Review & Build; Mediterranean Village Town Hall

 Join Dan as he assembles and reviews the Med. Town Hall from Things From the Basement. available here;

https://www.thingsfromthebasement.com

This vid contains a tutorial of applying stucco texture to buildings and painting to a high standard for your tabletop- all suitable for a range of periods, scales and games.
We hope you enjoy this; if you do please "Like" , Subscribe and share this with others. Dan & Rex.

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1768 Hits
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Rex's winter Soviets; Hobby update #3

 Rex's winter Soviets; Hobby update #3 Deep snow plus bonus indirect fire... still not there yet but close. Click on the image for the full sized version.

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2303 Hits
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Urban test model finished

Urban test model finished, first time I have ever done a test model only 1 or 2 steps ahead of the rest of the army. OK, no time for talking I have to paint!
 

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1626 Hits
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Rex's winter Soviets; Hobby update #2 (are we there yet?)

Are we there yet?... i'm finding this both exhausting and rewarding. This test model is my all time best miniature so far (still work in progress).

The scary thing that I realized when I recommended what paints to buy for a mate who is new to the hobby is that this it's AU$100 worth of paint for this one guy! EXCLUDING the face and base!
 

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1543 Hits
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Rex's winter Soviets; Hobby update #1

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 Here is a quick video showing my current project, winter Soviets. I point out a couple of things related to how I model up my guys. 3 weeks now till I go on my Fortress Budapest campaign day. For details on that check out the podcast EP7

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1575 Hits
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Bolt Action D Day 75th Battle Prep; The Finished British Airborne.

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So Here are my British Airborne after the additional models I added as my "Reasonable Hobby Challenge" goal...and YES ! They were ready ( two days before the 6 June deadline!) and descended from the skies by parachute and glider in our D Day 75th club game 8-9 June 2019. Hope you enjoy getting a good look at them, and look forward to the video being published of the D Day anniversary weekend event. Thanks for watching!

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3154 Hits
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Bolt Action D Day 75th Battle Prep; Update 3- Almost there!

 Bolt Action D Day 75th Battle Prep; Update 3- Almost there!

The latest update, including the finished work so far! Join me as i talk you through some more tips & how i finish off my British Airborne in 28mm or 1/56 scale. Thanks for watching! As usual please Like, share and subscribe and leave your feedback. Thanks! Dan

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3169 Hits
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Rex's May "reasonable hobby goal" challenge... done

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Rex's May "reasonable hobby goal" challenge... done. See the images below and click on the image for the full sized version.

Special edition www.offensiveminiatures.com Fallschirmjäger with drop canister. A Christmas gift to me from Dan, thanks Dan.

This is my best work so far I think and I'm very happy with how they turned out. My eyes must be a bit blurry from the challenge, I have just spotted some chips on the rim of the base. Don't worry I will fix that before I meet you on the table top!

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1838 Hits
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Dan's Hobby update; Bolt Action D Day 75th Battle Prep! #2

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Hi all , a quick vid update on where the British Airborne additions are at! I hope you find this useful if youre painting them yourself and looking for some tips for colours. The Base color of the green and Brown in the camo of the Dennison smocks are; Luftwaffe Cam Green by Vallejo and Dryad Bark by Citadel respectively. Dan.
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2040 Hits
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Dan's Hobby update; Bolt Action D Day 75th Battle Prep! #1

Hi, this is an update of Dans current (May '19) "Reasonable Hobby Challenge"! as heard on our latest podcast!

Excuse the voice on the commentary as I've had the proper flu for 4 weeks at this stage...! as with the poor motor skills on the camera half way through!!

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1838 Hits
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New Army for Rex... Winter Soviets

I just purchased the beginnings of a new army. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and "some assembly plus painting is required" :-)

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2943 Hits
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Downton Abbey vs. Saving Private Ryan mode...

I have a new hobby/painting table which I purchased from Aldi Australia today and assembled this evening.

It starts the evening in Downton abbey/Sense and Sensibility mode but later in the evening after everyone has gone to bed it transforms into Saving Private Ryan/WWII in colour mode.

