Sandbagged Sherman

The Hat Shermans are not bad, but they look rather plain when built up OOB. I decided to spruce this M4A3(76) from the Armourfast line (99012) with sandbag armor.


The sandbags were created with Crayola Model Magic. The side cages were built with Evergreen (white) and Plastruct (gray) plastic strips.


Unfortunately the Model Magic shrank a lot more than I expected, so the sandbags don't press up against the cage as I wanted.

Goth Gang

Here is a rear view of some figures from Elhiem's The Dead Shall Consume line -- Goth Gang (TDSC-11), sculpted by Matt Hingley. The entire set of painted figures (except for the "messed up zombie") can be seen on the Elhiem website. I made some slight modifications to the female figures in the set. On the Wedding Dress Goth, I shaved her jawline a bit, and narrowed her waist. Then I added a little better definition to the right side of her corsette with Kneadatite. Since she looks like she is wielding a giant kukri (a khanra?), I carved the kaura at the base of the blade. The Gothette needed a bit more work. I think that she was supposed to be carrying a 2x4 in her hands, but I shaped it into a baseball bat. She wears a Sheepy backpack, but I'm actually going to modify it into a Hoshimaru backpack. This was the weakest figure of the set, and I had to do quite a bit of work on her face and hair. The last figure is the zombie. It's quite nice, and there's even a worm poking out from his left eye-socket!


Here are the figures after priming. The two female figures are sculpted in a style that is slightly on the thick side, but they don't look too out of place when compared to the Italeri medieval ladies. The zombie is a bit short perhaps, but he is perfectly proportioned.

Elves

I went to Pegasus Hobbies over the weekend, and picked up some Caesar Fantasy Elves (102). I'm rather ambivalent about them, since I don't really like the way their ears look. Luckily, most of the figures have helmets or hoods to cover those unsightly ears.


The ears on the female elves are particularly bad -- they look like they have nekomimi. The eye brows on the female archer are overdone as well. Using a hot knife, I cut off the ears and trimmed away the eyebrows for two of the figures.


Much better!

Burma Lee

This is the venerable Hasegawa M3 Lee (MT23). I think the Hasegawa M3 was my first kit when I started building models. At that time, the kit was molded in dark green plastic, and came with a small tube of glue. The mold is showing its age, as the indentation for the drive sprocket locator pins were filled in, so I had to cut the pin away to join the two pieces. To make the hull gun movable, I glued a couple of pieces of sprue to hold it in place in the sponson as shown below.




The rear storage boxes need to be shaved down, as they are not flush with the hull. I added the side skirts and cupola machinegun, but they'll have to be removed, as M3s in Burma did not seem to have them.

I added some light guards and other little bits. The corners of the front fenders need to be cut down as well.

Tea with the Black Dragon

Here is a figure that I dug out of the garage along with a bunch of other fantasy miniatures. I probably painted this dragon back in high school or college. It is from the Grenadier Dragon Lords Action Art Figure Set -- Fantasy Fiends (8004). It is 25mm, but it works nicely with 1/72 figures.