Camouflage net Forgebear link
Spare Track added armour Forgebear Link
helmet decal
Helmet Decal Detail, Helmet link
1/16th scale Panzer Commander figure
Forgot to take a picture of the bare resin figure! This is after a little work…..wasn’t happy with skin tones! Figure available from here
New start!
Bit more work, added some accessories to turret MP40 and ammo pouch link
Cuff title added…….had to make this myself!
Had to upgrade his awards with photoetched brass from Rado Link also added Knights Cross ribbon to neck, his shirt is unbuttoned so tilted it abit to one side to reflect this.
Painted in the Awards, all done!
Really pleased with how he turned out my first ever 1/16th scale figure.
Added
1/16 Henglong Tiger Painting 1
First upgrade, photoetched brass radiator grill covers Forgebear Link here
Base coat added, Tracks removed
Stripes added along with decals, Tracks have been weathered with mud and rust and accessories added.
Exhaust detail 1
Exhaust detail 2
Gun barrel kill scores decal
Some light weathering, filters applied. Upgrades smoke mortars, yes i know drivers hatch needs to be remounted! Metal smoke launchers from forgebear Link
Mud!
Upgrades smoke mortars and helmet Forgebear accessories pack link here
Smokin’!
HengLong 1/16th RC Tiger 1
Since I was a little boy, I’ve always wanted a remote control model of some description, be it a Plane or Boat, or a Tank. For me they remained elusive, mainly due to price and total lack of knowledge of electrical circuits and engineering. Then a chance encounter in September last year at Bovington Tank Museum during a model expo changed all that.
There was a company displaying and selling various Remote Control Tanks, which intrigued me and my friends. Some were full metal, others were part metal, part plastic, all were pretty large and did so much more than just move about! Best of all, These ones came fully assembled and ready to run straight out of the box. One of my friends was as enchanted by them as I was. So much so that I sneakily arranged for him to get one for his 60th birthday. I spent some time looking into various options, and got quite caught up in the whole RC Tank world. This was very luckily noticed by my wife, who managed to buy me one for Christmas!
The Company we had chosen to buy from, Henglong sells a range of affordable entry level Tanks. The basic tank has everything you need. It has working suspension, a BB firing gun!, Recoil when firing main armament, a smoke generator for the exhaust, an Infrared system which enables combat with other I.R. equipped tanks, engine sound, firing sound, both MG and main gun, sound effects for turret movement, and LED lighting for headlamps and MG.
There are of course endless options to upgrade external and internals parts to super enhance your Tank to a much higher standard.
One such company that supplies these parts, and for me probably the best, cheapest and quickest is Forgebear Tanks They will have, or can get, what you need, they are also very knowledgeable with advice for us clueless Newbs!
The most obvious way to upgrade your tank is to paint it, so the following entries will catalogue my painting journey to completion.
Federation Pursuit Ships
I’ve had these a while, originally purchased for fleet scale combat, their size is around 5.5cms I think, which makes them quite large for fleet scale ships of this size, so they were upgraded to battlecruisers. The models are 3d prints from Shapeways, I’m pretty sure they are still available.
I decided to base them on x wing flight stands, with magnets, and I will use x wing rules for them to battle the Liberator. I think I might upgrade the antenna/laser barrels, and I may repaint one to act as Servalan’s Ship. I will be making some X wing style base cards, pilot cards and dials for these as well.
Below is a comparison shot, the Liberator being about 3 times the length of these pursuit ships, to me that looks about right, other people may disagree and want a huge Liberator…….Space might be big…..but table size is somewhat limited 😉
The Liberator Arrives!
The Liberator kit from popcultureprintinguk Link Landed shortly after Christmas, I left it late to order and there were a lot of orders in the queue ahead of me!
Parts themselves are very well detailed at this scale, they only needed a little clean up, and you will need to file down the the areas that join the main parts together so it doesn’t leave a gap. What gaps that remained were easily filled. I switched out the weapons barrels/antenna to something a lot more sturdy as the printed parts, although to scale, (and all intact) were just to fragile to last long.
I was pretty pleased with how the parts went together using super glue. Its now ready for priming.
Din Djarin’s N1 Starfighter for X wing 2.0
I’ve managed to paint the 3d Print of Din Djarin’s N1 Star fighter from shapeways.
The detail was amazing on this little print and was fairly straight forward to do by hand. I have a few more ships to paint, but I’m waiting for Santa to deliver an airbrush, so those will be painted using a mixture of by hand and air brush. Although all the Pilot cards and dials etc have been designed I have yet to print them out, but more pictures will follow when that is finally achieved.
