Pete's Place

[chrisswim]

Look forward to the island these trees are on.
Not to attack, nor invade except as a relaxing vacay. Sun, surf, to relax.

[pmskaar]

Thank you both very much, Foxbat and Chris!

[Hoth_902]

Hey Pete,

Long time no chat. Got a couple of questions for ya. I am thinking about putting together some Styrofoam pieces with some grass on it or a road. Mostly just to take pictures of some of my pieces. So naturally I have some questions that are down below.

1. Do you seal your Styrofoam before you put grass or anything on it? I have seen people use Mod Podge
2. What product do you use for a dirt road, is it just painted directly or do you use like a sand or something?
3. Do you seal after you put grass or sand on the Styrofoam and if so, what is the process?

On a slightly different note, I noticed it does not appear that you base coat any of your German WWII vehicles using Dark Yellow. From what I read, it seems that it was only used for a short time during combat in Russia. After that is was a beige color or light tan. Have you done any pieces in Dark Yellow and if not, how come.

Mike

[BurtWolf]

Great job on those trees and very helpful blow by blow! Hopefully I can do the same when I do my Africa board.

[BurtWolf]

Great job on those trees and very helpful blow by blow! Hopefully I can do the same when I do my Africa board.

[pmskaar]

Thanks very much, Hoth and Burt! I appreciate it. I just got back from a "Magical History Tour" of Virginia with my daughter, her husband, and two of my grandkids.

Hoth, I do not seal the styrofoam with any kind of sealer except paint. I do find that the first layer of paint soaks into the styrofoam very quicky.

My method for ground cover for my European terrain is to paint the first coat of paint on the hex and let dry. I may thin the paint, in this case Sherwin Williams flat tan house paint. Of course I will do about 10 to 20 hexes at once.

Next, I add another layer of paint, making sure it is really wet and on the hex. I then sprinkle green sawdust on the hex and let it dry. I am not sure if green sawdust is readily available but I still have a supply that I bought years ago. I use a more light green sawdust for this. I may not coat the whole hex exactly evenly but hit some areas a with more sawdust than others. I don't necessarily want everything to be even. Let dry... again. The sawdust is really prep for the next step.

Once the hexes are dry, I brush on Woodland Scenics "Scenic Cement". This is a watered down glue you can get at most shops that carry Woodland Scenics products. I take an old cheap brush about 1/2 inch to 1 inch wide and dip it into the cement and spread it on top of the sawdust. While the glue is wet, I then sprinkle a blend of Woodland Scenics foam grass on the hex. The blend I have is one I made myself starting with their fine grass blend and adding some more burnt and a bit of dead grass to the mix and even taking some Coarse Turf/Grass and forcing it in a strainer to get some bigger pieces so that the grass is not too uniform. I let this dry as well.

Once the grass is dry, I may add some small shrubs or large patches of grass to the hex. You can use Elmers Glue or the Woodland Scenics glue for this. I don't recommend the Scenic Cement as it is too thin for this work. Just dab glue on those spots you want a few extra lumps to break up the uniformity a bit. You generally don't want things to look like a golf course or a well manicured lawn when you are done. I use the Coarse Turf for this and may blend a few greens together to keep things interesting.

Roads. My dirt roads are basically layers of paint, built up over the designated area I have set aside for the roads. I use the basic GHQ method of marking the roads but instead of cutting a ridiculously wide ditch along the sides of the road, I use a finishing nail to drag along the marks of the road outline. This creates a sort of ditch but not too wide for scale. I create some ruts by dragging a large paper clip randomly along the road. This part I do before any paint is applied. The paint is the final step. Once I have the paint on to my satisfaction, I will create a light wash that is a bit darker than the road and apply it over the road.

I do basecoat my vehicles in my version of German Dunkelgelb. I tend to lighten a bit for scale. I use Humbrol #83 Dark Yellow and add just a bit of #34 Matt White to lighten. I have gone with it straight on before but it tends to look just a bit dark to me.


My "Parade Ground" with my Tigers on it. This shows the basic look of unadorned grass that I achieve using the method above.


Here is the Parade Ground again with some M4A1 Shermans.