I'll be looking forward to give it a run tomorrow night. Could be the best $99 I ever spent, will have to wait and see?

Downton abbey/Sense and Sensibility
Above: Saving Private Ryan/WWII in colour
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1791 Hits
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Rex's May hobby challenge progress

Finally something to see. Beautiful minis, paint not so good so far...

Continue reading
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2573 Hits
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Big Tiger Build; FINISHED!!

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 Finally had time to finish off a few details on a couple of the other Tiger 1's this weekend..and here they are in all their glory!! 

  For those of you playing along at home ( !) , I have just added the final reveal vid to our Youtube channel! The vid includes the promised painting recipes etc. as well, so pop over there and watch it if youre interested in these cats.

   Hope youve enjoyed following along, and you enjoy the final products. 

   Im very happy, as I have vehicles here for Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, eastern front ( Including Kursk!) and western front including Normandy...and the Battle for Berlin right until the final days.

   I think my year to dates painted model list looks very healthy now, and im intending to keep score until December 15th to make it a full years list.

DANS PAINTING SCORECARD 2019

  • 2 x King Tigers
  • 3 x Tiger 1's
  • 1 x German Opel Blitz canvas canopy/sideboards (interchangeable with existing passenger open back one)
  • 24 Italian Coastal Defense Division infantry ( Based by Rex- thank you!)
  • 2 x Italian heavy weapons teams
  • 1 x Italian Artillery piece incl. 3 crew and spotter
  • 15 x German FJ in smocks
  • 9 x German FJ Tropical fatigues

Terrain;

  • 1x Italian Church
  • 1x Stone Bridge
  • 1.5 m2 of teddy bear fur hay and grass fields
  • Painted ONLY; 1x medium (!) Hill ( Made by Rex)
  • Painted ONLY; 1x small (!) Hill ( Made by Rex)
  • 1 x table worth of textured flexible rural roads
  • 1 x street barricade ( ponys, mattress, crate & sandbags)
  • 2 x concrete pillboxes
  • 1 x box Girder 'Primosole' Bridge ( Yes- I made and painted another one! Lol)
  • 30 x 'infantry dug in' entrenchments terrain pieces


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3102 Hits
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Spicy Spice-rack/shot-glass holder

Spicy Spice-rack/shot-glass holder (also useful for painting miniatures)

A few people have asked after the last Valhallagames podcast on miniature painting workflow about my home made Spicy-Spice-rack/shot-glass holder (AKA miniatures painting holder). Here are couple of quick photos.
Note the rare earth magnets glued into the 25mm dowel. I glue my minis on steel washers, (now you know why). But the other end of the dowel has a 25mm Velcro "dot" so if I do have minis on plastic [only] bases I can still work with those by adding another valcro dot to the bottom of the mini.

Listen to the podcast for the full detail if you are interested. Hope that's useful.

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1912 Hits
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Friday Photo; Konigstiger pair on the prowl...

3 days before my end of march "reasonable hobby challenge' Deadline ...may i present 139.6 Tonnes of cricket-crushing goodness (!!)

I really enjoyed these. I will be posting a "Big Tiger Build' update on youtube at  the end of next week to bring you all up to date with the other vehicles in the build. In the meantime; hope you like 'em!!

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2107 Hits
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Rex's "reasonable hobby goal" challenge complete[ish]

 With 3 minutes to spare (based on Australian time) I have [mostly] finished my "reasonable hobby goal".

This is the first vehicle weathering that I have ever done and Dan has rightly identified that I was procrastinating. In the last podcast Dan challenged me to have it finished by 17 March the results are below. First time with oil panel tinting, weathering, streaking, and pigments.

Details to follow but for now I hope you like it as much as I do.

Before and after:

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1927 Hits
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Foamboard and clay buildings

As discussed in our last podcast [here], my project for 2020 (yes 2020 and I need to start now to make sure I gets done in time!) is a large number of some really nice scratch built Western France WWII buildings, however this technique would work for any era historical or fantasy. Before I clear the hobby desk for more pressing projects I wanted to share with you the small amount of progress I have made so far.
 
