ISAF Project. Vehicles

Back to the Afghanistan project again :)

The last pieces I'm assembling for this (for the moment!) will be two vehicles.

I got this Humvee and got it painted in Spanish Army colours:

 

Presumably finished

 

But when I had it finished I begun to think. 'Well, it is really close to the Spanish model, but... Not close enough'. You know, the kind of stuff that comes to mind from time to time. It simply didn't work for me no more.

Sooo... let's get hands dirty!

Step 1. Some green stuff will be needed to fix that

Step 2... Hey, what's that?

I used a stowage kit from another model to make the bumper. When properly cut, it looked more or less the way it was supposed to be. The wire cutter is just some plastic cut & glued to give it that shape.

 

Details. Tiny details make all work

The same on the back

 

Then I painted the sign these vehicles bear to avoid local cars breaking the security distance:

 

Keep distance in Dari. More or less

 

So the vehicle definitely looks like this when finished:

 

It also has Spanish military plates

If you don't keep the sign clean, nobody's going to see it!

Mandatory comparison pic

 

On the other side, Afghan guys also needed some mobility:

 

No modification at all this time

That's a serious gun!

Once again, size comparison pic

Both vehicles look like this:

 

Ready to go

 

I still have to find a proper turret for the Spanish Vamtac, but it's fine for me for the moment.

 

I'm afraid I still haven't dared to seriously read the Skirmish Sangin ruleset, I believe I should take my excuses apart and definitely lear how to play...

Spanish ISAF Soldiers 28 mm. (Pt. 2, painted models)

Well, here you can see part 1 of the project finished. Small text and a few pics, as there is not really that much to say. I have tried to reproduce the camo pattern, but of course painting the pixel effect is absurd at this scale, so it is just a bunch of small stains in different tones of brown :P

Let's go for them:

 

I guess this will be the NCO

Not great, but I'm satisfied

Looking ahead

The weapon is still awful. I hoped you shouldn't see the GS work. I miserably failed

And the final guy

A family pic

 

By the way, you can see a house behind. I got a set of buildings from Crescent Root Studio. They are absolutely great. A little bit pricey due to shipping costs, but they are definitely a deal for this ambientation. You can see them in this pic:

 

Not exactly a whole town, but enough for a start

 

In a few days you will see their oponents. All I'm saying for the moment is that they will be significantly more!

Hope you like this!

Spanish ISAF Soldier (Pt. 5 Final result)

Okay, the project is finally closed.  :)
I'm afraid I should have taken pictures of the step-by-step on the face, but I didn't realize until it was too late. I spent some hours on this and I regret to say that the only photo I have is this sh**:

 

The face looks much more better, but I don't know how to take f***ing good pics

 

Well, my disgrace, another thing for the to do list. Learn how to use a frakking camera. No, seriously.

Then I went to the blacks. Three different kinds of black here. But no one notices as the pic is crappy as usual:

 

Slowly taking shape

 

If you look close, you will see the ID badge on his chest. It depicts his range (Pvt., a vertical strip, almost unseen), the 'Infantry' designation (no way to appreciate that, it's a tiny seal) and his surname. I wrote down 'Lopez'. No specific reason, it's just a really common surname, short enough and I didn't dare to do anything more complicated.

Then I added some dirt. Desert means dirt, of course. But I didn't want to overdo it.

 

Slight dirt. Less is more

 

Some day I have to begin with pigments. I've seen real wonders with those, but I've never used them, I work only with paint. Some day, some day...

I needed some more green stuff to fix the arms right:

I should redo the weapon, but I have no patience for that

Right arm, NATO badge

You should read 'ISAF' there. I really need to change my brush, couldn't do it better.

So, the final look of the model is like this:

  Well, this is what I have achieved with this model. On the whole it has given me some more work than expected and it has been an intermitent work I could only do from time to time. But, defects apart, I like the result pretty much. This will not be the last thing you see on this subject, that I can tell you. But not on this scale. You'll see, you'll see...

Spanish ISAF Soldier (Pt. 4 Painting the uniform)

Okay, let's go on brushes with the soldier.

The first steps bear no mistery. White primer and then a first colour layer to give consistence later.

Custard camo pattern

After a chocolat brown wash, I gave a layer of Citadel Bleached Bone (whatever that colour is named now).

Getting paler...

And then the real base layer, a mix of Bleached Bone and a little Vallejo flat grey.

 

... and paler.

 

Now, for the camo itself. I didn't even try to mimic the pixels pattern. It looks really cool, yes, but I simply can't paint pixels and square angles this size. So I just painted small irregular spots with no apparent order, trying to make it similar to the real one.

