And now for something completely different

Just for a change of pace, I thought I'd get off some shots of my slowly-expanding North Africa collection that I've started work on again with a few small eBay purchases. I've had these Matildas for ages and have more in stock, which is lucky as they do not seem to be in production by airfix at the moment, although the Italeri ones seem fine to me.

I'm not really building any historical Order of Battle, just bits that take my fancy. I'm thinking these will go towards 7RTR, eventually which means I'll need at least a total of 7 if I am to fuill tout the Rapid Fire organisation.

These Vickers Lights were a very intelligent purchase on the part of Airfix of a mould that was developed by JB models some years ago. It's currently in production and a really nice little kit that builds very easily.

The faithful old Airfix Universal carrier. Such a useful kit, and it looks splendid in my rather inaccurate Caunter Camoflage. Oughtn't that blue be grey instead?

The Germans arrive. I have had these two Opel Blitzes forever; more than 15 years if you can believe that. A bit like the old Matchbox Pz 2 I have had floating around (and still intact) for donkeys' years.

Italian M13/40 by Italeri; another old m0del I've had for years. Like some others, it is now back in production after a fair old absence and I have taken advantage of the opportunity to stock up on them; terribly useful vehicles for equipping either side!

I picked up an old Gloster Gladiator kit from Airfix last week and was delighted thay had included transfers for "Faith", "Hope" and "Charity", Maltas' legendary defenders against the early Italian assault. Put them with a few Vickers and a pair of Matildas painted in the Malta "stone wall" pattern, and you could do all sorts of things with fallschirmjaeger...

Just a thought.

Painting Panzers - OT???

I bought a box of Armourfast PzKwIIIG this weekend and have been happily painting them in North African livery. To this end, I purchased some of the appropriate Tamiya shade and some Matt White with which to lighten it.

Assembling the kits was a breeze. For anyone who is not familiar with the Armourfast kits, they are very basic with upper and lower hull, complete track units, turret, and a vew detail units to complete a satisfying model in a simple kit that takes little time to throw together.

I halted construction when I had the hull, turret and tracks as seperate units. I sprayed these in a flat black as an undercoat and then proceeded to paint these in German Dark Yellow.

Tamiya does this colour as an attractive sort of orange-ish tan. I laid this on with the biggest, flattest brush I own. The first layer was laid down quickly and lightly over the whole kit and the idea was to get good coverage while leaving the black undercoat in all the recesses. More paint was layered on with the aim of producing on a nice, smooth coat onto the flat surfaces of the vehicles, the aim being to get an almost "enamelled" surface. The black base-coat will create shading in the recesses.

Next will be to highlight with a couple of successively lighter shades put on with a lighter dry-brushing per coat.

Finally I will give the vehicles a very light dry-brush of Panzer Gray to simulate wear on the Desert Yellow base-coat.

I will then gloss varnish the vehicles and apply decals from my spares box.

I hope to finish off by washing the tyres with a thinned gray then lightly spraying with a little Tamiya USAF Tan and then an even lighter spray of white - both to simulate dust. Finally I'll apply a coat of mat varrnish to dull down the finish of the vehicles.

I'm a bit painted out on the 7YW just now, so I'm taking a few weeks out on this project; I'm thinking of a couple of batallions of Commonwealth troops and a company of Panzers, some reconnaissance troops and a Panzer-grenadier battalion. A nice diversion courtesy of Rapid Fire.