Turrets & Transfers

I'm currently chalking off some easy wins in terms of painting as real life is not conducive to spending lots of time with a brush in my hand. 

Therefore, this week I've painted a 3d printed turret to transform my T-34/76 into a T-34/85.

The turret was kindly printed for me by Pete and fortunately the connecting piece is exactly the right size to work with the hull of my resin T-34/76. My plastic T-34 has a much smaller hole for the turret to sit in, and so if I'd been converting the printed turret for that, it would have required much carving and swearing.

Here it is next to my plastic T-34/85 and I think it looks great. However the barrel did need replacing as it was at least twice as thick as it needed to be.

Fortunately, I had an unused SU-100 barrel from when I built my SU-85 (the kit allows a choice between the two), and it's exactly the same size as a T-34/85 barrel.

Eagle-eyed aficionados of the blog will have spotted that I've also grubbied up the transfers, as you can see on the original T-34/76 turret.

I do this by using a torn piece of sponge to dab green paint on top of the transfer to look like the paint has chipped. Then I simply pop a wash over it to dull the colours.

Here's the same trick on my mobile artillery support. The SU-85 I mentioned earlier and, my favourite Soviet armoured vehicle, the SU-76 (or, as Russian crews called it, 'little bitch' or 'bare-arsed Ferdinand).

I also revisited one of my T-26 turrets, which involved a little more work as I was removing the Chinese transfers I'd applied and replacing them with Soviet stars.

I've had a bit of a talk with myself about the idea of starting another Bolt Action army. Not only is a Chinese force fiddly to build, it's actually a lot of (repetitive) work on plastics that I don't like building or painting to ultimately cause my other armies to be used less.

Additionally, the Chinese have less historical opponents (basically Matt's Japanese, and I can use the Soviets against them) and I think I'd prefer to just add more interesting a varied units to my Russians, Fallschirmjager and possibly even Operation Sea Lion British.

Therefore, with this decision made, I've not only painted one model (the turret definitely counts as a separate model), I'm also palming off giving some plastic sprues to my friends that I'd gathered for starting the Chinese project. This means that the 'acquired' total has taken a bit of a kicking just in time for a Christmas invasion.

I might just break even this year...

Acquired: 189

Painted: 259