A view of a road. This is all done with paint and a light wash. I did put some "weeds" in the depression on each side of the road. I don't know if the ditch is absolutely necessary but I do it anyway. I am sure a lot of country roads probably did not have ditches.


A paved road also showing another terrain configuration. I used a really fine grit black sandpaper as the base for this glued to thin plastic card and carefully trimmed to fit the hex.


One of my bridge hexes. This is a road crossing a stream with a fairly crude bridge over it. It shows several aspects of creating terrain in one hex.


An example of a desert dirt road with some British Shermans. I did not do any ditches on this one or the other desert road hexes.

[Hoth_902]

Pete,

OMG, that was a detailed post, thanks for sharing. I am going to need a minute to read through and digest.

On a side note and I think I may have already ask you this.. Do you have any reference that indicates if PZIIs were painted in Dark yellow during the 1943 time frame, or were they still German Grey till they were removed from service? I am thinking of buying a few.

[pmskaar]

Thanks very much, Hoth!

Panzer IIs. The simple answer is yes, the remaining Panzer IIs would generally have been repainted in Dunkelgelb aka Dark Yellow.

The Panzer II had a fair number of variants from A through L with the C and F being the most widely produced. Production of the Panzer IIF ended in December 1942. At the time of Kursk, just about all of the surviving Panzer IIs, as I know it, were consolidated at the Battalion and Regimental HQ level and no longer in the line companies. 1943 was a big year of change for the German armored units as the Panzer III was also being phased out and production of the long barreled Panzer IVs was on the increase. During the time of Kursk, many of the line companies in the various Panzer Divisions had a mix of Panzer IIIs and IVs.

For this information, I referenced the German Tank Encyclopedia by Peter Chamberlain and Hillary Doyle as well as Panzertruppen, Vol. II by Thomas L. Jentz. Another source I used was III. Panzer Korps at Kursk by Didier Lodieu.

[chrisswim]

Those pictures of tanks look great. Really nice and sharp. Valuable information on the paints you shared. Nice read.

Thank you for sharing.

[pmskaar]

Thank you very much, Chris!

[redleg]

Spectacular work Pete! Your terrain and tanks are pretty amazing!

[Hoth_902]

Pete,

Thanks for the information on the PZII coloring.. I did look at my reference material and saw that the PZIIs were relegated to the regimental HQ units in 1943. I think I am going to get a couple of packs and paint them up Dark Yellow and maybe see if I can get my gaming group to run a scenario where the Regiment HQ gets hit. Or maybe just one where the HQ is on the board and the enemy needs to break through.

On the subject of your pieces and there base coat, Interesting that they are Dark Yellow. Through my eyes, they look more like a beige or a buff color. Understanding this could be due to the lighting. I know under certain light, the Dark Yellow gets washed out and it does not appear to look like the right color. Great work just the same.

[pmskaar]

Thanks very much, Redleg!

Thanks to you as well, Hoth! I have seen lots of variations of Dunkelgelb in the modeling and gaming world. Some of it does look a bit too tan with not enough yellow and I have seen some models that are too yellow that almost looks like traffic yellow or some such.

I may take a few more picture of my German vehicles again to see how they come out. I do think the yellow part is definitely there on the vehicles.

Here are a couple pictures of ones I painted for GHQ. The formula is exactly the same as what I use on my own.





I do think that the lighting does have a lot to do with things when looking at photos. You might think that the vehicle in the bottom picture looks more reddish tan than the one on the top but they are pretty much the same color.

[Hoth_902]

Pete,

I see the Dark Yellow in the pictures you posted, especially in the second 1. Thanks for posting more picture of your work and thanks for all the tips. I posted some pics on my thread. I think they show the issue with lighting. They are all Dark Yellow but the two sets of pictures make the Dark Yellow look differently. The one from above, of the PZIIIs and the Stugs, are with dimmer light and some shadows and I feel that they look orange-ish.. The PZIVs are also Dark Yellow but they appear to be washed out a little.

[pmskaar]

Thanks very much, Hoth!

I did check out your site and made a comment there. Sometimes the dark yellow does look different shades depending on the lighting.