Three Vickers Light Tanks, Two Bofors Guns and a Quad

A few years in the making these models.  The tanks were a gift from Xmas a few years back IIRC.  But all done now, well, not quite, after the fiasco with the paint colour I couldn't decide on transfers, hand paint or no insignia.  For the moment it is the latter.

This little chap was a spare that Richard had and passed to me for use in my Western Desert Force.

I think it is a Quality Castings model - it is certainly all cast metal.

It was in a black undercoat and I painted it in VJ Desert Yellow.  

After I found out that was the wrong colour, I over painted in VJ Dark Sand.

I was happy with the colour and decided to try out some insignia.

The transfers I had were going to be too big so I had a go at hand painting them.

 I've gone back through my messages.  

These were indeed a Xmas present from my niece, Breeze, back in 2012.  

There are some Bren Carriers as well (almost finished, just need to repaint them Dark Sand).

 Like the Quad I'd painted these Desert Yellow (over a brown undercoat)

 and then corrected by overpainting Dark Sand. 

 I liked them in Desert Yellow and luckily I still like them with the Dark Sand overcoat.

 Again I couldn't decide on transfer or hand painting insignia, 

so they have gone without for now.

I do love the rivets!

 There is a bit of background to these next models that I posted a year ago and can be found here.

 They had been super glued and then reinforced with some careful layers of PVA glue, 

decoupage style.

 After thinking about making my own sandbags,

I went with two terrain features that I had picked up at the club.

Background to that can be read here.

 The other gun in the pair.  

The wheels are not fixed, but everything else is glued in place.

 The model base is sandstone over Tamiya Dark Earth (my stock standard for basing).

However the terrain piece is sandstone over red earth,

which is the same colours as used on the mat.

 I figure these will make nice objective markers,

AA batteries protecting supply dumps.

 It took some thought on how to get the best out of these two bits,

but then I hit on the idea of making a sabot.

The sandbags are VJ Buff over Tamiya red brown 

with a final wash of Nulon Oil (or some such silly named black wash)

I tried a few materials for the sabots until I settled on some cardboard.

It was the right thickness and easy to cut.

I coated it in PVA glue and then the red earth undercoat for protection.

Yippee!  Finally some closure on these projects.