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I paint small metal and plastic figures and rarely get to play with them. But that is fine with me.

07 December 2016

Comrade! (Part 17)

This is a Warlord Games Soviet ZIS-3 Divisional Gun. Crap pictures though - apologies, it seems it's too dark in the mornings (My typical opportunity for doing so) for photo-time.

In-game it can fire as both an Anti-tank gun AND a light howitzer. (Most guns of this size typically are classed as either-or.) This all metal kit was crisply sculpted and only had one glaring issue - game rules have it as being crewed by four men, yet the gun is sold with only three!? (Not very good planning on Warlord's part.) Lucky I had a spare infantry-man from my plastic Winter troops set to fill in!

The painting was easy - both gun and crew were a breeze to get done and fit in well enough (The metal crew are all Summer uniform, not Winter like the rest of my army but o well.) with the rest of my army. I based the whole thing on a CD, used my usual basing medium, made sure to leave indents for the crew bases so I can remove them as casualties are taken and added snow effects and some foliage. The logs are some very nice finds by my son whilst out with his Mum walking the dog. These too were painted and look okay as a makeshift log-barrier thing.

Fellow with the shell at the back is the plastic addition to thew crew. Some hand manipulation and a crappy looking artillery shell made from a toothpick and he'll do. 
Tried to add red & white stripes the to the ranging poles. Pretty shoddy effort though. 

Unlike most of the rest of my force, this base is not entirely covered in snow, to account for the crew running back and forth with ammo, etc.

Was very tempted to add some sort of white-wash camo to the gun too, but felt it would just melt in with the base-colours so stuck with basic Soviet green.
I promise better pictures will be forthcoming once I have an opportunity to get out when the lighting is better. But rain and storms are on their way to Northern California so that might be a while yet.

Finishing up this gun means I only have my tank to go and then be able to call this army the mythical "Fully Painted". Which rocks muchly. The tank is currently about 75% completed and I hope to have it done and posted here by next week, in time for my Mum's visit from Blighty when painting time will be near non-existent.

Hope everyone's staying warm out there!

18 comments:

  1. Dai, that is probably my fave piece you've so far painted. I absolutely love it!! Loads of character in the figures and a cracking base with a nice little family-touch ref sticks and dog walking. Brill post :-)

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    1. Heh, the sticks looked close enough to logs to me, plus they made it easy for basing ideas as I was lost otherwise.

      Thanks mate, am glad you like it. Hope the tank will pass muster as well!

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  2. Agree the basing on this is top notch. A right little diorama piece. It's clever leaving the mud showing through where they move. Top effort mate

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    1. Thanks loads! Was worried the CD itself would be too big as a base but it worked out fine in the end.

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  3. Oh, what a fantastic work! and this winter base.
    Masterpiece!

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    1. Masterpiece!? Too kind of you to say Michal! Thankyou!

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  4. Excellent job and a great diorama piece it makes as well. As for them wearing summer uniforms its probably hot work to be wearing great coats and lugging those shells about!

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    1. That makes sense. I don't feel too bad about not sculpting scarves on them now! :)

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  5. Woohoo! Here's to getting things done! Looking good.

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  6. Loving the artillery vignette, man - that looks fantastic!

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  7. Excellent job, amazing base!

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    1. Great, now I have the tune to Amazing Grace in my head...

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  8. Very nice artillery base, I like the logs, they work very well as does the toothpick, I don't think the Soviet was always that efficient so I wouldn't worry about the summer uniforms, nice reuse of a cd too.
    Best Iain

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  9. Good job. I finally paint your gun ... and a platoon of Soviet Marines.

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