 

First layer of spots, Vallejo Sand

 

I repeated the scheme again, this time with Vallejo chocolat brown:

Et voilà!

Shading and highlighting is difficult on a camo pattern model, but I tried it slightly. With this I consider finished the step one here. Next one will be the face, accessories and so.

Well, what do you think? Do you like where is this going to?

Spanish ISAF Soldier (Pt. 3 Head & Arms)

Hi again! More WIP on the soldier today.

The head of the model held some issues. First of all, the boonie, though mostly correct, had to be identified as part of Spanish uniform. So it had to bear the Seal of the Army, the crowned Eagle with the Cross of St. James.



Stolen Uploaded from Wikipedia

Tried my best

The other issue was, of course, the scuba mask. This guy has a scuba mask around his neck:

Might find it useful in the desert, you never know

 I wasn't sure of what the hell was I going to do here. After some crazy ideas, I just decided to remove as much as I could with a cutter and sculpt a military neck warmer on it.

The green stuff on the chin is due to a... ehrm... 'shaving accident'

 

 So, once the head was finished, I glued it to the body:

Looks odd without arms

  Then I went on the arms. They are sculpted as scuba suit ones, so they needed another aspect:

Pockets, pockets everywhere...

So... I had all the pieces. How would they all fit in when put up altogether? Let's check:

Ta-daaaa

 

The pieces (arms and weapon) are not glued, they need to be painted separately. As you can see, I also had to do some extra green stuff work on the boots and other parts to make the model more accurate according to the Spanish uniform.

So this was the scuplting. Now to the painting. I'll keep you posted!

Spanish ISAF Soldier (Pt.2 Body)

Back to the soldier again. If the other day I showed you the gun, today I'll attack the body.
The upper torso of the model was wearing a scuba diving suit, so I had to do some extensive job all over.

Green stuff tailor

 

The vest used by Spanish Army allows the gripping of holsters and pockets in different combinations. I sculpted all those holsters more as a requirement of the model than any other thing.

 

Lots of buckles and strips. They drove me crazy

 

I had to face a new challenge with the back of the model. The Navy Seal backpack was kind of problematic. I couldn't remove it and it neither looked like an appropiate backpack. I finally thought it could pass as a 'camelbak' to carry water, so I worked on that idea.

Maybe little too bulky for that, but it was the best thing I could think of

The rest was just a matter of adjusting pieces and strips, all those tiny details needed to make the model credible. I'm afraid you need to be patient to carry on this kind of things, I almost ruined the holsters a couple times as I pretended to work again when the green stuff wasn't totally cured.

But well, this begins to look like something...

Spanish ISAF Soldier (Pt.1. Beginning and weapon)

Hi everyone!

Today I'm starting a new group of entries concerning a single project. I will be alternating projects as I've been doing so far, just not to bore you with the same stuff. But if you prefer otherwise, please let me know ;)

The title says it everything. I have long time wanted a figure to represent a Spanish Soldier serving in Afghanistan as part of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF). The lack of this kind of product all over the companies I've visited made me take the resolution of grabbing the bull by its horns. If it didn't exist, I'd have to create it.

I was looking for some piece for exposition rather than wargaming (that will be another absolutely different project -but not today), so I aimed for 54/72mm. Finally I chose the 72mm. Knightmodels Navy Seal as a starting point.

 

Yeah, I chose a scuba diver for a desert trooper. That's how my mind works, don't ask.

 

I most probably won't be using the flippers though

Well, well, well. There's a lot of work to do here. I chose this model basically for the legs and the head. I would have almost nothing to touch up in the legs, and the boonie was perfect for my purpose, as I didn't find any helmeted head suitable for my intentions. 'What happens with the rest of the model, genius?' I can hear you asking.

The first problem, and probably the most challenging, is the weapon. The basic design of a M-16 differs from the G36. Let's do it Sesame Street style with some help from Wikipedia:



This is a M-16

 

This is a G36

 

So, what could I do? I went on green stuff:

 

I have no idea of what I'm doing

Hmmm...

Hey, where did that come from?

Well, close enough for me

 

Okay, it's not perfect, not even by chance. The muzzle and the whole barrel are different, but that doesn't specially bother me. So it is the grenade launcher, but I didn't dare to remove it because of the soldier's hand. I tried to mimic the G36 designs, but trust me, once all this is painted in black, no one will notice the differences :P

I did not finish the whole butt of the weapon, as it has to fit in the arm of the model. Maybe the sculpting is not pro, but I think it will work for my purposes.

Hope you like it, let me know what you think!