That just leaves me with one final thing to say to all the followers of my blog, and anyone else who might come across this post before Monday…..Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you all have a peaceful and restful time. All the best, Si
Custom Pilot Cards for Star Wars X-Wing
So a few of you have been asking for images of my DSV-2 Liberator Pilot cards. What follows is what I’ve come up with but I may still change the values on the cards….Do you have any suggestions, if so let me know! or make your own here
Star Wars Legion Scale
As regular readers of the blog will know, we’re big fans of Star Wars Legion figures and scale models here. I often like to supplement my official collection with 3d prints from a range of sources that gives my armies some unique figures or table scatter that would otherwise be unobtainable. 3d printing has advanced quite a long way in recent times gone are the poor quality detail with loads of layer lines. Resin has been used for a number of years, giving a superior finish and incredible detail at such small scales.
Although there are a lot STL files available out there, few of us have our own 3d printers, and fewer still are clever enough to work them hahaha! So its just as well there are people out there who do.
One such company is popcultureprintinguk they have a vast range of 3d prints available, but what concerns us here are their options for legion.
They currently have over 90 models with new ones being added all the time, see the range here, your choices are between Scenes, figures, battlefield scatter, vehicles including the vast AT AT to starships like the NB1 Naboo starfighter
UPDATE If you would like a small discount on any of these models, mention “Si’s soldiers” in the “make an offer” box on the ebay listings for these models.
Once I have a few figures painted up I will add them here with reviews
Liberator, Where from?
Had a few emails asking where did I get my 15cm Liberator model from, so thought it easier to post a link for you all. This kit is available in various sizes, but the link will take you to the 15cm long version.
Click on link to get your 15cm Model Link
UPDATE If you would like a small discount on this model, or any others listed by “popcultureprintinguk” mention “Si’s soldiers” in the “make an offer” box on the ebay listings for these models.
Kit comes from a company called popcultureprintinguk. it is a 3d printed model in resin, so a lot less layer lines on the surface of the parts than normal 3d printing. So only minimal clean up will be required. If you require a different size version do get in touch with Mark at the link above.
Space Pirates for X Wing?
Visitors to this blog will already be aware that one of my favourite, probably the favourite Sci Fy ship of all time is undoubtedly The Liberator from Blake’s 7.
This ship is available in many scales for the modeller….mostly huge! The ship itself in sci fy reality is in fact meant to be really big…needlessly so in my opinion.
I don’t know if this was intended by its designers or the product of something else, the studio scale ship is massive. Perhaps there were issues scaling a smaller model for special effects shots?
Now Scale is an issue in this hobby….as are the number of rivets, but this is Sci Fy and I don’t bloody care hahahahahahaha. I love this ship too much not to be able to use it in a table top game.
My plan is to use it as a “Scum and Villiany” ship in the table top space combat game of X-wing 2.0. I have already designed the pilot cards, base tile and dial for this!
For those of you still reading…………I needed the ship to be big enough to look menacing, yet small enough to fit on the table and fight 1/270 scale starfighters…in the same way that the Millennium Falcon does. Of the options I had, I estimated a ship size of around 15cms long to achieve this. So that is what I’m going with. I will continue to blog about its progress once it lands and I am able to start the construction process. Stay tuned for the next episode!
UPDATE If you would like a small discount on this model, or any others listed by “popcultureprintinguk” mention “Si’s soldiers” in the “make an offer” box on the ebay listings for these models.
1/270 Scale Shapeways 3d prints for X-Wing
It’s been a while since my last post, a lot has happened! I decided to get back into the blog now i had a bit more time and add to my X-wing squadrons, but with FFG selling on X-wing, it doesn’t seem to be getting any love from its new owners, so went looking for ships from other sources. If you wish to browse the list or buy your own a quick search on Shapeways using “1/270” gets you a lot of interesting ships.
Here are a few pictures directly from the site of those I’ve added to the fleet. I have already mounted them on flight stands with magnets and created Pilot cards, dials and base tiles using this online tool from Infinite Arenas , Link You’ll need to click on “Homebrew”, it takes a while to get the hang of it but its very useful.
Once I have painted them I will post pictures. Models are very detailed, have printed superbly well in this “Tan fine detail plastic” it is more expensive but does away with the rough sandpaper like finish of the white versatile plastic
Si's Soldiers 
