 are shown in”440 Squadron History” ISBN 0-920002-21-8 and “RCAF Squadrons and Aircraft 1924-1968”, ISBN 0-88866-577-6. The latter is a hard bound all inclusive reference for RCAF squadrons. Although long out of print, it can still be obtained from sources like Amazon for the princely sum of about $30. Hical, Allan.

HighCalibre Warriors

The impetus behind this project arose after our Graphic designers put together our logo.

I was inspired by the clean, vivid look of the logo and its colours and with this in mind picked out a pair of kits from Games Workshop. These were the Grey Knights box and a Venerable dreadnought. I choose these two kits for a few reasons; they were both relatively young releases and as such would have flash free molds which turned out to be true and second I could picture the grey knights forming up an honor guard fireteam to defend the combat walker.

The colour scheme for this project was dictated by the logo. To this end I omitted the gold from the Grey knight livery and replaced it with a bare metal look. Interestingly enough, this provided me with the opportunity to make use of the new Citadel colour Necron Compound which is a “Dry” type of paint.

I had a lot of success with this drybrushing aid. I also took this opportunity to try out Citadel Middenland grass and the new “texture” paint on the bases of the grunts. I was particularly pleased by the texture paint as it is basically sticky muck. For the best results I found applying a black wash and a light highlight once the texture had dried worked well.

Hical James

Alpine Sniper Part II

As the subject is undercoated and I have achieved a base coat of tan on the fatigues that I am satisfied with I will begin to move on to the finer things such as the digital “MARPAT” Marine Pattern arid camouflage and the interceptor plate carrier. A note on digital patterns and camo in general, I am relatively inexperienced at achieving a successful camo pattern on a figure no matter the scale. This being said, I wanted to put down a basic tan under the dark brown Tetris like patterns and then apply those patterns in a single stroke. I have taken a moment to look up MARPAT in my references and can pick out more than two discernible colour, to this I add that I always intend to produce camo patterns that are, like real camo, meant to deceive the viewer. That is to say my camo is no meant to be a true representation of MARPAT but enough of a lookalike to “fool” the eye.

To achieve this foolery I will rely heavily on the fact that my subject is currently on a deep country combat patrol possibly during Operation Moshtarak which will allow him to realistically be utterly filthy with dust and grime. I applied the pattern to all parts using a mix of Vallejo Burnt Umber, Citadel Snakebite Leather and Citadel Mechanicus Standard Gray at a ratio of approximately 4:3:1. I took care to impose a certain randomness with the application of the pattern. Another key element is to make use of seams in cloth and natural folds. With these you should take care to not run one Tetris block over two separately manufactured pieces of cloth and when confronting folds, apply slightly larger less defined blocks in the recesses in order to make up for the lack of visibility.

On to the Interceptor, I mixed up a solid batch of basecoat using Citadel Tau Ochre, Administratum Gray and Vallejo Iraqi Tan at a ratio of 4:3:1 and applied it to the vest. Once this had dried I ran a wash of Burnt Umber, Citadel Snakebite Leather, Mechanicus Standard Gray and Chaos Black at a ratio of 4:3:1:1 in amongst the various recesses and MOLLE straps on the vest, I also took the opportunity to run the wash into the drop holster for the M9 on his right thigh. This will estabilish the boundaries and initial shadows for both the vest and the holster once details begin to be applied. Hical, James

Fisher SeaFury Part IV

Pictured is a Fischer Sea Fury with their after market wing fold upgrade. This is well engineered, well detailed and is very strong. The only problem I encountered was trying to fit the small photo etch access doors to the upper inner wing and on my next attempt will attach them before attaching the outer wing panels. With the wings folded, the landing light on the left and the ID lights on the right are prominent. The recesses are fairly shallow on the kit so I drilled them out and added MV lenses. As the lens cover on the ID lights overlapped the lenses, I covered the opening with clear plastic, blended this into the wing contour, and used a precut wheel mask smaller than the clear part and underlying lights to create the overlap effect. The result was an improvement on the stock opening but not completely convincing. The reference, Hawker Sea Fury in the Royal Canadian Navy, by Leo Petipas, again came to the rescue with several good shots of the underwings. These show the inner surface of the light housing to be chromed and not the undersurface colour. References and decals such as those from Aeromaster show 3 ID lights in a cluster. I used 2 lights and this was confirmed to be correct by a reference photo. On my next attempt, I will chrome foil the lens housing and I will further deepen and the light recesses to give a more realistic effect. Hical, Allan.

