The Humber – Part Six: The Final Chapter

…aaaaaand here’s the final product. The completed Black Tree Design Humber armoured car.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


Glued texture stuff to base. Painted it brown. Highlight with lighter brown. Even lighter highlight with tan. Glue on some bits of static grass, pebbles, and clump foliage for shrubberies!


Done.

For those that haven't been following along this is a car from the 7th Reconnaissance Regiment (17th Duke of York’s Royal Canadian Hussars). 7th Recce was the reconnaissance regiment for the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division which landed on D-Day at Juno Beach. The 28mm WW2 Canadian infantry I am working on are from the Regina Rifles (7th Brigade, 3rd Division), and other elements are also part of the 3rd Division, or units that were attached or supporting the 3rd Division.

Not sure what I'm going to use this for... What kind of scenarios would one do for a reconnaissance troop? "Okay, here's a table full of terrain... find the hidden germans and report back, and, preferably, don't die..."?

Wow… Hope I can power through the Shermans so quickly!! I’ll probably do them as a bit of a batch-lot. Should I do them as a step-by-step to...?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Seems there’ll be a few Canadian infantrymen rolling off the workbench before the armed civilians… but they’re coming soon too.

After that I’ll probably get working on my Canadian Armoured Troop (of Shermans)

Darnit… West Wind Productions does have their 40% off sale on again this week…

The Humber – Part Five

Painting…

Posting step-by-step pics of works in progress are tricky, as I tend to jump around from project to project (while waiting for one or the other to dry or whatever). Also I can get an awful lot done in an evening, and don’t necessarily want to stop so I can take a picture…

Luckily I got some work in for about an hour or so this morning while the kidz were occupying themselves…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


Step One – the main colour. I do a light dry bruch over pretty much everything with the main colour, then go in and… well… not really “highlight”, but make the colours more solid. I paint vehicles pretty much the same way I paint everything else – solid blocks of colour painting up to the edge of every piece leaving a black like in the recesses…

I’m using Deco Art Americana “Plantation Pine” - close enough for me…!


I know. It looks a little dark, but trust me it won’t look half bad when I’m done – and it’s quick!!

Do keep in mind I’m not painting to win any competitions – I paint for the tabletop! I’d rather models be on the tabletop than on my workbench, so my approach might be seen as quick and nasty. That being said I do try to do a decent enough job that they look good on the tabletop!


Step Two – black out non-main colour areas. Anything that got the main colour (green, in this case) on it that I don’t want to be that colour gets a bit of black on it. For this it’s mostly the tires, the small amount of stowage, and the shovel/axe-handle/pry-bar. The commander I managed to not get much green on, but if I had I’d black him out again too…


Step Three – non-main-colour details. Now I paint all the bits, which I’ve just blacked out, with the colours I actually want them to be… including any vehicle recognition markings.


Still looks a little dark-ish and plane Jane-ish… but just wait – once the weathering is done it won’t look so bad.


Step Four: Weathering. I do a light dry brush with two different light earthy tones (the ones I will use for the base, shortly…)


EAsy to go overboard here... and I may have... hard to tell until the base and everything is complete....
That’s it for today. Later I’ll get a coat of finish on this and then get to work on the base.

The Humber – Part Four

…aaaand here we go…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


Primed and all ready to paint…

Got this ready last night while watching the African Queen - which I've wanted to see for years and finally tracked down a copy! (must resist urge to paint askaris... must resist urge to paint askaris...)

Probably won't get to paintng the Humber (or the armed Civilians I planned on painting) this evening (or even the canadian riflemen I HAVE been working on - instead of said armed civilians..) as I may be going out to a movie...

The HUMBER – Part Two

Well, now that I’ve actually sorted out what sort of Armoured Car it actually is… (Humber, NOT Staghound – DOH!!!)…

These were part of Infantry Division Armoured Car Regiments, and as the infantry I am painting up are Regina Rifles (from the Third Canadian Infantry Division)… that would mean my little Humber is going to be from the 7th Reconnaissance Regiment (17th Duke of York’s Royal Canadian Hussars) (Now the Royal Canadian Hussars (Montreal)).

Some more websites:

Canadian War Museum
Royal Canadian Armoured Corps Association
Juno Beach
DND Website

B squadron apparently landed on D-Day as traffic control, beach exit parties brigade contact detachements.

I found enough pictures on the internet to figure out pretty much where everything is supposed to go, and so we begin…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


I had to do a fair bit of filling with Miliput between the two main body parts – though a lot of the joint was covered by the slab-like thingies on the back.