All the cool kids are making really nice buildings using clay over foam core that has been sculpted for the appropriate texture and I thought I would try may hand at that with/without subsequent duplication by casting in resin. To that end I have made a small test piece and explained the steps below.

Step I:

In the image below (1) I have rolled out some Das air dry clay to about 2mm thick and then stuck it to a scrap piece of foam core board with PVA glue.

Thing I learned in step I:

  • Use Das clay not the random stuff you find at you closest art or junk store. My non branded clay all cracked within 24 hours
  • Don't use too much PVA "just in case". A thin, even smear holds a lot better then what you might think.


Step II:
I used two different methods of sculpting some rough bricks, I have heard that people use both methods. Method A (2 in the image below) was a very rough try with a wooden cooking skewer (essentially a large wooden toothpick) immediately while the clay was still wet. Method B (3 in the image below) after 24 hours the clay was very dry (it's hot here currently) and the light, somewhat pathetic, scratches were made with a light duty craft knife and metal ruler.

Things I learned in step II:

  • If you want a decently deep brick line without having to press REALLY hard then do it when its wet.
  • Consider waiting a couple of hours? (testing required)
  • If you do it when its wet it will leave some ridges. However they can easily be scraped off later


I made the brick engravings various sizes to try to work out what would look reasonable size-wise against the 28mm minis (not necessarily to scale). After thinking about final usage and working in with other configurations such as damaged walls with piles of bricks alongside I decided to purchase some precast bricks and look at what size they were. They have now arrived and a couple of sample bricks are shown in 4 and 5 below.

As a couple of final shots below show I have roughed up a design for single building frontage and compared everything to a 28mm Warlord games plastic miniature for scale.

This project is officially on the back burner now but it has been an encouraging start.

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2517 Hits
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March hobby goal updates: Rex

My reasonable hobby goal from the last podcast (here) was to weather & complete my Panzer IV tank by 17 March, may not seam like a big job but this is the first vehicle that I will have ever weathered with oils, and pigments so its a big jump off. So, with 12 days to go here is a picture of what I have achieved so far...

​Comment (and subscribe to this post) below for updates.

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1971 Hits
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In a fit of rage… Perfect miniature photography?

 In a fit of rage I went out and purchased a new camera lens, new tripod, tethering cable for shooting connected to the PC and a wireless shutter release. (well… its new to me anyway)

Below are the first couple of photos out of the new lens, I'm a lot happier with these than the results with my previous gear still a long way to go in terms of skill.

It does bring about another question though, how close is too close in miniature photography, for my minis if I go too close you start to see brush marks and dust (a surprising amount of dust!) and that actually detracts from the image. Perhaps its mini dioramas that are the next step, a small squad, a building and some trees all arranged nicely.

Perfect miniature photography may be like the perfect battle report, perhaps it doesn't exist?

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2201 Hits
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Latest podcast

Podcast EP24: A chat with Jon Russell:

The latetst podcast episode is live now. This should appear in your podcast app if you have subscribed (Search for valhallagames podcast in your app) or you can listen on web player (link below).

Podcast EP24: A chat with Jon Russell.

In this bumper episode, we are joined by Jon Russell of Warlord Games fame. In addition to his dedicated work for Warlord, Jon is a multifaceted wargamer and also veteran of many years service.

In this episode we spend time learning about Jon's wargaming pedigree, before learning more about his role at Warlord, the writing of 'Bolt Action: Korea', and Jon shares with us what he can about what Bolt Action V3 might look like, and the 'Raiders Attack!' Supplement that still has much life left in it.

All this plus Warlord event support, balance in tournaments and other definitely non-controversial(!), highly entertaining and informative topics. Sit back and enjoy a chat with Jon, and us, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Subscribe in your favourite podcast app (search for valhallagames) or click here to listen in the web player.

Don't forget to check out the YouTube channel at https://valhallagames.net/youtube

...and don't forget if you would like to support us https://valhallagames.net/patron