Battling the Black Dog

So this is my 200th blog post, not counting the handful of drafts that never were finished. I promised a give-away when I reached this number, but not today. Maybe tomorrow, or the day thereafter. Soon anyway, I'm currently pilfering around and excavating the nether regions of my lead mountain for suitable items.

The Lead Mountain according to Wikipedia. Yes, it's a real place!!!

But in this post I want to talk about something else; I recently suffered a bout of depression. Churchill described getting visits from "his dreaded black dog" now and then. It's really a fitting description. It's hard to explain how it feels to people who haven't suffered from real depression, but I will try. Feel free to skip the text and only look at the eye-candy at the end if you don't like to read my ramblings. Don't forget to tune in for the giveaway next time, though.

Dusty little jeep and friends

There have been some bad news regarding our planned LRDG game. The convention we were supposed to be playing at will probably be cancelled. While there are other conventions in our general area they are all too early in time, so our planning is all off. We will probably be hosting a game at one of them, but it will not be the LRDG game. So there's a bit of conundrum for us: firstly we all have invested some time, and not a little amount of money buying stuff for the game. In my case I have bought a Caproni bomber model as well as some italian figures and a staff vehicle from SHQ. Secondly, we have to figure out (pardon the pun) a suitable scenario and prepare the forces needen, in a short time. Therefore we have to do something eastern front since we have a lot of suitable terrain and large german and soviet forces. However our gimmick is to play a battle from 70 years ago, so this year we have to do something that happened in 1942. Most of our stuff will still be usable so there will be a minimum of investment in new stuff. Although those long-barreled Panzer F2 do look very tempting... yes, a platoon of those will do. Just a small one though...

All this mean that my motivation for working on the LRDG project has been quite low. I still plan to finish it and we will probably playing a small game on our own, but it's more work than fun now, sadly. Since I sort of ran out of steam I haven't finished allt the vehicles, but I thought I would show what I have done so far.

The harsh contrasts of the chipping has been muted by MIG Pigments.

Lovely little jeep

Finally the Coat d'Arms paintset I ordered from Maelstrom Games arrived, so I could continue painting the LRDG vehicles. I ordered the WW2 British set, along with a box of Plastic Soldier Company brits, since I will be returning to Normandy after this project. By pure chance it contained a Desert Yellow that nearly matches the Vallejo paint I needed, but couldn't find. Close enough!

So I started to paint the jeep to try out the paints and a suitable method. It is nearly finished now.

The jeep was basecoated with Khemri Brown

Some progress...

Been working some more on the LRDG project. The paint conundrum is not yet solved, but there might be some hope on the horizon. There are two possible solutions, of which the first is easiest, but might not work.

I have recently ordered Coat d'Arms' British WW2 Paint Set, along with a set of Plastic Soldier Company's british figures. I ordered it about a month ago, but my order has been delayed as some other items were out of stock. Maelstrom Games have now split the order and I'm hoping to get the figures and the paint set soon. By coincidence, the paint set contains a colour named "Desert Yellow".  Coat d'Arms wasn't listed in the Vallejo conversion charts, so there is a chance that it will match, and if so your Mom's brother is called Robert.


The other solution is a bit trickier but less reliant on luck. Jocke sent me a printed colour chart for Vallejo, so I can try and mix my own Desert Yellow paint. Harder, but it should be possible to at least get a decent match.


Meanwhile I have been busy painting and building. Some WIP shots behind the break:

Paint by numbers

Warning, this blog post contains some ranting. Lock up the women-folk and infants now.

You have been warned.

So my LRDG project is slowly plodding along; the vehicles are nearly finished and I have started to paint the crew figures. Time to start thinking about paint schemes. There is quite a nice painting guide on the FoW site, that apparently, is totally inaccurate. I should have known better, since they colour choices are a bit wierd at times, and I have seen a particular colour being recommended for two distinctly different shades of paint, on the same model!

Keep on trukkin'

My LRDG project continues. I managed to get a hold of the Revell LRDG/SAS set with Chevrolet 30cwt and Jeep. This kit is starting to get rare, and I had a bit of a scare when I couldn't locate a single one on eBay. So when I discovered that Bromma Hobby had one left in stock, I immediately ordered it and a Flak38 kit from Zvezda (in the heat of the moment). I have to recommend Bromma Hobby to anyone living in Sweden, their service was outstanding, my order arrived the very next day.

