1940 Campaign French - Part 7: More French Vehicles
Hullo, All,
I've been a little poorly recently, so my productivity has been worryingly low, but I did at least manage to get some pics done in the lightbox. I continue to plough through my pile of 1940 French, and today, I present to you a vertitable melange of efforts - I'll outline them here, and then a few more notes will follow with the pics:
This is the Warlord Games model, and - since taking the photos - I have noticed and fixed the surpised look on the commander's face! His leather jacket has been gloss-varnished, to give it a more leathery look. I enhanced the model with some 3rd-party transfers or decals: I bought a range from a French chap who trades as 'Histopic' - and they're exquisitely designed but - alas - rather less well printed, as the individual dots of printer colour are clearly distinct.
I should note that the roundel on the cupula was rather fun to paint, and helps to disguise more striations. I shouldn't have weathered it as much as I did though, bacause whilst I like my models grungy, it makes my paint job look scruffier than it really is!
This is a die-cast model (always my preference for soft-skin transports), and I used it to practise one of the wackier approaches to vehicular camo practised by the French.
Reference pics of such vehicles are somewhat tricky to pin-down, but I did read a couple of times about local units applying their own patterns to suddenly-requisitioned transports, so it struck me that someone might well have wanted to get creative...
...or maybe it was a little too much requisitioned Absinthe? Either way, I documented the progress in a previous blog here.
I've been a little poorly recently, so my productivity has been worryingly low, but I did at least manage to get some pics done in the lightbox. I continue to plough through my pile of 1940 French, and today, I present to you a vertitable melange of efforts - I'll outline them here, and then a few more notes will follow with the pics:
- Panhard 178 Armoured Car;
- Laffly W15 Tank Hunter;
- Renault R40;
- a requisitioned civilian truck, and
- three Renault FT-17s.
Panhard 178:
Laffly W15 Tank Hunter:
Armed with the formidable 47mm anti-tank gun, this model is a resin print, courtesy of a friend of mine, from a very talented and rather prolific STL designer who goes by 'Eskice' (link here).
This came with an accompanying 3D-printed crew, but they needed some... er... corrective surgery, so they're not yet done.
Renault R40:
This is a combination of an old resin hull with FDM-printed tracks and turret, and I'm pleased to note that it was a wonderfully appropriate gift for my 40th birthday.
It's a shame that despite my efforts to mask them, some of the FDM striations remain quite prominent.
I should note that the roundel on the cupula was rather fun to paint, and helps to disguise more striations. I shouldn't have weathered it as much as I did though, bacause whilst I like my models grungy, it makes my paint job look scruffier than it really is!Requisitioned Fordson Truck:
Reference pics of such vehicles are somewhat tricky to pin-down, but I did read a couple of times about local units applying their own patterns to suddenly-requisitioned transports, so it struck me that someone might well have wanted to get creative...
...or maybe it was a little too much requisitioned Absinthe? Either way, I documented the progress in a previous blog here.
Renault FT-17s:
Finally, and from the same STL source as the Laffly tank-hunter, my friend also printed me a trio of baby FT-17s, with both MG and AT turret variants.
There's not a huge amount to say about these, other than that they are greener on the lower hull than they might appear in these pics, wherein the drybrushed brown seems to have been picked up far more.
For seven vehicles then, I was able to claim 140 points for the painting challenge. I felt a little guilty about claiming the full-whack for the FTs, but then I figured they each have an extra turret and the time spent on that wretched truck might hopefully make up for it! ( - it did.)
