Sarissa Russian Outbuilding

Earlier in May I bought a Sarissa Russian Outbuilding (N069) second hand. It looked like someone had attempted to fold it in half at some point. Careful examination of the sealed package seemed to show that the only breakage was in the supporting sheet and not the components.

Door and window frame detail.

You can see the breaks by the right top of the base and the lower peak of the end.

It was easy to assemble (as are most Sarissa kits).

I decided to use static grass to form a straw floor.

The building was sprayed first with Halfords Grey primer. The interior was then sprayed with Halfords Black Primer.

The question was then what colour to paint the outbuilding.

This is a photograph of a buildings museum in Russia (the main point of interest was the fencing) but it shows the darker, almost reddish colour of the wood.

The building was painted with Army Painter Oak Brown (which is surprisingly darker than it appears in the bottle).

It was then dry brushed with Vallejo Old Wood, followed by a wash of Army painter Dark Tone and Citadel Nuln Oil.

Interior showing the old straw (Vallejo Burnt Umber).

Rubicon T34/76 and Bad Squid Russian submachine gunner for scale.

More scale leaves

An earlier post covered the scale leaves from the Little Leaf Company.

I managed to pick up some more variants from Green Scene.

Oak is a slightly sandy brown colour.

Ivy has a distinctly darker green tone.

 Leaf Litter is definitely post autumnal.

Having read an article by Gordan Gravatt, the material may well catkin heads.

Rubicon M4 - part five

It was pointed out that there was a rather obvious seam line on the right sponson.

It has been filled with Milliput. There has been a small amount of weathering.

Rubicon T26 Soviet Light Tank - part two

Having assembled the tank, started with some minor modifications.

The rear turret machine gun was deleted from the T26 design in January 1939. I cut the moulding down as flat as I could, then filed it further flat. Milliput was then used to smooth the rear surface of the turret. One of the structures on the turret roof does not appear in the illustrations I have found. I removed it with a combination of a sharp scalpel and wet and dry.

What appears to be the commander's periscope has an open top. I drilled it out to 1.5mm then shaped a piece of 1.6mm rod to fit. Holes were drilled on the mudguards and 1.0mm plastic rod added to help secure greenstuff soft stowage.

The tank was undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black. This was then sprayed with Humbrol Dark Green.

Warlord Games KV1/KV-2 tank part three

A while back I was building the Warlord KV-1/2. I had reached the point where I needed to add the tow cables, but needed some bits and pieces to make the tow cable shackles.

These are 7mm to the foot shackles and split pins.

Rubicon T26 Soviet Light Tank

Rubicon released the the Soviet T-26 light tank last year. It is an extremely versatile kit, allowing you to build one of ten variants.

It comes in the standard Rubicon box.

There are three sprues. This is the chassis sprue.

This sprue has the mid series turret, plus the wheels for a Soviet heavy armoured car which also uses the same turret.

The final sprue has the twin turrets and the late model turret

There is an extensive instruction booklet and a set of decals.

I decided to build the late model 1939 version.

The turret features the mounting points for the aerial.

It also has the rear ball mounted machine gun.

Now, in January 1939 the machine gun on the back of the turret was deleted.

Palm Trees

Egyptian Palm Trees.

Indian Ocean.

Empress USMC at Hue - the first two packs

At Salute I bought the first two packs of the Empress Miniatures Vietnam range.

I painted the first two figures here.

These are the rest of the set.