Into the Void Part II

When I planned out this vignette, I imagined the section as part of an advanced patrol moving through no-man’s land or scouring a recently vacated enemy position. The lead NCO chewing tea leaves beneath his breathing hood to counterbalance the acrid smell of the filtered air. The weapons of the section are close-in .10 gage revolver action semi-auto shotguns ideal for self-defense. I thought about the drab pallet that I would be using in throughout the scene and wanted to add small touches of oddly vibrant colours. To this end, I added blue and red bands to the cylinders on the weapons; blue for solid slugs, used by most of the section because they would want to be able to react to a close to mid-range threat and red for buck shot used by the NCO as he was on point and would be the first to spot trouble in the trench.

The simplicity of construction in the base design meant that I would need to use a lot of variety in my weathering and highlight techniques when painting it. I went through half a dozen basic highlights before beginning to add consciously random streaks of thinned dark brown on the floor and tan on the walls. These streaks were meant to be covered lightly by successive layers and would provide some variation in the monotony of brown. The decision to add turf, especially such vibrant green stuff, was based on a pile of leftover lawn rubbish outside of my apartment building. I had to walk past this small heap every time I left the house and noticed how the soil beneath the grass would become dark or light depending on how recently it had rained but the patches of grass were consistently bright and “happy” looking. I realized that even though the trench system would have been hastily dug and churned, there would still be some life in the soil. I also wanted to keep the whole thing from looking like and exercise in mud texturing. Hical, James

Fisher SeaFury Part III

The RCN Sea Fury modeled is in CSMA II scheme comprising extra dark sea grey with a high demarcation over sky. This was the second of four paint schemes carried by Canadian Sea Furies and the combination that the majority of Canadian Sea Furies in the VW serial batch were delivered, although TG 117 was the only Sea Fury from the first production batch to be so painted. The Fischer kit decals and supplemental decal sheet allow a wide range of Sea Furies to be modeled and provide markings to allow the Canadian CMSA I, CMSA II, and CMSA IV schemes to be done. My model uses Fischer national markings while the codes and serials are from the Hobbycraft kit. My favorite reference for the Sea Fury remains “The Hawker Sea Fury in the Royal Canadian Navy” by Leo Pettipas but is now 22 years old and scarce. More recent resources for Canadian Sea Furies are “Royal Canadian Navy Aircraft Finish and Markings 1944-1968” by Patrick Martin with Leo Pettipas as well as an excellent series of articles by Jennings Heilig. A comprehensive 4 part series beginning April 2006 was posted on Hyperscale and an article was published in “Model Aircraft Monthly” in the September 2006 issue. For those seeking a good selection of colour pictures of Canadian Sea Furies, I would refer you to the book “Banshees in the Royal Canadian Navy” by Carl Mills. Hical, Allan.

Into the Void Part I

This small vignette of a Death Korps of Krieg combat pioneer fire team has been a real keen interest of mine ever since I bought the figures from forge world about a year ago and now that the final piece, a small square base from Andrea miniatures arrived in the mail I was able to begin working on it.

The plan was thought out for me by the fine folks at Forge World in that they created a set of figures that screamed to be put in this halted tactical column formation. As seen in the pictures, the NCO has used a hand gesture to halt the fire team, the two center pioneers scan the flanks nervously while the tail end trooper has spun in place and watches the rear. The base was simple fashioned out of two small squares of styrene which were carved into a somewhat random ditch shape and placed on the base to give the appearance that the rifle pit was opening up at a juncture or artillery bay.

The colour scheme for the soldiers was something that I had tried on a test figure way back when and found the ochre body armour over drab fatigues to be a passable if not somewhat unimaginative combination. Given the DKK uniforms and their overwhelmingly Prussian/Kaiser like feel I wanted the colours to be regal yet functional. The initial coats on the figures were a mix of Catachan Green, Chaos Black and Gunship Green at a ratio of 6:1:3. The Plates were then painted with Khorne red from Citadel. The overall feeling applied to both the base and figures was a faded, worn, lackluster drab as if both the armour and environment had been involved in a close fought protracted conflict.

