Month: March 2020

Bird down

thomasriepe , , , , , , ,

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As you know, if you follow my blog closely, I build some 3D printed Hueys for my Vietnam wargames. If you haven’t seen them have a look here. As my son dropped one of the models I thought about doing a crashed one.

This is how i found the model:

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Then over on the Lead Adventure Forum the build something 2020 competition started. Theme was something destroyed . So I entered this build. As I dropped out now I can show you the build here , too.

I started with the chopper you see above broken of course.

I build three bases to be able to use them in my games. I added some bulletholes in the windscreen and the engine. After all there must be a reason why the bird crashed.

I finished the bases with sand and added scratch marks of the skids etc.

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I did my own decal sheet from white decal paper. This means that all the white parts of the decals stay white when transferred unto the model instead of the clear decal sheets were the white parts stay clear.

Here are the pictures from the competition:

And some pictures together with other parts of my collection:

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New picture frame

thomasriepe , , , , , , , , ,

Now that there are only three older NVA soldiers left before I start on the Crisis19 ones, I thought it would be a good idea to change my photo setup. Until now i took the pictures on my gaming table . The lighting wasn’t perfect there so I decided to make a small framework for my painting/modeling desk as light there is no problem. So I took two pieces of extruded polystyrene and glued them together with my hot glue gun.

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You get something like this then. I glued sand and grid down like I would do on a piece for my gaming table and started painting it with my usual ground colors.

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Then I painted the backdrop a light blue color and used a second even lighter tone of blue to simulate light clouds.

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So when used correctly you get a picture like this:

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Now you can use different scatter terrain pieces to change the layout as you like. Here are pictures of another NVA soldier using the plain photo frame I described above:

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I think you get much better pictures like that . What do you think?

The complete platoon leader section

thomasriepe , , , , , , ,

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The platoon leader. The last figure from the command pack , to be found in the indo china range by empress miniatures.

And the complete platoon leader section:

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Next will be the last 3 NVA soldiers from the first badge of Vietnam war figures I purchased. After that i will start on the miniatures I bought at Crisis 19.

 

Rice Paddies

thomasriepe , , , , , ,

I hope you are all safe and sound in this world wide pandemic! here in Germany the normal life doesn’t exist anymore and that is good to battle the virus. As we are more or less all at home and boredom will set in sooner or later , I will try to post something every other day to keep you a bit more occupied and to divert your thoughts away from Corona.

So for a start here is a rather big update. I finished my rice paddies for my Vietnam games.

I got the STL files from 3D Alienworlds.

Here are pictures of the printed paddies.

As you can see the paddy itself comes blank. So you can just paint it as an empty field or you can ad strips of rice plants to have a field with rice planted. The file is done to be able to ad artificial water effect to it.

As I didn’t want to use a water effect I changed the STL into this one:

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So now it looks like the plants are partly submerged. I will use paint and gloss varnish to create a water effect like i did with all my water features for my gaming table.

So here are pictures of the finished rice paddies:

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Without plants.

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With plants.

Some more pictures of my table layout with the rice paddies:

Next up lots of new NVA Soldiers!

Salute 2020 not taking place due to Corona Virus

thomasriepe

I just found out that Salute 2020 is postponed/canceled due to the safety regulations , concerning the Corona virus pandemic.

This is a wise step to take, if you ask me, as it is much too dangerous to meet up with so many people at the moment. We have to take special care for the chronic ill and the older  people. So for me it is ok to move on with Salute to a safer date!

Alas it is sad to wait another year to meet up with all my friends in Great Britain and the rest of the world!

So take extra special care !

I wish you and your families that you stay healthy and get through this crisis without personal loss!