Hummers to Humvees - part 9

Hello and welcome to ninth and last part of the conversion (yay!). They've came out a bit different than I expected (no FOF recognition on back, no jerry cans, no extra wheels, no gunshields), but I've kinda grew tired of working on them. To make most of the things, I'd need bits that I don't have and for a gun shield...I figured they look better without as it shows more of a gunner.

Nothing much to say, so on to the photos!

All of them together now. You can see the coiled barbed wire on one of them. It was trying to darken it with a black wash but it keeps staying clean. Talking of clean - I've just remember I've forgot to dust the vehicles!

 top view

 First humvee. This one was silver, if you remember them from the first post.

 A gunner detail. He has the helmet cover with multiple stripes, used to tuck vegetation in. Both guners were painted ordinary skin and then washed with green and a bit of brown for camo.

 Second humvee, the "ex-blue" one. There's not much difference between the two, except lenght of the bumper, gunner and color of tyres.

 Two shots of second gunner. He uses one-strap helmet cover...it's no big deal, I prefer the former kind but it takes a lot of little work to get all the straps done :P. He appears to be talking to someone inside.

 If you look close enough, you can notice the pin - essential part of Mathyoo-gun mount-rotation-mechanism or Magmormech (I'll grab my coat...)

Here is a very short imaginative scenario I've came up with for your amusement. Don't mind the lack of terrain and enemies and imagine thick forest or a town..whatever you fancy.

A slovene-british convoy was on the move from point A to B...it was lead by a humvee, followed by Brit "landie" troop carrier and it had another humvee for rear protection...

 "Contact left! Contact left!" the ever elite SAS team jumped out of their carrier, took cover behind the vehicles and blasted away!

 Close up on lead humvee - I think it works quite well!

 And another posed shot, patrolling the roads of Evergreen Fields (but staying dangerously close to the vehicle for some reason!)

And lastly, a post un-related photo.  I have to disappoint as while it appears to feature female, it is not human. Few days back, I was in the kitchen when I've spotted the small roe deer taking a walk on our property (the house lies in flattened karst valley). Roe deers keep making damage to the flowers and garden, so I tried to scare them away, but they've grown used to us, apparently, as they didn't budge. A normal animal would run away, but lately, they just turn the head towards you, screaming at them and they watch you all interested. Those two took it a step further and the younger one even fed while I was waving at them. The short stone "wall" you can see behind them is the property boundary. I was about 20-25 meters away and our ever-watchful guard dog has his hut some 15 meters away from their spot. He is a very kind dog, apparently, as he only starts barking if we start screaming, so they're not afraid of him and they can eat the rose ends as much as they like.

Thanks for looking,

Mathyoo

Hummers to Humvees - part 8

Hello,

before we start I would like to point out that followers list has grown and I would like to thank everyone on that list for the support. I hope you like what I'm posting and well, feel free to post comments, questions etc.

As for Humvees, still not quite done, but we're moving on! I have got a stroke of mojo and I've rushed painting emblems and flags on the vehicles, practically finishing them. What they need is some details, simple weathering, gun mounts and we're done!

I was thinking about getting custom decals for them, but eventually I've decided to do some free hand. Firstly, decals feel...too real. And hey, painting is still a part of the hobby, so I've decided to give it a go myself. While not as nice or universal as decals, you can see what they represent, so I think that is good enough, hehe.

Emblem colours for future reference:

Green Ochre

Mix of Tan earth and Green Grey

German camo medium brown

German grey for lines and swords

I have started by drawing the rough shape on the piece of "painters tape", the yellow "paper" tape.

I taped it on the table and put a scrap plasticard piece underneath to spare the table...I think it is time I'd get myself a cutting mat!

I have taped the template very roughly on the front doors.

You'll have to excuse the photos, they were taken in bad light as this is what it looked like when I was working on them :P. I've used flash for some photos. Anyway, after the template was on, I've stippled the wait paint on it, to get the rough shape.

After that was done, I covered it in lightest of he colours. The normal emblem uses white-blue-red colours of our flag (yes, like Russia), but "combat" colours are all brownish.

Nothing much to say, second colour was painted up to around 2/3 of the emblem.

