After finsihing my last dio: “Defense of Aachen”, I am now starting another one entitled, “Backhand Blow”. This will be a scene from the 3rd battle of kharkov, in the Ukraine, which lasted duringr Feb/march of '43 and was Germany’s last major victory of the entire war. This is also where the SS Divisions gained their fearsome fighting reputation. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd SS PD’s played instrumental roles in retaking the important city of Kharkov after the Germans were ejected from it during the general retreat from the region after the fall of Stalingrad. Recapturing Kharkov re-stabilized the eastern front and set the stage for the battle of Kursk later in the year. Many veterans of the SS called Kharkov the most bitter fighting of the entire war.
I just finished these two Alpine figs that will be in the dio. The fig wearing the Knight’s Cross is Maj. Max Wunsche, Hitler’s onetime aide and CO of a tank battalion in the 1st SS PD during the battle. Afterwards he went on to command the entire tank regiment in the 12th SS “Hitlerjugend” PD during the Normandy fighting…the dio will also feature DML’s MkIVG “Kharkov”…now I am off to work on the base (snow and more snow)…stay tuned in the Dio Forum…
…hee hee, surfboarding…maybe snowboarding…actually they just had a giant popscicle…lol…
The tank will be the DML MkIVG “Kharkov”…still in the stages of laying out the dio scene, but rest assured these guys are dressed for COLD weather! These Alpine figs are a treat to paint!
I usually paint fur by first starting w/ a dark base, such as black or chocolate brown…then I brush over that with a color that I want the fur to be, such as cream…I do this with an amount of paint that is slightly more than you would use in dry-brushing, so that the recesses retain the darker undercoat…after, that I drybrush a lighter shade and then wash w/ a color close to the base…if the fur is coarse I sometimes go in and paint the “grain” of the fur very similar that you would do in painting the grain on wood…
I usually affix the majority of debris to the base using celluclay…for individual bricks, etc, I use elmer’s white glue…for a lot of fine debris I dilute elmer’s glue w/ water and brush it over the debris…once it dries it will keep most pieces in place…than I spray the entire base with dullcoate varnish which will then seal down any remaining tiny pieces (sand-sized or less)…
The other fig was not named in the set by Alpine and does not look familar to me based on any pics…he does have the rank of a senior NCO so I suppose he could represent Max’s battalion sergeant-major…
Looking forward to this one MR, the Pz IV G just landed on my desk as the next project once the 250 Neu is done, so will follow yours with interest. [tup]
…wbill, in the box, she is a stunner for sure…I may substitute the hollow-horned magic tracks on mine for a set of DML ostkettens just to give it a more “wintery” look…I have refs that show a number of these tanks (and also Mk III’s) sporting them…let me know if you want any pics of Mk IV’s during the battle as I have a lot of refs on this (my favorite) battle…
…disastermaster, thanks for the kind words…I am looking forward to this one as well, the snow will be a challenge but I do have some experience with it from other dios…the composition will be the biggest challlenge as this will be a rural setting but still need to be interesting to the eye…