To that end, the highlights on the figures were achieved through either running Black Ink into the recesses and or using grey to build up the highlights. All metal bits were dulled and then weathered with a brown mix. I then touched the occasional exposed edge up with Citadel Chainmail (I focusses most of the silver on grenade pins, moving sections on weapons or tools etc.) The base was easily assembled which left me a lot of time to apply multitudes of highlights subdued intermittently by washes dark and light and then a final run of various muddy looking pastels.

Hical, James

Alpine sniper Part I

This post is one of a series that will illustrate the build and background behind his ‘character.’ The first steps in building the figure were the normal cleaning and priming done to all resin pieces. I began initially by assembling the feet to the body armour leaving the arms and head separate. I took note of the kit placement on the box art and decided to place the grenades and spare pistol magazines high on the shooters MOLLE as if he had stripped off his M4 pouches and was left with his bare essentials for this particular foot patrol. I decided early on to make use of the head without the helmet as it seemed to provide a more ’rugged’ in-country look. The first part to be painted was the Barrett .50 which I undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black and then gave a simple highlight with Citadel Boltgun Metal all over. I wanted to give a look of Duracoat and general dust to the finished weapon and to that end I gave a healthy very thin wash of Vallejo Iraqi Sand, Citadel Codex Grey and a spot of Vallejo Burnt Umber. The details such as recesses and the ejection slide were then given a wash of Chaos Black and Burnt Umber at 4:1. At this point I began work on the figure proper.

The whole figure was given a basecoat of Citadel Snakebite Leather. Once this had dried I applied a wash to the recesses across the figure using Citadel Black Ink. The reference I was using for modern marines in Arid MARPAT camouflage was Concord’s “Marines on the Ground: Operation Iraqi Freedom 2.” The worn in field fatigues pictured in this book led me to use Iraqi Sand as the primary colour on which the fatigues would be based. I wanted the end result to go slightly past the Vallejo colour and take a subtly more creamy tone as I felt the Iraqi Sand was a little too yellow. The first highlights were applied with a bit too much aggression I am ashamed to say and concealed most of the wash work. They were composed of Iraqi Sand, Burnt Umber, Codex Grey and Bleached Bone at an initial ratio of 6:3:1:1. Successive highlights were created by phasing out the burnt umber and making the grey and bleached bone more prominent.

Stay tuned as the next phases are soon to come! Hical, James.

Allan's Fw190 Part III

The previous article touched on variations in interpretation of black and white photos. For example, it is difficult to determine the colour of the fuselage plug and the vertical stabilizer and rudder although they are different than most of the 76 on the rest of the aircraft. I have painted both a lightened 76 although some suggest the fuselage plug is unpainted and the tail unit colour may be the late war blue-green/sky/84. Examples of this colour are shown on the Eagle Editions paint chart, in Volume 2 of Merrick's Luftwaffe Camouflage and Markings 1933 to 1945, as well as the predecessor to this work, the long out of print "The Official Monogram Painting Guide To German Aircraft 1935-1945" by Merrick and Hitchcock. This older volume contains four colour chips showing variations in the blue-green as well as a concise discussion. Although older, I still refer to this reference often. Grab it if you ever come across a copy. Hical, Allan.

Hatamoto Part II

As Stephen Turnbull explains Hatamoto can be translated as meaning, “beneath the flag.” With that in mind the flag is part of the commander’s close retinue on and off the battlefield. Thus my title for this simple Space Marine Command group was given the antiquated Japanese name. The one particular Samurai command retinue which sparked my interest was that of Oda Nobunaga who employed a bodyguard detail consisting of two squads of ten men who were unique because of their impressive uniforms. One squad wore black armour, silver stylized wings and a black Horo (an inflated empty ball on the back of the warrior, very distinctive!); while the other squad wore red armour, gold wings and red Horo. The warriors of a General’s Hatamoto were sworn to protect their leader in battle as well as providing him with tactical advice and occasionally a pool of elite warriors he could count on to lead particularly vital assaults. For more information on Hatamoto and other Samurai history, I would highly recommend looking up the author/historian Stephen Turnbull. His works have piqued and sustained my thirst for knowledge about all things Samurai. Hical, James

Turnbull, Stephen, Hatamoto: Samurai Horse and Foot Guards 1540-1724. Osprey Publishing, Oxford, Great Britain, 2010, 4