MiniatureZone Blog

WW2 Elderly Berlin Policemen with Shakos

2012-02-10T22:56:00.006Z

A couple of the scenarios in the Berlin campaign that our wargame group was recently gaming needed some squads of "elderly policemen", many of whom had to be armed with just handguns. I used figures from various sets of Germans from Revell, Airfix, Caesar, & HaT, and even some of Orion's sets of cops-n-robbers and gave them heads with shakos taken from the HaT Industrie 1/72 scale WWI

Italeri German Motorcycles and Sidecars - Update

2012-02-05T12:32:00.001Z

A year later..................I've finally finished the Italeri Motorbikes and sidecar combos The big car in the background is a Hasegawa Mercedes that I rescued from a pile of old kits in a box and found a nice canvas roof from the spares box that fitted perfectly. After taking this photo, I've realised that the paint on one of the wheels has either chipped off, or I missed that bit when

Latest Arnhem Wargame Photos

2012-02-04T05:49:00.004Z

Photos from an ongoing Arnhem campaign that we re-started recently.

Zvezda T-34s

2012-02-02T16:58:00.003Z

Got the chance last night to see some of the lads and took a shot of my mate Carlos' new Zvezda T-34s he had there that he had just finished painting and weathering. Apparently they are clip-together kits, no glue needed he tells me.

Highland Infantry WIP - Update

2011-10-07T23:02:00.004+01:00

07th October 2011 Slowly but surely getting on with the Highlanders. Here's the first batch. The figures are just enough to fill about 3 20x20mm stands - so still a way to go before I have enough stands to get a few batallions together.

Being "Boer"-ing

2011-09-25T23:19:00.001+01:00

As I flit from one project to yet another, a picture of some figures I started painting last night, Stelets Boers. They have chunky and exaggerated poses, but on the plus side every single figure has a different pose. The picture is a little grainy as I took it with a mobile phone camera. You can see a full review of the figures on the excellent Plastic Soldier Review website http://

Street Lamps / Lamp Posts from earrings

2011-09-23T22:57:00.001+01:00

With members of the fairer sex in the house, old round/pearl type earrings that the girls no longer want are always easy to come by. I'm not 100% sure about how these are going to turn out, but they might make fairly acceptable street lamps, at least for wargaming - what do you reckon ?

New Nappies - RobH

2011-09-23T00:21:00.002+01:00

As a follow on to a skirmish scenario we gamed with some of our regular wargame buddies a couple of weeks ago (http://wargamestenerife.blogspot.com/2011/08/song-of-drums-and-shakos-escaramuzas.html), our mate Rob brought some very nice freshly painted 1/72 Italeri Napoleonic British he's just finished. Italeri British 95th Regiment Italeri British Infantry 1815

Spanish Civil War in 20mm - Dave Hall

2011-09-21T16:37:00.001+01:00

Dave Hall from Albuquerque New Mexico sent me some nice pictures of some 20mm SCW troops and conversions which can be seen below I have begun working on converting my World War Two rules over to the Spanish Civil War. The following pictures are from my ‘work bench,’ really a kitchen counter. They are 1/72 scale. The figures include some metal ones from Historical Products Company, BUM, and

"Dream House"

2011-07-13T20:09:00.002+01:00

Not been able to update the blog as I've had a few other things on my plate lately. I was in the UK a short while ago and happened to go into a "Poundshop", where everything is, well, ...a £1.00. Sifting through the tack, you can usually always find something useful in those places and I found these brightly coloured 1/72 scale "Dream houses" - well, actually half a house, you have to buy two

HaT El Cid Almoravid Infantry

2011-05-09T23:04:00.001+01:00

Our mate RobH came over on Saturday and he treated us to an excellent game using Impetus ruleset with his collection of Samurai in 15mm. Apart from putting on a great game, he also brought along some of his painted 1/72 scale HaT Moors that he's based to also use with the same rules, and they are very nice indeed, the pictures of the painted HaT figures speak for themselves.

1/72 Scale / 20mm Plastic LOTR Figures

2011-05-05T22:27:00.001+01:00

This was quite a find, these are are the main characters from the Lord of the Rings trilogy and came in an old out-of-production Spanish boardgame that I found in a clearance offer in a big department store some months back. The bases are way too thick to use as they are, and one day (eventually) when I do get around to painting and basing them I'll have to cut those bases right down. The

Italeri German Motorcycles and Sidecars

2011-05-02T12:29:00.000+01:00

I was given this set for Christmas by a friend. Nicely detailed set, though the figures are a little on the big side like all of the new 1/72 scale figures Italeri is producing. I changed a few heads to give them all helmets and I'll be using them for the 1940 campaign in France - I know the uniforms are all wrong, but no-one will notice too much (hopefully) and I'll be painting them up in

US Navy Landing Party - Dixie Cup Hats

2011-04-30T01:00:00.002+01:00

UPDATE 01/05/2011 A picture of the dixie-cup hats before the figures were painted. The hats were made with some thin strands of paper and white-glue wrapped around bare heads taken from other figures. You can see the completed figures on the link below : http://www.miniaturezone.co.uk/?p=800