I busted out the green stuff and paperclips to model a shovel on the left side – as pretty much every picture I saw had a shovel there – I thought it would be remiss of me to leave off. Of course there’s also a pick-axe head just rear of the shovel in most pics… and I was just too lazy/impatient to add one of those on…


On the right side there were two bar-like things opposite the shovel. I’m not really sure what they are… but they’re there in most pictures… so I added a couple on.

I'm also going to have to drill out that hole for the turret (it's just not big enough...).


The barrel on the turret was horribly bent when I received the model and no amount of bending seemed to be getting it straight – but I noticed it was about the same gauge as the jumbo paper clips I do love to use for modeling (spears and pikes, mostly…). So I nipped off the existing one and replaced it – using a bit of the left over miliput to taper the barrel a bit and add a flared bit on the end. The one that it came with had a slight flare to it – an some of the models I’ve found pics of do… some don’t…? It looks a little big yet – I’ll probably have to file that down a bit more. If I gets to thin and just breaks off I’ll just leave it off…

The turret commander didn’t come with the kit – I got him in an ebay lot of assorted vehicles commanders and drivers.

NEXT: Wheels, and maybe some stowed kit (if I don’t get too lazy). Then on to priming and basing and painting!!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More of the Humber… and some Canadian infantrymen… and perhaps some more resistance/partisan/armed civilians…

With the German big cats that arrived yesterday my replacement tracks arrived for the Shermans - so I'm awfully tempted to get to work on those... I think I'll finish up this Humber first. Then maybe the SHermans. Though, it would probably be more sensible to work on the German tanks first... but then when has sensibility ever dictated what I should work on next!?

The Staghound: Part One

So, I picked up a Harlequin/Black Tree Design Staghound off ebay. I knew I had seen it listed… somewhere… as part of the arsenel of items the Canadian Army used in World War Two… it was a good deal… so I bid, and won it. It arrived last week some time.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


Nice big solid heavy model… Not really sure where all those bits go just yet… and some of the parts look like they don’t quite fit seamlessly together (understatement) and will require a fair bit of modeling experience and expertise to put together. Luckily I have said experience and expertise (what I lack is time!). If I’d pickedup a model like this twenty (or even ten) years ago – it would have looked like crap when it was done. It might still…

I do like that it comes with some stowage. I also have a couple commonwealth turret crew from another ebay purchase which I will be adding.

Maybe I’ll do a bit of a step-by-step assembly and painting series of posts…?

Anyway, looking up the Staghound I found that it was used in Army Corps armoured car regiments. That would be the 1st Armoured Car Regiment (Royal Canadian Dragoons), for the 1st Canadian Army Corps, or the 18th Armoured Car Regiment (12th Manitoba Dragoons) for the 2nd Canadian Army Corps. As all my other stuff is being modeled as elements of the 2nd Canadian Army Corps, I guess that will make this a Staghound from the 12th Manitoba Dragoons (18th Armoured Car Regiment).

Now my first big question is: What the heck did a CORPS level armoured car reconnaissance unit do!? I take they weren’t out on the sharp end trying to determine the location of the enemy…? I figure that would be the Armoured and Infantry Division’s reconnaissance unit’s job… Were they just for scouting out new locations for the Corps HQs? Providing a little defense and security for the Corps HQ? Seriously, anybody out there have any ideas…?

I guess it wouldn’t hurt to google the Dragoons – they’re probably a militia unit now, and often they have their own websites. Some of the better ones have unit histories and stuff…

Well, what do you know…

12th Manitoba Dragoons

Hmmmm… not much about what they actually DID with their Staghounds…


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Probably WON’T be updates on the Staghound… but you never know…

Tidied up the painting table again last night. Cleared off all the distractions. I did a bit of stock-taking last night and counted up all my WW2 era stuff (including the “pulp adventure” 20s/30s stuff) and found I have about 1240!? (I was a little shocked too!) Of that about three quarters are painted. I have 455 infantry figures to paint. If I managed to paint them all in the next four months I’d achieve the goal of at least painting more 28mm foot than I purchased… Let’s not talk about the tanks…

The first items I’m finishing up are the Armed Civilians and a handful of Canadians to finish up the first platoon. Watch for those in the next couple days.

I might get started on this Staghound. It’s probably not going to be particularly useful… but…

Um... some more tanks arrived today (late war German - 2x PzkwIVH, 2x Panther, 1x Tiger). I heard a rumor that West Wind Productions might be doing the same sale again next week... and I may just have to pick up a couple T-34s...