Unfortunately I had to restrain myself a couple of days before starting the kit. Some WIP pictures and comments on the kit behind the break:

Desert desserts.

Dang, I have been ill, some kind of flu. Not the regular influenza though, where you get to stay home from work but can still paint lots of figures and watch all those war movies that SWMBO doesn't like, but man flu. The kind that leaves you whishing you were dead, too knackered to even think straight. But as Nietsche said: That which doesn't kill you hurts like hell.

Anyway, I've recovered somewhat and was able to finish building my LRDG radio truck today.

The main parts assembled.

After I had glued the bed of the truck, the driving seat and the back of the driver's cabin to the chassis I noticed that the chassis was ever so slightly bent. It made the truck look like it had a "swank", but the glue had already hardened. That's the downside with resin kits, you have to use superglue and some things are not fixable after glueing.

The work continues. Phew, there are a gazillion parts.

The bottom of the truck. Lots parts here too.

The kit itself was very good, but the instructions were quite horrible. There were no numbers on the parts and you had to guess from the very simple drawing what some of the parts were. I made a lot of mistakes, like gluing what was probably supposed to be the radio antenna under the truck, thinking it was supposed to be the drive shaft. In the instructions the drive shaft was only a thin line, while the parts for the drive shaft had details on them which was why I thought they were for something else.

The finished truck with crew from SHQ pack DG2.

Nevertheless, the kit was fun to build and I think the result is quite good. The bent frame doesn't show up as much in the finished model with all the kit on. Overall the details were good, the only parts I found lacking were the Lewis guns, which really could have benefited from some better detailing. I ordered some crew from SHQ and they fit quite nicely.

Notice the varied gear of the crew: hats, pullovers, shorts, long trousers, berets, etc.

The only problem is the standing chap who is apparently firing a Browning. I'm not sure if I will fit a Browning or maybe a Vickers for him to use, or if I'm going to use him for another vehicle. I didn't want to put too many weapons on the truck as their positions will be decided by what crew figures I use in the end. As I mentioned earlier I plan to get the Matchbox/Revell LRDG set and maybe a jeep or another truck from SHQ and perhaps be able to switch around some of the figures and equipment between the different vehicles.

But who will manage the radio?

SHQ Pack DG1, LRDG Roadwatch

I also ordered some italians and another pack of LRDG to check out. I'm not sure how many dismounted figures we need for the game but I wanted to have a look at them anyway. I must say they look awefully nice, and I will probably order a pack of each code in the future.

Wee Friends "WWII Axis North Africa" -- really?

Earlier I ordered a pack of WWII axis north africa figures from Wee Friends. They had alternative heads so could be built as either germans or italians, wearing generic gear and clothing. However, I noticed one that looked decidedly british, so I will be using him for LRDG instead. 

All in all a successful project, now I just have to figure out how to paint the truck...  oh dear.

2011 review

Jag noterar att en massa andra bloggare lägger upp summeringar av 2011, något jag egentligen hade tänkt undvika. Det är lite som att gå till tandläkaren, man vill inte veta hur mycket hål man har och vad det kommer att kosta att laga, men man måste gå. Alltså gör jag en årskrönika för 2011, och listar vilka projekt jag gjort klart, vilka som havererade och vilka som inte ens kom igång...

Christmas comes early part 2

I går åkte jag till posten för att hämta ut vad jag trodde var juklappar till barnen, men det visade sig vara en resinmodell jag beställde för en dryg vecka sedan. Det är en Ford-lastbil till Long Range Desert Group från rumänska Wespe Models.

The Macguffin.

Asken innehöll en rulle bubbelplast och en hopvikt ritning.

I rullen bubbelplast fanns tre ziplock-påsar med delar.

En testprovning av chassit och en smakprov på den fina kvalitén på gjutningen.

Det bådar gott inför framtiden. Wespe Models har många ovanliga modeller och det verkar inte som att någon av delarna saknas eller har gått sönder. Jag köpte modellen på deras eBay-shop och de skickade den några dagar efter att jag betalat och det tog en knapp vecka för paketet att komma fram. Utmärkt service!