Confederate Navy Gets a boost from my Bambu mini

        The other day I offered to bring a "standby-game" to Flintcon (just in case there was a weather-related cancellation). When I looked at my ACW fleets I decided that I didn't want to run the same scenario again.With that in mind I designed a scenario wherein the Confederates had managed to secretively assemble a fleet to challenge the Union blockade of the Gulf Coast, This would require a much larger Confederate Navy. 

       With no time to order additional models from Thoroughbred (or any other manufacturer for that matter) I turned to the internet to find some free STLs to feed to my Bambu Mini. A few hours later I had a freshly-printed fleet of Confederate boats.

 

looking at them now makes me wish I had gotten that .02mm hot-end

the striations are prominent!

 

 

the light color doesn't help at all,

 fortunately most are a lot darker and it hides the lines better

 

beer-mats provided the basing material and Americana Prussian Blue provided the water color

 (yes, I realize the these were mostly riverine craft and should be floating in a greenish-brown ooze) 

while Future floor wax gave the water a nice glossy shine

      Now all I have to do is knock together data sheets for my really simple ACW naval rules and I'm all set for the convention.

Wargame Convention Update, Flintcon February 1st

 

        With Spartacon just barely in the rear-view we find Flintcon arriving on the first of February. This is a great little convention hosted by the tireless Rod Cain at the St.Paul Lutheran Church and School located at 402 S. Ballenger Highway, Flint MI 48532. Gaming will start at 9am and run through 1030pm. 

       Further information can be found on their website  or their Facebook page 

       This con always has a fun and friendly atmosphere  and usually has a superb flea-market

Finishing The Polikarpov I-15 series, decals, details etc

 

 

       I had a chance to sit down and paint the pilots and attach the windscreens. I then touched up some silvering on a few of the decals. All that remains is to do the weathering (which will be a while as I have grown tired of this project and have a dozen other projects on hold). As such I have released the planes to their respective air forces and sent them on their way.

th Soviet Biplanes, Some Paint At Last!

 

       Frustrated by the continuing bad weather I just went ahead and primed these indoors, They were then brush-painted using Americana paints. Acrylic floor wax was used to gloss them for decals and Vallejo spray matte finish was shot over them to dull them back down. Two have joined the Nationalist Chinese air force, one has chosen to serve Republican Spain and the remaining four are under orders of Stalin. Pilots, details and weathering still need to be finished before they can be released to their respective  employers. 

Further Adventure In Soviet Biplanes, Aviation USK I-15 series

  

 

       Continuing my effort to get all of my Polikarpov I-15 series models done in one push I sat myself down and confronted the pile of USK models. These kits were far from what current standards are but they are thirty years old and short-run kits of aircraft with limited appeal. Even with those caveats in mind they are frankly rather rough. Molding quality is below average, detail is foggy, parts fit is dodgy and the instructions are vague. The kits do have rather nice decals. They are the only option unless you want to spend thirty bucks a kit for I-15s.

 

 

yes, that is the sum total of the instructions

With the holidays behind me it is time for another Mass Build; The Polikarpov I-15 series

        Rumors of my demise are greatly overstated. The blog and I are not dead, just overwhelmed by the hectic pace of the holiday season. To start the new year off in grand style I decided to build the complete selection of 1/72 Polikarpov I-15 series that I had stashed in The Vault. These would provide aircraft for the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Spanish Civil War, The Nomonhan Incident, the Winter War and the early days of Operation Barbarossa. While the kits come from two different manufacturers (and thus demand separate builds) the painting process will link up nicely and I shouldn't spend too much time watching paint dry during this exercise. 

       First seeing the light of day in 1995 the Encore kit was originally released by ICM, the different versions on the box-cover matter little as all the parts for all the versions come in each box (all being molded on the same sprues). By modern standards these kits are primitive, requiring a lot of clean-up of mold-lines and putty on the gaps. Counterbalancing that are the very good quality decals that are usually found in Encore kits, which is happily the case here. The Aviation USK kits, circa 1992, are frankly crude, parts molding and fit are dodgy, and the instructions are scarcely more detailed than Mesolithic petroglyphs. Pretty much all that can be said is that building them is easier (slightly) than scratch-building. On the flip-side the decals are excellent.

 

there was another USK kit that I was still looking for when I snapped this shot