28mm Japanese Bunker

 28mm Japanese Bunkers

So I was trying to use up some of the bamboo rods I had acquired from the pound shop (I had bought these to make a tower / look out post -see an earlier blog entry) and I though I will do some mini bunkers and walls for our Pacific game. 

See previous video and Pacific posts.

                              

First coats done but still needs some paint touch - up but getting there..

                       

Making it - So out came my mini hack saw and I started cutting. I wanted just to experiment with a small low two man bunker (one with a small profile) and some "palm tree" like walls. 

So I cut the rods into sections. The walls had to be no bigger than than the palm trees we are using - but other than that anything goes...then hot glued them together. 

Below: the unpainted ones...

The bunker with an HMG sitting on sandbags (green stuff)  and two extra heads from my parts tray. and some plastic foliage..

I wanted the walls to look well weathered - so I added some ground foliage this will help melt it into our mat.

I wanted them to look rough, aged and uneven. But regular enough to butt together.

So the walls ended up four rods high with some shorter cuts on the ends (4 off). This meant the 28mm figure could use it as cover. They can be used in any format - in parallel or a single long line (with a bunker?).

Now the thing I was testing and unsure about was whether it would fall over easily and then might need a base of clear plastic - I did not want to raise it off the mat with foamboard or mdf. But to my amazement they actually stood up without an issue. We will test these out at our next Pacific outing. 

No base is required. So it will blend in nicely. You could even place gaps in it for gun ports.

These are really cheap to make and provide a second line or outpost surrounding perimeter for next to nothing.

Then I did some smaller spider hole like ones I had tried these before..

But as usual I got a little carried away and did 16 eek!

Step away from the hack-saw! LOL

But you get the idea...Japanese troops to be inserted!

ohh well better get some more rods then...

28mm Afrika Korp

Well this is a bit of of a departure (from the Pacific Theatre)... mainly because the Wargames Illustrated Magazine had a freebie gift this month and I got spue of German Afrika Korp.

                                     

Its a Warlord Games spue and has 6  figures to build. I haven't built any of these figures before so I did some research on the build and paint colours - as usual there were variations galore on the internet. The magazine also provides you with a list of colours but I felt that that was a little bit safe and I wanted to try something different.

So I opted to try out some contrast paint colours. This is how it went...after a white base primer.

                   

I have to say the head variations on this set are excellent. The face covering and goggles look the part.

Citadel contrast colours - the main green was Militarum Green and the yellow brown Skeleton Horde.

                   

I tried chipping and weathering the helmets up. .But I like the look of the contrast paint...it shades nicely then with a wash of Agrax Earthshade then a quick light dry brush of Iraq Sand. Its done.

                  
                                 ...and then did the arms bands and shoulder boards.

 

So I didn't do the helmet insignia as I thought it looked ok as is...

Overall I liked the effect of the contrast paint I think is makes the final figure a slightly lighter colour. I found that when using contrast paint -- less is more. Build it up in layers.

But I like it.