Shifting Sands Objective Part 3

I just had to! This is my 3rd Shifting Sands Objective. A tournament based on an alternate history needs an objective based on the alternate ending to a movie!

Both Dolf and Stallone are both made from the British 25 pounder loaders from the Africa box. I had to cut their helmets and sculpt hair. Boxing gloves were done with green stuff. I’m happy with it!

Red Dawn Shifting Sands 2015 Custom Objective - Update

Well, its done!  I am pretty happy with how it turned out.  I think I may have varnished it a tad too much, but I may just be reading into it. Take a look at one post back to get a look at the inspiration for this.

Some very unhappy Russians!  I was excited to try and do the Wolverine Lettermen jacket.  Kind of weird to paint the blue torso and white sleeves on a model, but it turned out alright.  These guys are all about school spirit.

And the companion objective is a destroyed T-34 where they proudly display their calling card!

But there is still a lot of work to be done on this army!

Shifting Sands Custom Objectives Red Dawn

Shifting Sands 2015 will be a big event.  Everyone loves late war goodies, and who doesn’t love alternate timelines where T-44’s are fighting Comets?

I have been talked into playing Russians by the organizer.  Although their lists aren’t very competitive, I am happy about the modeling opportunities.  I will be posting more about the VERY large amount of work required to get my Russians ready.  All of my older stuff is unacceptable, so I will be stripping a lot, and I have put in a big order to fill out the rest.

ANYWAYS…

I am a huge fan of custom objectives.  I LOVE THEM.  I try and think of the dorkiest things to be fought over.  And sometimes they aren’t even worth fighting for, but are just funny.

Considering Shifting Sands 2015 will see the US face up against the USSR I had to think of something clever to make an objective out of.

Well, lets have the picture speak for themselves.

“In the early days of World War III, guerrillas – mostly children – placed the names of their lost upon this rock. They fought here alone and gave up their lives, so that this nation shall not perish from the earth.”

Whats a greater inspiration than the only American Insurgency to ever take place.  Now can I pull it off?

Maus Paint By Numbers

Maus Paint by Numbers

So the Maus is done!  I have a little blow by blow (skipping the last steps as I get kind of impatient).  Overall I am happy with how it turned out.  I have come to the solid conclusion that you will NEVER be happy or content with your own German camo schemes, but generally you have to rely on what other people say.  The model has a lot of flat areas, but overall I would give myself a B.

So this is after going over the German armor spray with a generous slather of Green Ochre.  Followed by a heavy wash of Agrax Earthshade.  Maybe too much actually.

Now I polish it up with some heavy dry brushing and scrub brushing of green ochre.  This hopefully gets the main panels to have some texture and look like there is some actual lighting variations (Plus some grime in the cracks).  I do a few successions of dry brushing, each with a few drops of ivory in each progressive go.

Hey!  I skipped a step.  Well I generally go over an outline in a 50/50 mix of water and khaki grey.  It just gives some fuzzy edges to the camo.  I then do a 50/50 mix of the camo (green) with khaki grey.

I then do a pure camo color line in the center of the camo stripes.  Hopefully this creates a bit of a gradient so it goes from darkest, to lightest and blends with the actual green ochre.  I then go over the whole camo set in a light scrub of khaki grey.

Final product!  The tracks are done up and the base all grassed and whatnot.  Here are some different views.  Also, just look at how huge this thing is compared to some contemporaries.

You will see this big boy in action as a firestorm unit in Shifting Sands 2014.  Here is the link: http://www.azdrfow.com As an edit, I realized I totally forgot to add unit markings. My friend will just have to slap on some decals before it graces a tabletop