Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Once again it's been a very busy month.  At one stage in the month I really thought I wasn't getting anything done hobby wise and then looking back as I write this I've not done that badly. Completed I spent the first part of the month prepping for a game that I haven't yet had the chance to play.  This involved: Weathering four Red Army Su-76Ms and two ISU-122/152s.  These are all 1/76th SHQ metal models that I made something like 20 years ago.  The ISUs are hefty pieces which you could brain someone with.  Lovely models.  Working on city terrain.  I made a load more rubble/ruin scatter terrain, which you can see all about  here .  I also added more weathering to the buildings and generally dirtied them up and cut out and painted a load of cobblestone sheets.  28mm Second World War German infantry.  I completed a squad of using a mix of Warlord Games Afrika Korps and German Grenadiers that I got free at Salute 2023.  I kept th...

On the back of making a base for my Indo-China/Vietnamese buildings I decided to make some additional scatter bases to extend the village into the surrounding jungle. The techniques used have been mainly covered in the jungle terrain posts I did last year.  However, as these pieces were more a part of the village than the deep jungle, I used the village red-earth tones rather than the darker jungle tones.  If you want to read what I did please have a look at these posts.  Otherwise the rest of this post is photos!  Judging by the positive comments I've received people should like these too.  

I painted these Vietnamese buildings from SHQ donkey's years ago but they've never made it to the table top.  With my interest in the French Wars of Decolonisation reinvigorated it was time to change that.  But first they needed a home. I've been playing about with EVA foam for a couple of weeks or so.  I did some tests to see how it would take different types of paint (emulsion, cheap craft acrylics, hobby acrylics) and how sand and filler would adhere to it.  It fared well with all of these tests.  Now was the time to actually do something with it. After looking at a plethora of photos of Vietnamese buildings and villages (both real and model) I positioned the buildings and drew round them to mark their footprints.   Then the fun bit.  I used cheap household filler from Amazon to add a layer of texture to the whole of the base.  This was simpler than I anticipated when going around the buildings footprints.  The whole lot was left to d...

As with all things repetition allows for improvement.  After I'd completed the first batch of bases I'd already thought about how to speed up and improve the process. I am going to do a post of the complete process step by step. Here's a Red Army platoon all assembled on the latest batch of movement bases I've made.

If you're interested in the thinking behind these bases and the previous stages please look here , here and here . For this final stage I wanted to add some texture to the edges of the 2p movement bases not only for aesthetic purposes, but also to provide a sort  of cup for the figures to sit in.  I mused about using household filler or Milliput/green stuff but felt I couldn't do this neatly enough.  In the end I opted to use sand. I'd already marked out the position for a  figure on each 2p.  I carefully brushed PVA onto the outer part of each coin and then dipped them in a pot of fine sand.  Using fine sand for this initial layer meant I could get a neat "doughnut" of sand on the coin.   I waited for these to harden and then added a layer of mixed sand.  Once this layer had set I added a further layer of mixed sand.  I could have gone on doing this if I'd wanted to sink the figures base further on the movement base but I quite liked ho...

The day after preparing the figures I grabbed a bag of 2ps to get on with making the movement bases.  The first job was to mark out where the figures were to go.  I got one of my least favourite figures, postioned him centrally on a 2p and drew round him.  And repeated another 50 or so times.  I did this so when I painted the 2ps I would ensure leaving a gap where the magnet would be. The next step was to form the movement bases.  Initially I went for three figure trays.  Ask any designer or gardener - things look best in threes.  I used a commercially bought 1p movement tray to get the general shape.  I did vary the angle of these as well as I didn't want them to be all the same.  The 2ps were initially joined by lengths of duct tape.  This is exceptionally strong and quite flexible but it's horrid to cut with scissors.  Once the bases were formed I cut away any excess tape with a sharp hobby knife.   This forms the basi...

With all the coins checked and the magnets having finally arrived I could get on with the next phase which was to attach all the magnets to the underside of the figures. As mentioned in the introduction post , the figures were based on washers which are much more magnetic than the base of the figure and the magnets automatically snapped to them.  To resolve this I prepared a load of green stuff and added a blob to the bottom of each base.  I always find green stuff much easier to work with if you put it in your pocket for awhile before use to warm it up.  I also found a useful video on the best way to mix it  here .  This method worked well (the relevant bit of the video is from 20 seconds to 50 seconds). Germans in progress It was then a simple matter to pop the magnet into the centre of each blob and then press the figure down on a flat surface to even it out.   Partisans all green stuffed with nowhere to go To speed things up I found it be...

I started my 1/76th (20mm) WW2 Eastern Front collection in 2001.  This was when you still sent off for a printed catalogue /black and white list from the manufacturer if you wanted to see what they did.  Internet shopping for niche hobbies was in its infancy. There was no Flames of War or Bolt Action.  WW2 was mostly gamed in 6mm or 20mm.  You had to read books to research your forces blah, blah, blah  Anyway enough of my old man's ramblings and let's get to the point.  My SHQ WW2 collection This was also before pre-cut MDF bases were available.  I based all my figures on 17mm washers which I felt worked well with the slim, well proportioned and cleanly sculpted SHQ figures.  I based them singly apart from lmg teams which are on 2ps and a few 3 man teams on bigger washers.  Singly based figures are fiddly to game with though. To solve this I looked at various products.  The problem was that no-one makes any movement trays to fit the 17mm...