Alpine Sniper Part III

The minimized MARPAT was covered by a solid few layers of pastels from CMK, WarPig and MIG pigments; all of which were sandy in tone. I applied them liberally in the usual weathering areas such as pant legs, knees, sections of the plate carrier that would become grimy when set down in country. The boots and knee pads were painted in a unique pair of colours under coated to have a slight Vermin brown twinge to them, the highlights were applied using a medium grey and Iraqi Sand. The divergence between the two pieces of gear came when the boots reached their appropriate shade, the highlights continued past that for the guards. I have seen various kinds of pads worn by army and marine units in various theatres over the past decade. I considered using the outdated “woodland” backing with a dark grey plate. This was out of character considering I wanted this particular Marine to be operating in Operation Moshtarak or around that time period; a simpler coyote/khaki brown pad and accompanying plate. This seemingly superfluous decision went hand in hand with the decision to keep the Interceptor Plate Carrier a similar brown and his various privately purchased MOLLE fittings a gunship green in order to provide solid, Marine-like uniformity and a bit of contemporary contrast. The Barrett .50cal was given a tiger stripe pattern in order to illustrate spray painted Duracoat done in country. I looked through various sources and noted the different Marine Designated Marksman Rifles in arid camo. There were a few different styles, whole coating, whole coating with small squiggles in dark brown and the slightly more characterful tiger pattern. I thought that the tiger pattern would be a good choice as it would keep the rather large weapon from looking like a rotting piece of wood rather than a solid piece of steel. The pattern would I assumed be enough to obscure the length of the barrel and the general shape of the shooter/weapon at a distance. The flesh was a simple layering exercise. That being said I wanted to have the shooter sporting a 5am shadow. This was achieved by applying small vertical ticks to the concerned area with a thinned WarPigs faded Panzer grey. This leave his face looking sooty and once the pastels set I applied a thinned wash of darker flesh tone. Hical, James

KittyHawk build

Pictured is the 1/48 Hasagawa P40 E painted to represent an RCAF Kittyhawk. Suffice to say, the kit is accurate and a pleasure to build. The only aftermarket additions were the wheel wells by CMK and the wheels, seat and exhausts by Ultracast. Markings are from the excellent IPMS Canada decal sheet of Canadian P40’s. Paint is from Hannant;s Xtracrylic range. These paints spray and brush equally well, dry in minutes to a rock hard finish and are semi-gloss to aid decaling. Inspite of this, I still used a coat of Future before decaling. The colors chosen were an attempt to emulate the Curtis export colors. These colors were previously discussed in a booklet by Dana Bell called ‘Aviation Color Primers No.1: US Export Colors of WW II” which was available from Meteor. A more extensive and thorough discussion of Warhawk export colours is available on the internet at ratomodeling.com/articles/AVG_cammo/ and is well worth a look. Although open for interpretation, the undersurface of these aircraft appears to have been painted light gull grey FS36440 while a good match for the brown is FS 30219. Some export P40’s may have actually been painted British dark earth. The green is problematic and is said to be similar to FS 34079 or FS 34092. In the September, 1942 issue of “Flying” are a good number of contemporary colour photos of RAF aircraft and a 2 page colour ad by Curtis showing a Kittyhawk in export finish. The brown and grey are good matches to the FS numbers quoted and these were the colours I used. The green in the ad as well as green used on other types of aircraft appears to have been quite varied and not to match the green FS numbers quoted above. I used a variation of FS 34102 which appears closer to the greens pictured but is still not totally accurate. Hical, Allan.

95 Rifles in 1/32 scale

This Rifleman from the 95th regiment of foot is depicted in the Peninsular War (1808-1814) and is currently reloading his Baker Rifle. The battalion which served on the Peninsula was attached to the Light Division and participated in various engagements. The Rifleman wears his telltale green jacket but has substituted his green trousers for regular infantry greys. His Shako bears the light infantry brass in the shape of a bugle and above that is his Regiments own green badge. He is shown in the act of tearing the cartridge paper with his teeth in order to access the powder within. The main difference between the Rifle regiments and standard regiments was that the Riflemen carried Baker rifles which were shorter than the Brown Bess and had a rifled barrel. This rifling meant that individual shooters could be relied upon to mark and drop individual targets at will as opposed to the typical mass volley of the era. The prime disadvantage with this weapon was that a complete reload was a comparatively more arduous process to that of the smooth bore counterparts because of the need to wrap the ball in a small felt or leather strip so that it could grip the rifling which would allow the projectile to spin. The wrapped balls were significantly more difficult to ram into the barrel, this could however be circumvented by simply spiting the ball into the barrel without a patch, occasionally the loss of accuracy was made up for with volume of fire. Hical, James

P40 Part II

Pictured is Hasagawa P40E in 1/48 marked to represent TM-N, serial AK863 of 111(F) Squadron, RCAF. There are at least 13 ex RCAF P40’s still in existence, including P40E, AK987 in the USAF museum and P40E AK875 in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Both are painted to represent USAF machines. AK863 has also survived. The aircraft is Curtis #15244 and it was delivered to the RCAF on November 3,1941 as RCAF #1044. It is pictured in “RCAF Squadrons and Aircraft” as TM-N nosed over at Patricia Bay, British Columbia in March 1942 and was later pictured in Alaska with 111 Squadron in “440 Squadron History”. The aircraft was struck off charge August 16, 1946 and noted to be in Manitoba in 1947. It was subsequently recovered from Alberta in 1976 and registered N7205A. Made airworthy in 1997, it suffered right undercarriage failure on its delivery flight and is still listed as under restoration. Hical, Allan.

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