I don't seem to have taken the photo, but naturally, last third of the emblem was painted with third colour. In the end I've painted black lines between the tri-colors and around the emblem. I've also added 2 crossed swords behind this shield, but those are not seen too easily.

To make them a bit nicer, I've also added small slovene flags on second door (not used at home, but I saw them on ISAF humvees). It is still a wargaming model, so if it looks cool it is good enough. The flag is roughly suggested - 3 colours and then inverted blue and white for the coat of arms.

I was on fire, so I've also added flags to the fronts. You can see  Landie's union jack on the second photo.

I'll try to finish them completely by the next post. I was thinking about making radio aerials for them (I'd really like to put little flags on those), but I think those would be too fiddly for gaming pieces. Perhaps smaller aerials, just for the sake of it?

Thanks for looking,

Mathyoo

Hummers to Humvees - part 7

Hello,

here we are, with part SEVEN of the updates, and still not nearly done! This photos were taken a while ago, but with the speed I'm working on those, they aren't much different by now.

Before we start, I might show off a bit and tell you I've been on a meeting with my mentor for my paper yesterday. We talked a little bit about my paper (entitled "The Development of Tank Doctrines prior to WW II", in case anyone cares). As Interwar events can be linked to nowadays circumstances (people don't really like wars, financial crisis), we talked about that a bit and then moved on to WWII events as I am just reading a book about Partisan Hospital Franja ("Franya"). Now, the reason I'd like to make a post about something that was happening here during WW2 is obvious, I think the subject is quite unknown abroad, because no large front was established here. But on the other hand, warfare here was quite intense and somewhat different from any other. The reasons I don't want to talk about it too much, at least on my blog, is that it quickly boils down to politics. Politicians are still eager to use things that have happened during the war (there was a fight against invaders (so Italy, Germany, Hungary) and in the mean time communist revolution was taking place and with it a civil war). Perhaps an odd post about a certain battle or that funky hospital when my sculpting mojo will be dry again - I do believe I am capable of presenting things objectively - it is what I do after all. Oh and just to make it clear, in case any followers here finds him/herself in the area, please do let me know, I know places :P.

So, now that I've told you stuff completely unrelated to the topic, here is how far I got on the Humvees so far:

Just one more thing before we start. I was painting them with large tubes from poundland and those colours are bad. Really bad. I've stripped the vehicles once, put countless coats on them, the paint got weird white grainy traces, so I varnished them etc etc. A true nightmare. When I've reached a point where I was semi satisfied, I've decided to keep it that way.

For humvees its basic green with brown patches, but I've found out we got two greens. So now I've added light green patches which are not seen on the photos.

Landie is, according to my knowledge, wrong. I am not sure Brits have this exact type of Land rovers in their army. They're either more open or have less windows. Anyways, they can carry a section, so that is good enough. I gave it black camouflage patches and I'm quite happy.  You can probably see that they were drybrushed lightbrown, but that wasn't good enough, so I've redone the patches on Landie and completely repainted the Humvees again. 

 Blue windows are more blue now, and were washed with very, very dilluted black wash. Does anyone have any idea what I should do about them now? I like blue for the contrasts, but it's strikingly fake.
Also, as i'm talking about trouble, front fenders kept falling off, so I've put some milliput around them to make them stay in place.

 Here is a nice photo to let you admire the snorkels. I am really happy with how the ones on humvees came out.

 And one with gunner mounted! His M2 is now painted.

 It turns!
(you can also "admire" the blotchy camo I'm not too happy about, but I've ranted about it in my last post)

 And it doesn't fall down if you put it upside down!

Aaand that is it for now. What needs to be done to completely finish the builds is paint the gunners' faces and helmets, varnish the vehicles as I am afraid to touch them as they are and paint some insignia on the doors.
Oh, also need to add some details, like recognition tarps, barbed wire etc.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Hummers to Humvees - part 6

Hello guys,

I've been painting the humvees for past few days on and off (had to repaint the vehicles themselves a lot, which has pretty much killed my enthusiasm for a while). I've decided to break vehicles and gunners into two separate posts to keep my thoughts and colour choices regarding the uniform separate.

