Six rounds rapid fire, air burst

Right next project up, so to speak. Some air burst explosion markers. The is nothing quite like blowing stuff up and just making the noises is not enough for me, I have to have some form of visual marker. So rather than starting with the more conventional ground based explosion markers, I decided to have a go at making some air burst shell markers. 

I started by sketching out some ideas, when doing this type of project I always find it helps if I think about how a stop motion animator would visuals them. The idea was to have a range of sizes from the initial small size to bigger more spiky examples. I wanted to produce six unique air burst markers. rather than six identical models. The main component of the bursts was made from paper clips, hot glued onto 2p coins. Each air burst had 8 - 10 arms of wire, one of which was attached directly to the 2p coin, or alternatively onto a terrain feature such as a tree or tree stump, to give the explosion that extra bit of height from the ground.

The trunk of the tree is one of the wire arms of the explosion, rapped in masking tape, with small grape stem branches added. The tree stump is a small twig from the estate, with a hole drilled down the centre and wire pushed into it.

The next stage will be to start to cover the wire frames with clump foliage. TTFN back with more soon.

Finished Pill Boxes

Finished the 4 Pill Boxes, with some green flock and dry brushing, the bottom three pictures show the destroyed Pill Box with the wire mesh picked out in rust colour. Over all very please with how these have turned out, they will bring the coastal defences up to strength in combination with the heavy coastal battery already produced.

Next up I will be having a go at producing some explosion markers, both on the ground and also air burst explosions. I have also been looking at producing 10mm scale buildings for my Early WW1 set up. I have briefly blogged about this before. The GHQ micro collection has been expanded over the last two years, so time to explore the possibilities. 

TTFN

Airhead

Bunker busting

OK so it should be "Pill Box busting" to go with the other titles in this project, but Bunker busting sounds much better in my opinion. the first picture shows the pill box before the application of PVA and sand to texture it. The construction was identical to the other three pill box's up to the point at which I started to destroy it!

The wire mesh was quite soft and easy to cut with a craft knife. I was going for the idea that the pill box had been destroyed by a direct hit on the roof by a heavy artillery shell or large bomb. I wanted the pill box to still be recognisable as a pill box, so not reduced to a pile of rubble. So 2 out of the 6 sides have been destroyed and the roof slab of concrete shattered and pushed off to the front and sides. Please with how its worked so fare and I must find more projects to use the mesh in.

More pictures of this one and the three others finished to follow shortly.

TTFN

Airhead

Pill Box progress

Just a quick update on the progress on the pill box front, bottom picture shows the pill box's PVA'd and covered with sand, the rigid plastic of the cocktail stick container takes the PVA glue best if it is rubbed down with sandpaper first to provide a key for the PVA to stick to, otherwise the PVA beads on the surface.

The top picture shows the start of the construction of the destroyed pill box, the mesh is from a car body repair pack. Its soft aluminium and can be trimmed with a knife, the roof section has pencil lines showing where the roof will be cut up.

TTFN

Airhead

Cocktail sticks into Pill Boxes

After all the trees this year I thought it was about time I went back to producing something of a more military nature. I always intended to produce some pill boxes to support my costal artillery bunker from July last year (link). In my local Morrisons supper market I was looking for some cocktail sticks for another project, and when I found them low and behold they came packaged in a great little hexagonal plastic box. The perfect size and shape for a 15mm scale pill box. And for the princely sum of 36p.

The second picture from the top shows the container cut into four sections. They then have roofs cut from art board and round bases to mount them onto. I then cut out some blast walls to go either side of the door. To save on the amount of time spent on producing the pill boxes, rather than cutting gun slits into the brittle plastic I cut slits into rectangles of art board and then stuck these onto the pill boxes.

Next up will be adding terrain to the bases and make a start on the destroyed pill box.

Till next time.

Free Trees Finished

Not bad for a bunch of twigs from out of the garden, finally flocked the bases and put some small clumps of foliage on the base as well. On the bottom picture in the center at the bottom of the central tree you can see some tree roots that I added made from wire, to give the impression of tree roots growing out of the high ground. Click on the picture for a bigger version. Worked out quite well.


I'm not sure about the new blogger interface, I don't like change... but I suppose I'll get used to it. I hardly have time for posting at the moment never mind learning a new interface.


A big thanks to all the people who have posted pictures and comments on this years Salute. Some mixed comments from what I have read. But from my point of view the games looked up to their usual high standard with some nice inspiration.


Next up, back to something of a more military nature, 36p for 4 pill boxes.


TTFN


Airhead

Free trees 4

More progress on the 3 tree bases, pictures at the top show supports added to the bases of the trees, to help give the trunks a more natural appearance. The Bottom to pictures show the trees when they were just inserted into the holes cut into the bases. £ picture from the bottom up shows the trees with added bases from art card with the spaces filled with poundland filler and smoothed into the base. Then PVA and sand is added to cover the filler and they are painted to match the light grey of the trunks.

On the procurement/shopping front I have managed to find some Matt Black car spray paint in my local poundland, after this was mentioned on a blog. Sorry no idea who it was that original mentioned this product on their blog. I will let you know how this product turns out.

TTFN

Airhead