"Painting Ainsty's uparmoured Slammers vehicles" Topic

M2A4UA Blowers and M9A7 Combat Cars, to be precise (plus the first of the new jeeps).

This is still a work in progress. When I've finished them I'll put a proper page up on the Slammers site.

Mean time…

The basic hull/skirt sprayed in red primer then a Tamiya dark brown before being stippled in terracotta and orange to get a rust effect.

Etched Brass basket (from the Combat Car kit) added to turret side for stowage.

Masked out and sprayed Tamiya silver and then some PSC Rust coloured weathering fluid used to bring out the rusty bits. Note the new stowage basket added to the turret rear.

And with the odd, un-rusted panel for variety…

After a light spray with Dullcote to seal in the weathering fluid, a black ink in Future wash was added over the painted areas and stowage stuck on with super glue and also moulded from raw, unpainted greenstuff. Stowage is either pre-painted Hobby Master 1/72 stuff or 15mm stuff I had to paint from Darkest Star Games. Note solid top to the splinter shield roof.

Rear bustle loaded with two ground penetrating rockets, amongst other items.

Note Ammo boxes on the turret – handy by the tribarrel…

Now the stowage has been washed with Army painter inks. Green on the greenstuff tarps and then Soft (a light brown) over everything

Note the specific Slammers 'signalling wand' aerials in red (nylon brush bristles)

Same ink wash combo on the Combat Cars – the splinter shield roofs are not stuck on yet (obviously) as I haven't got the crews inside!

Anyway, that's it so far. I have the crews sprayed in a basic colour though I have some fiddling to do with them before I paint them. Next up will be the new FDF/Slammers decals over the Future, then matt varnish and assembly and some gloss bits.

I hope to have them finished over the weekend – maybe a bit longer if I'm unlucky with the varnishing, regarding the weather and all!

John T

Damn nice as always JT ! I like the uparmored versions !

Very nice! Great step-by-step too.

The inclusion of the stowage really sells it.

Really excellent step-by-step. I hadn't seen the rust fluid in action, might have to pick some of that up.

Love the stowage!

Thanks all.

I'm a bg fan of stowage (as you can all probably tell…) and the pack that Darkest Star Games kindly sent me for review has been included: sprayed with Army Painter Army Green and then hit with their Green Tone ink and then mixed in with the rest it works well, I think.

The 'I don't have to paint it' green stuff is – for someone like me (impatient/pressed for time/lazy… take your pick) just to good an opportunity to miss.

The Rust and the dirt sprays from PSC are probably the very best of the bunch. I find some of the greys and blacks a little too 'blue' for me, but the spray works really well.

I'm not sure if Andy at Ainsty d going to release the (solid tank) stowage racks empty or full of gear (I nabbed the pre-production samples at Hammerhead). Similarly, the jeep has no crew at the moment (pre-production) but I will sort some out for the paint job.

John T

Stowage pwns

Looks great!

You just have to show the rest of us up, don't you! John T. 8_D very very nicely done, thanks for all the show and tell, always helpful to the rest of us also rans, Cheers and looking forward to the finished stuff.

That's kind Zargon but believe me: I try very hard to not have to try too hard. If I can avoid painting something (pre-painted stowage, masking and spraying, coloured primers, washes, dips and inks) I'll do it every time :)

If I can help gamers get toys on the table by suggesting shortcuts then my job is done ;)

John T

Beautiful modeling, sir! A joy for this modeler's eyes.

Brilliant.

Some great techniques shown here.

John T said:

If I can help gamers get toys on the table by suggesting shortcuts then my job is done ;)

Bless you, sir.

Fantastic work John!!

You're one of the best Treadaway, you should write a Slammers supplement with all your hobby work. I'd definitely buy it.

Lovin' the detailing especially the use of stowage. Excellent.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I managed to get some decals on this morning before work.

These aren't finished yet, I hasten to add. They've been put down with Micro-sol and Micro-set solutions to get them to stay down but I still need to slice them over some panel lines on the skirts to get them to really 'suck in' and not look like they're floating over the skirts. I'll do that when they've set.

The vehicle above has a decal cut as if the new panel hasn't had the number repinted back on – a recent repair, is the idea. Note that these models all represent a late Friesland Defence Force with vehicles that are manned by some crew that 'wear the pin'. That means that they are ex Slammers, now recruited into the FDF following Alois Hammer's ascendancy to the presidency.

I've tried to reflect this on some of the vehicles by using the optional small Slammers ‘Lion Rampant' (supplied on the Ainsty decal sheet) as an over-laid decal onto the centres of some of the FDF decals, to show their experience and pride in their old unit. I've also added the odd full blown Slammers decal in other locations (‘coz they probably don't care!).

