Saturday 27 October 2007

Jaume's Display Case

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Just though some of you curious guys might like to know that most, if not all of my recent completed works are now stashed over at Jaume's home in Barcelona.


Managed to dig out a picture of the spread at my wife's ex-colleague's chocolate fondue tea party a couple of months back.

Calvin



Friday 26 October 2007

Oberscharführer, LSSAH ,Kharkov 1943

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Just when I was about to slap some paint onto the SS Deutschland figure, another a new assignment from Taesung Harmms arrived in the mail. This time I'm to render his latest masterpiece; a pair of LSSAH figures from the 1943 battle of Kharkov which I understand is due for this Christmas season. As you can see, Christmas came early for me presumably from the painting of the "Burberry-esq"scarf. Again, I opted to paint the binoculars in sand yellow as an analogous compliment, whereas the mittens in "reed green" serves as a complimentary to the predominantly dark red scarf. The cuff titles are from Archer transfers and were relatively easy to apply. By instead of rubbing them on, carefully peal them off from their plastic film carriers and position them with a brush and some water. When in place, set them with a gentle dab of thinner along the corners of the transfer.
What you see now is at most 70% completed with the unseen back in a complete mess. I'll probably fix that later tonight and hopefully get move on the second figure on Sunday before I head off for my annual holiday with the Wife.

Calvin



Friday 19 October 2007

SS Deutschland, France 1940

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Almost finally done with the sculpting. The Tragegestell 39 was really a pain to construct but I'm glad it's almost over. (Almost as there are still a pair of horizontal straps missing on the vertical sides of the frame). Looking forward to the painting this weekend.

Calvin



Tuesday 16 October 2007

OOTB Tamiya Hetzer built by KG Lim (aka Chef Lim) from The M Workshop


Made a trip down to The M Workshop last Sunday to take some snap shots of "Chef" Lim's OOTB Hetzer build from Tamiya. From what I've heard, it's only his SECOND WW2 German armor build and look at how much masterfully he has pulled it off! Talk about talent! this has got to be one of the best three tone Ambush schemes I've ever seen and in a record time too! Kudos to you "Chef" Lim!


Sunday's dinner over at the in-laws; popiah made by my mother-in-law wrapped by my brother-in-law. Man he sure wraps one heck of a killer popiah!


Calvin



Friday 12 October 2007

Moving on to Autumn...

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The current set-up at my workbench. Picked up a small piece of sponge to make the dabbing process quicker. As you can see, it's pretty addictive.
SS Deutschland figure is still untouched; surrounded with the newly "grown" undergrowth. I will probably have to resume work on it this weekend.

Calvin



Thursday 11 October 2007

Lets Kick It Up A Notch.


I managed to haul out my collection of photo-etched vegetation to make more varieties of plant life with the Fimo Deco Gel. Did not get anything done on the SS Deutschland figure but rather spent the greather part of the afternoon attaching individual Fimo Deco Gel leaves onto a dried weed root stiffen with Fimo Deco Gel thinned with cellulose thinner. I'm guessing this will come pretty handy in any future Normandy hedgerow scenes.


Close-up of the bush.
 
Calvin



Wednesday 10 October 2007

Making Leafs with Fimo Deco Gel


Fimo Deco Gel is dyed with an oil paint mix of Ivory Black, Yellow Ochre and Prussian Blue.


The gel is painted over the photo-etched leaves. Surface tension of the gel helps to contain the shape of the leafs.


The gel is baked with a heat gun to cure to a rubbery hard finish. It's then peeled off from the photo-etched fret with a scalpel blade.
Close-up of the reproduced leaf.


..and now the clones are ready!


Attach the leafs to a dried weed root with super glue. You may apply some heat from the heat gun to curl the corners of the cured polymer gel and after that it is ready for paint.


Calvin



Friday 5 October 2007

SS Deutschland, France 1940

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Finally got more work done on the figure from the September 13 post. It's a very straightforward "me and my weapon" pose of another SS Grenadier from the early part of WW2.


cheers,

Calvin



Thursday 4 October 2007

Well Done Malaysia!

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Taking a short break from the 1/35 sculpts, I met up with Malaysian modeller Allan Yong and proprietor of Miniature Allaince Paul Quek. (a certain armor modeller whose name I shall not mention was also due to join but had to "let go the aeroplane" at the last minute due to a domestic situation) Anyway, a little more than a week ago, Paul had submitted four of Allan's works for the Euro Militaire contest which bagged a whopping tally of four silver medals! Well done Allan!


So whilst he was in town today to pick up his works(and medals of course) from Paul, I thought that I will just go "kay-poh" a bit...

Allan together with his medal and prize-winning entries. 


Close-up of Allan's winning entry "Captured". That's probably the best painted 1/35 chicken I've ever seen !

Cheers,

Calvin