All over the place... WIP

G'day folks,
Thought I'd give a glimpse of some of the work in progress in my hobby corner. It  is indeed "all over the place", both physically & in terms of projects- although mostly having a WW2 theme.
One thing I can't show at the moment are some 28mm Teddy Bears in Seven Years War costume, from Eureka Miniatures here in Australia- I am painting them for my daughter's birthday, so no looking until after the big day.
So here we go:

These are Airfix Shermans for my son's US forces. Not much left to do on these, except paint & flock bases & add further dirt/weathering. The tank commander is an Airfix US Marine who has been chopped a bit and painted appropriately. My son did most of the actual construction, I just tidied up and did the paint job.

This is part of the Airfix QLT troop transport lorry that I have slowly been working on, amongst other things. The driver is from AB. The thing with these kind of builds is that you can't just stick it all together and paint it afterwards, many parts have to be completely painted before the next part can be added to the kit. The chassis, cab & much of the tray fit into this category. I'm looking forward to getting this finished, then I will post pictures of both vehicles from this fine set- not completely satisfied with the weathering on the other one, oh well.

These are the cows that featured in "the Auld Empty Barn" photos, just giving them some sturdy bases for the battlefield. Bases awaiting paint and flock.

This is the second of my recent German MG teams on the move- actually I don't think I've shown you the first one yet...later. These are plastics in 1/72, I think they are Caesar & Italeri. I was quite happy with these. Just waiting for paint & flock to the base.

Start of my British Commando force. Two conversions and one Italeri figure. Sorry, not a very clear picture. The centre figure has PSC body with HaT British Tank Rider head, the one on the right has Italeri body, HaT head, sten removed & replaced with Sgts Mess metal SMLE. Hoping to convert more in the future, especially now as I have some "Selleys Knead It" (same as Kneadatite brown I believe), for making berets.

These are some chaps from my British Combat Engineer section. I have already completed a bloke with a flamethrower & will hopefully show that when these are finished. The bloke with the Bren gun in top picture far left, is from PSC, all the rest are AB (from Milicast).

This is a wee shed from Scalescenes- another paper model- which I have modified as it was a raised goods shed before. It now has a removable roof with realistic lining and reinforced foamcore walls. Yet to do the base/groundwork. The other piles of gravel don't look like much at the moment but will once painted, look like reasonable shellholes/craters. They are based on upside down foil receptacles for custard tarts! Saw the idea on the internet somewhere.

This was a free Dave Graffam building I downloaded from Wargames Vault & scaled down for 1/72 on my printer. Again groundwork still to be done. I have reinforced with foamcore & card, made roof sections removable, and given a passable looking interior. This is not one of the original tiled roof designs from the kit, I wasn't keen on them & thought they looked a bit "cartoony", instead it has been replaced with a Scalscenes slate tile effect roof. The kit is really worth downloading, has lots of options, & can be easily re-scaled to suit.

This is a scratch built house I have been working on too. The construction so far is mostly foam core. The render was made by mixing fine sand with paint and adding a couple more layers of paint over that. The bricks are carved into the foamcore after you cut back some of the card outer layer. i have got as far as decorating the downstairs walls and installing some tasteful floorboards (courtesy of Scalescenes again). I am planning on a removable upstairs floor and removable roof. I am still pondering how I could tackle the windows and doors- may scratch build windows or maybe use a window texture file. It's not compulsory to be able to see the chaps looking out of the windows, and I think it can be a bad look if you can see right through a building and out the other side. My daughter wants me to decorate the place with rugs, clock, bookcases etc- we shall see.

Another building I have pretty much completed, but has been put away & hence not photographed, was another cool free card building- The Old Presbytery. I found it on a French card building site, but can't remember where, it's French name was "Ancien Presbytere" if you want to search for it. I didn't like the roof on it and so used a slate tile texture file from http://www.cgtextures.com/ , I also changed the chimney configuration, gave it a removable roof, decorated the interior, and gave it a removable first floor, plus made my own guttering for it. Hopefully I'll get a picture up for you in due course.

As you can see, I have a number of things on the go as far as hobby stuff is concerned. I'm hoping I can get a few more of them finished so I can make more of a dent in my stash of models & figures that are still waiting for assembly & paint.

Cheers Everyone,
Sarge.