I only managed to mess up one vehicle number set – one of the combat cars. I stupidly got the decals wet before I was ready to use them (watch where you drip…) and – when I did – they came apart too quickly and disintigrated. So that Car became one pulled out of the reserve pool to make up the numbers (ie it has an out of sequence serial number).

Sorry that one's slightly out of focus: as I'm just snapping these as I go, I'm using my small compact camera rather than my big one (so useless depth of field!) and it was probably focusing on the extra eye-candy decal… I had some of these gifted to me by a club mate (thanks Colin) and I have tried to use them before but – as they are printed out on regular decal paper – there's no white underneath them so the colours lack intensity and they show up badly on anything other than a white background. My life's too short to paint white under a decal before I use it but I thought they'd be worth a try on a silver background on a Blower. They look quite muted but ok, I thought.

This last one has a little carrier film showing that I'll have to repair when I finish them up.

I will post shots of them all when I've finished them. Just cutting some bodies in half to make the pro-temp jeep crew.

John T

Hurray for realism! Stowage, damage, weathering, decals and a good paint job bring everything to life.

John, great tutorial as well as great work.

Thanks,

Pat

Love the FDF decal [and all the stuff about the models!]! Don't have any of those in 6mm, since Bad Idea went bust …

I know L4, I know.

But – if there's sufficient interest in 6mm stuff, please badger Ainsty and, if he thinks he can sell them, he'll make 'em, I'm sure!

John T

I finished them – will take snaps tomorrow.

John T

I have now completed the up-armoured paint job project.

I managed four Blower tanks, for Blower Combat Cars and a jeep.

As previously mentioned, the jeep is a slight fudge as the pre-production one I had came without a crew.

There's lots of shots of the stowage…

Both in the storage bustles supplied by Ainsty…

And etched brass from the combat car kits…

As you can see from the first photo in this post, I did some crew conversions but there re also shots of new and old blowers side by side for comparrison.

Have a look at the pages on the Slammers site: link

Get the play sheet for these vehicles here: PDF link

John T

Very jealous about you getting the new toys first!
Are the etched brass cargo bins available separately?

I am also interestd in getting the brass cargo bins separately.

Excellent work John.

Thanks,

Pat

On the Tank John… What's in the Ammo cans next to the Tribarrel? In that the Tribarrel is fed through a tube in the mount….

Info junky – you're dead right, of course. I can blather on about back up ammo, or even boxes of grenades (or tbe commander's sandwiches) but the truth – of course – is that I have no rationale other than aesthetics :)

The baskets are included in the combat car set – there's one in each set (and the cars are never going to have them fitted universally). But do you think a separate fret of baskets in a variety of sizes for various tanks would be a good idea?

Lastly, mcwong – I had to get them early to do some box art shots for Ainsty! At least that's my story – and I'm sticking to it!

John T

About the baskets, hell yes. There isn't a lot in 15mm scale and there would be interest from WW2 and moderns gamers to boot.

Great minis,John thanks for showing.
My favourites would have to be the Combat cars especially with those canopies.
I hadn't planned to get these just yet, know I have to think again :(….

Z

New items are now listed online ainsty-castings.co.uk

John – any chance of M1A6s being made in 15mm by Ainsty?

Oh – by the way, here's the 'ultimate' up armoured blower Big Detachment sheet:

PDF link

Four cars and four tanks with all the elite skills and optional rules you could want. About 5200 points with a 'celebrity' commander.

Run them against several detachments of other people's stuff or they'll probably hate you…

John – any chance of M1A6s being made in 15mm by Ainsty?

I'm guessing probably not artbraune: they were based on my drawing and design work but the 28mm sculpting and casting was by GZG.

John T

Oh, and another thing – I spoke to Andy at Ainsty. Two things: not only are the new decals available on the website along with the new blowers and jeeps, but – having looked at this thread – he also agreed to the idea of a separate fret of ecthed brass assorted baskets for AFVs.

So – baskets on the same basis as the combat car fret (which – to remind you – looks like this)

Watch this space!

John T

John, I want those tribarrels available separately as well for conversion projects, dammit! I just finished putting together a 15mm force of cartel thuggery on wheels using diecast off road vehicles, and I had to make do with whatever substitutes I could dig up to serve as auto cannons, coil guns, tribarrels, etc. would have been a whole lot easier if I had access to some scale weapons that actually looked like they belonged in the Slammerverse.

So give, dadnabbit! Photo etched stowage baskets AND tribarrels, thank you all very much!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

P.S. Wonderful work as always, you vicious little miscreant, you!

I'll pass that on to Andy as well, Leland!

And thanks :)

John T