Skarach's world

Amidst more “serious” projects I like to do more fantastical subjects, as they allow more freedom and less study! These all go in my second display cabinet, dedicated to such things. In the case of the figures in particular I am no great painter of such things, but they are good enough for me to look at.

• No.1. First up is a First Stage Guild Navigator from Dune. Actually it is the design from the 1984 film, which certainly has its faults but I have always liked it for the cast, art, effects and music. This figure is – I presume – 3D printed in the style of the Kenner figures. Fairly easy to paint, as it is basically one colour. I brushed some “spice” coloured pigment on the overall, as it seems that he has a messy front in the film!
• No.2. The sandworm from the Dune 2021 film. A 3D printed resin model.
• No.3. The Sardaukar troops from the Dune 1984 film. Another awesome design, or at least I think so, although maybe they underplay the swordsmanship aspect of the book. These are 28mm scale figures.
• No.4. The Hound of the Baskervilles is probably my favourite story and after a recent visit to Dartmoor (see No.11 also) I was inspired to create my hound. This was resin model, together with my attempt at a realistic base, using various diorama products. I tried to replicate the “spectral” glow by brushing a green paint on it.
• No.5. Another hound. Actually, it is sold as a wolf, but I wanted to try an alternative look. Finished in much the same way as No.4, which I think I prefer of the two of them.
• No.6. Inspired by another Conan Doyle story, Lot No.249, this is Mummy creature, with a sandy effect base.
• No.7. The Jawa Sandcrawler. This was a toy from a company called F-Toys. It had a basic paint scheme, so I gave it a new base coat and then used various colours to make it look more interesting and beaten up, in line with the films. The base was covered with texture paint, together with pieces of bark from my garden to simulate a rock wall. Very small figures were added to give it a sense of scale.
• No.8-11. I didn’t paint these. They are an figure memorabilia set from Neca, with the subject being various manifestations of the creature from The Thing film of 1982. It comes in various forms, from the dog before it begins transformation to the final form before it escapes from the base kennel. This is what I have here. Simple bases were created with texture paint and chopped up dried grass, to simulate the hay spread on the kennel floor in the film. For the later creature I had to glue everything down otherwise it would topple over and add plentiful blood splatter.
• No.11. As mentioned above, my visit to Dartmoor was somewhat inspiring – a stunning landscape. I thought I would try to recreate a small scene from it – a Tor. I reckoned that the bark pieces which I had previously used would look suitable as a granite rock outcrop when stacked up and suitably painted. To this was added smaller stone outcrops and various bits of vegetation. If you know The Hound of the Baskervilles you will recall the part where Holmes is spotted on top of a tor. I thought I would add such a figure – 1/150th scale – to give it a bit more interest. I quite like this one, a kind of home made souvenir of my visit.

3rd Kings Own Hussars, BAOR, 1950s

• Conqueror Mk II build – Part 1:Introduction
• Conqueror Mk II build – Part 2:Assembly
• Conqueror Mk II build – Part 3:Painting
• Conqueror Mk II build – Part 4:Weathering

• The exhausts were painted with the Vallejo Model Color “Black Grey” (70862).
• The entire model was washed with a dilute mixture of Winsor & Newton “Raw Umber” and “Lamp Black” oil paints (ratio about 5:1) in enamel thinners – the excess being cleaned up with a dry brush or cotton bud.
• Some extra shading was added using AMMO Oilbrusher “Starship Bay Sludge”.
• The wooden tool handles were brushed with Winsor & Newton “Burnt Umber”.
• Abteilung 502 “Light Mud” (Abt125) was added as dots to some of the vertical and sloping surfaces of the hull and and drawn downwards using a flat brush to simulate streaks of dirt.
• The entire model was sprayed with a 1:2 mixture of Mr.Color “Flat Clear” (182) and Mr.Color Leveling Thinner.
• AMMO “Europe Earth” and “Airfield Dust” pigments were brushed onto the lower half of the tank, wheels and tracks and fixed with a 1:1  mixture of AMMO “Pigment Fixer” (A.MIG-3000) in enamel thinners, added by brush. Very much smaller amounts were brushed onto the top of the hull and parts of the turret. I wanted to add some dirt and mud, as if it had been out on manoeuvres, but, otherwise for it to be in good condition, as it would be for the period.
• Before the tracks were fitted, AK Interactive “Dark Steel” (AK086) pigment was brushed on onto the raised parts of the tracks in contact with the ground or running gear, as well as the edges of the metal tools and the machine gun.

Primer: Tamiya “Fine Surface Primer” (light grey) spray can.

Basecoat: To start things off, I used the Tamiya “Dark Green” TS-2 can. Following this, a 1:2 mixture of Mr.Color “Bronze Green” (519) and Mr.Color Leveling Thinner.

Details: Paints as shown in the images.

A 1:2 mixture of Mr.Color “Clear Gloss” (46) and Mr.Color Leveling Thinner was sprayed over the entire model and the decals applied. Gloss was reapplied to the areas with decals, in order to protect them for subsequent stages.

The kits is mostly decent but some of the locating holes for parts were inadequate or non-existent, so there was a degree of estimation involved, using photographs. Due to the kit obviously sharing parts with other Conqueror kits of this manufacturer, unused holes had to be filled in – the instructions make no mention of them. In one or two places I used suitable replacement parts from my spares collection. I used a metal barrel from Aber (#35L191). This made the turret topple forward so I added a bunch of metal balls at the back to counterbalance it. The gun mantlet cover was put together by scraps of rubber and filler, as none was supplied – it should be really, as I have not seen a photo of the real vehicle without it. Finally, I assembled the Friulmodel tracks (#ATL-172) using 0.5mm diameter brass rod – 100 links per side.

Reference

“Conqueror Heavy Gun Tank“, Carl Schulze, Tankograd Publishing, 2015.