Orion Soviet Tank Crewmen

2011-04-29T00:13:00.001+01:00

More on the workbench - WW2 Germans

2011-02-25T17:39:00.000Z

Went out and had a couple of beers with my wargame chums, Carlos and Juan, a few evenings back, .....and came back home with all this stuff ! Just goes to show that boozing with your mates is good for you ;-)The Germans in greatcoats are Carlos' and they're for some Berlin games we'll be arranging over the coming months. I'll be flocking the bases with a "rubble" mix, and will post another photo

On the workbench - WW2 Russian Infantry Conversions

2011-02-24T23:29:00.000Z

Last week I got a two new sets of the new "made in UK" Plastic Soldier Russian and German Infantry. The plastic is nice to work with, hard styrene which is glueable, and cuts easily and can easily be trimmed and sanded.You can see some of the Russian infantry here with new heads, mixed with Esci and Revell figures for some Russian squads I'm putting together. With the smaller heads the poses mix

Guest Gallery - Dave Hall

2011-02-21T22:17:00.000Z

Some photos I was kindly sent for the blog by Dave Hall from the States.Hi JohnHere a few pictures from my game back in October at the Rio Grande Wars convention in the American Southwest. I play tested a simple scenario for my new rules which are set to come out in the Spring. The figures are plastic, mostly ESCI, Italeri and Orion. Please ignore the Panzerfausts. Those units were used as

1/72 Scale Dropship - Something New for the New Year

2011-01-01T17:27:00.003Z

I wanted to start the year off with something non-historical, and have some pictures here of an old AMT 1/72 scale "Runabout Rio Grande" Star Trek Transporter that I bought on e-bay about a couple of months ago. Rather than the standard Star Trek white, I painted it in an olive-drab/green colour to use as a kind of near-future military dropship. You can see it here with some

More Winter Repaints

2010-12-27T20:59:00.004Z

A link on the photo below to various pictures of Winter repaints of old stuff.

Coming soon : WW2 History book with 1/72 scale pictures by Mark Thomas

2010-11-11T18:25:00.000Z

Mark Thomas, a veteran 20mm gamer and modeler from Oregon (US) told me some time ago that he was working on a history book illustrating scenes and information related to some of the most important battles of WW2 using 1/72 scale models, figures and scenery.The book should now be finished maybe sometime late this year and he has some sample pictures from his book on the web, some of which can be

Guest Gallery - Japanese Trucks by Dave Hall

2010-11-09T20:00:00.000Z

Here are a few recognizable Hasegawa trucks, a Starter Toyota GB and a Fuel Isuzu TX-40.There were pretty simple conversions. I used Evergreen Scale Models, Sheet Styrene with 2.0mm spacing V-Groove for the truck beds.The Toyota is the smaller of the two vehicles. Each could be said to hold a squad of infantry. The Isuzu's canvas cover is a modified one from a Pegasus American 6 Ton. I

DAK - Work in Progress - Carlos (Brazo de Nelson Wargame Club)

2010-10-05T19:40:00.000+01:00

I took some pictures last week of some 1/72 scale DAK stuff my mate Carlos has on the go when we met up at the shop where we usually game. Repainted Altaya PzIIs Repainted Altaya PzIVs New Italeri Fast-Build Kubels + "Passengers" Italeri DAK with head-swaps Pegasus "German" Trucks HaT German HMG Team conversions Bunch of finished squads Italeri Panzerjäger //

US Marines - More Work in Progress

2010-09-06T00:21:00.004+01:00

Found a moment to advance a bit more with the US Marines for the Pacific and finally got the Command squad finished and varnished, just need the bases flocking. Also put together some support teams. First off I gave this hard-plastic Hasegawa two-man sniper team new soft-plastic replacement rifles as I found from experience that the original styrene ones usually break off after handling (

United States Marine Corps Rifle Platoon - Work in Progress

2010-08-26T22:30:00.001+01:00

I'm working on a late war USMC rifle platoon for the Pacific using the larger figures (those scaled-down 1/32 poses) from the Airfix US Marines set. There are also some Hasegawa hard-plastic clones and even the old Esci hard plastic version of the famous Airfix left-handed pistol-toting officer has put in an appearance ! What a damn pity Airfix never scaled this guy down. The standing firing

Removing paint from plastic figures

2010-05-20T21:42:00.000+01:00

I've used this technique with old models and figures, even those that have been covered in two or three coats of thick enamel paint. It works equally as well with hard and soft plastic plus it's a technique that's not just limited to smallscalemodelling.You'll need the following items : Household oven cleaner Plastic gloves Plastic bag Plastic bucket Toothbrush Detergent (washing-up liquid)

ACW

2010-04-29T01:13:00.001+01:00

Painted these American Civil War figures a couple of weeks ago for a skirmish game. I wasn't happy with the uniform on the Union figures - it's far too blue...... but it was too late to change it the night before the game, so they had to fight in bright blue uniforms :-(

Crossfire Game Photos

2009-01-15T22:03:00.000Z

Some photos of a Crossfire game