 Before I could completely put gunners together, I had to pain the men themselves, so they wouldn't be obstructed by guns.
 While uniforms could be quite straightforward project, there is a problem. We're just getting new uniforms and I got no idea how the helmet covers and vests will look like. I've decided to just go with what is happening now and paint slocam (yes, that's the name of the new camo :P) for uniform and use old amoeba pattern for helmet cover and vest. Plus, models in one color (or one color scheme) are really boring...painting one camo is just like painting black, cool at first but boring eventually. I know there's much desert fighting going on, but I am really tired of desert from my FOW projects. Plus, I'm anxios to paint some face paints on my troops, so they will fight in woodland areas - from Evergreen Fields to perhaps a neo-soviet armored spearhead through Slovenia to Italian northern plains?

Here is a comparative photos of old and new uniforms. Old desert pattern was essentially same as the woodland one, but with sandy colours.
This is a photo from early testing, so the cut of the uniform itslef is the same. New cut includes angled pockets, big velctro "panels" on sleeves for insignia etc. But this isn't really important in 28mm, so what we care about is the new pattern and colours.

As slocam is very simmilar to multicam (but not the same, mind you!), and by that, to new british pattern, I was looking for articles for those two uniforms. I don't have too many paints available, so I've figured I'd experiment on the gunners a bit.

I've used Vallejo colors and what I've found out...it would be perhaps better to stipple than actually paint patterns, as even most dominant colors are split in small dots here and there:

Uniform was based on mix of german fieldgrey and dead flesh to get this lightly green color. Mine is a tad to grey, I suppose.
I then made number of bigger patches in green ochre. Qute random, and not too big and not too many (that's the idea, not what I did :P)
Next was luftwaffe camo green.
After it I've done some smaller strokes of german camo medium brown. At this point I've figured they're really all too round, so its probably really best to take your time and use small brush...or stipple for fast work I suppose.
Last was elfic flesh, but I think any bone colour wold work.

Here are the colors for our old "amoeba" pattern I've used. I don't claim their right, its just my choice atm, based on available colors.

Base was done in german fieldgray, mixed with some elfic flesh to make it a bit brighter.
Patches were simply german grey (instead of black), german camo medium brown and luftwaffe camo green.

I've washed it all with a bit of green grey, but I think it as too thick. I've tried "gloss+black" paint again, but it didn't really work. As my camo blotches are all too big, it all came out a bit under my expectations, but on the other hand it made me think I should add an all round armored cupolas to gun mounts. This way I'd hide the horrible paintjob and it would look more realistic, I don't think any  humvees are without one by now :D.

Below is the rough result. It looks fine from far but not as nice if you look from closer distance. I really think I shouldn't rush it and should just use a smaller brush. The wash was really useful to tie it all together a bit more, but it was too thick in the end.
You can see I've sculpted some fingers on the left gunner and started detailing straps on his helmet some more. It needs one more perpendicular stripe. You probably can't see it on this photo, but the vest looks much like the jacket, so I think I totally blew it. I think I'll keep it that way and won't be repainting anything. If it will bother me too much, I can always come back and redo the sleeves - it is the only visible part, after all.

Well, sorry to keep it so "photo light", but I'll have more when I'll show you the current WIP of the Humvees themselves - which I think look quite decent at this point :P.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Hummers to Humvees - part 5

 Hello,

this is probably going to be the most interesting post of the project, except for finished models. I've been working on the gunners!

I've used studio miniatures zeds as a basis, as I've figured they're of the right size, plus very nicely proportioned. I've sculpted rough vests on them. I'm not exactly happy with the size, but they're good for what they're mean for.

 Below you can see which torsos I've used. One is the bare chested one and the other one was some kind of t-shirt or something. I've used arms under each of them (on the photo, only one pair of arms is off the sprue).

 Here are the gun mounts. So, what we got is hatches glued on and mounts damaged as I've glued and then un-glued (and later glued again) the gunners on and off for some reason. The short Z wire bits are meant for mounting the guns. As they're oversized, they had to be placed further out a bit to make them work.

 Gunners in position below, one has his arms glued in place (without hands, I've added those later). You can see I've sculpted helmets, too. This was supposed to be a base for better helmets, but I think I'll just add the camo straps and that'll be it. Our new helmets make you look like a penny bun (which we call "Geordie", btw :D), so you can see I didn't really hit the correct shape. But I think the general shape is fine and it isn't worth potentially ruining the gunners just because of the helmets.

 Here is another shot. Left gunner is in a firing position and because I didn't do any dry fitting, right gunner appears to be talking to someone inside the humvee. I'm quite happy with that, so they're not both the same.

 Here they are with guns dry fitted. I will only glue guns after gunners are painted. The problem is, I can't finish hands of the firing gunner (he is missing fingers) until I glue the gun on. They are very front heavy and "chatting" gunner can't stand without support yet. As you can see, he is holding the gun by cocking lever. This is probably not done IRL, but I couldn't make him hold the firing grips without too much work, so I've decided thats fine. I've also tried positioning gun in a way that he'd be holding the body of the gun itself, but this would point gun too high. That would look kinda realistic, as he would be pointing the gun in the sky - to avoid any accidents. But, as this is a gaming model, anything pointing too high is probably not the best idea.

 Two very bad close ups on the gunners. I had more, but every other photo was worse than those.

And last one on the humvee, to see how it will look like when its done. I'm really happy with it. Humvee was sprayed few days back, but it still tacky on the door area (you can see it attracted dust somehow :/ ). I am not sure if it is tacky because of the paint, but given only miliputted area is tacky now, I think the problem is that miliput hasn't dried enough and I had done 3 layers of it. I will give it another 24 hours and I hope I can put it back together and start painting them by then.

Well, that's it for now,
thanks for looking!

Mathyoo

Hummers to Humvees - part 4

Hello,

as my plans slowly turn to realisations, they're mostly shattered and dropped. This time, I've decided I will indeed stick with .50 cals, which I'll now refer to as M2... .50 cal is kinda cowboy term, and we call the caliber 12.7 mm. I have already started converting some Studio miniatures zombies to gunners - well their torsos at least. It's a slow progress, but I'm learning few tricks regarding the equipment and helmets sculpting. I hope they turn out decent! Once they're done, I need to find a good position for them and M2, as TAG's guns I'm using are a bit too large and my mounts diameter appears small for the gun.

I  have also decided to ditch the idea of jerry cans rack and spare wheel - I don't have either so I will just add them sometime in the future if I ever get the cans or extra wheels.

What I did, however, was the snorkel exhausts. I couldn't find any good way to do it. Drilling a hole in it would take too much effort (to pin something on) and I couldn't find appropriate rod to act as an exhaust...any rod, to be precise. I've raided many different stores and I couldn't find any thicker wires or brass rods and such. Nothing :(. My brother later suggested me a tube he calls something like "shrinkey" - its a tube that shrinks when heated.  I wasn't sure if that will work at first, as you can see on photo below, tube was quite large compared to what I needed (I needed size of a nail). It took me some time to get a hang of it..but once I've found this perfectly sized nail, things got much better. The snorkels fit perfectly and I will glue them on later (if I skip a bit, I got humvees now painted and I forgot to put the exhausts on for spraying run -.-). So, what I did was cut appropriate lenght of "shrinkey",  put it on a nail and heated it with a lighter.  In the end I've put a cap of miliput on it and that's done. One is a bit bent, other one is perfect.

Here is a somewhat useless photo of progress on the gun mounts. As said, those triangles where you'd mount a gun on appear to be too short.

I've also done the front bumpers with a wire cutting rod. They're both very simple. I used floral wire for bumpers, roughly shaped around a pencil. Measurments were by the eye and I've ended with one too long and one too short...which means they're perfect in average :P.  I didn't knew how to tackle the wire cutters and wanted to flatten them with hammer and then pile them to shape. I've used heavy duty paper clips and hammer was used to almost no effect, so I got a better idea. I've cut it a bit rounded at the top and filled the spot with sharpened miliput, to make the cutter. Much less effort and probably even looks better. The bars holding the bumpers are just short paper clip rods. Its all glued with poundland superglue, so they fell off twice in next couple of days. I've now strengthened them with some GS around the joints.

Lastly, I've been working on snorkel for Landie...nothing spectacular but it is a slight conversion so I can call it "my own".

Thanks for looking and I hope I'll have humvees painted by the next post (minus the gunners, that will take a while),
Mathyoo