Finished!: British Recce Troop 1

Hi folks,

As posted elsewhere, I have maintained the motivation I was seeking while painting camels, and have 'finished' the first troop of Recce vehicles for my British collection.

These are 15mm Battlefront miniatures. Specifically 3 Humber IV's and 2 Humber Light Recon Cars (LRCs) for my August 1944 2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry Squadron.

I've used the older (now OOP) Battlefront Humber models, although I did review these compared to the newer (much larger) once here. I did this mainly as I already had most of the force and only required three vehicles to finish the list. The newer models were sold on to club members and I managed to find three more of the older models.

Technically, these are I think more Humber III's than IV's. But they will do for my purposes.

As mentioned elsewhere, I've changed my painting method for this force in order to try and speed up painting. In this case, I lost time due to a varnish issue (as a result I am giving up on Vallejo gloss varnish). The new technique is to assemble and add stowage, spray with Russian Uniform, give a quick base coat of bottled 70.924 Russian Uniform, wash with my home made black wash, drybrush with a mix of 70% Russian Uniform and 30% Iraqi Sand, then a lighter drybrush with the quantities reversed. Tidy up the panels, paint the stowage and wheels, quick brown wash on those then highlight.

I then did the usual varnishes and decals, before adding Tamiya Weathering Master for dust effects (this shows really poorly on camera). I'm now switching to using a floor polish for my gloss coat.

I've found that not spending time edge highlighting really speeds up the process (obviously). Also, using cheap makeup brushes for drybrushing works really well. I still need some more practice - I'm thinking my drybrush technique is a bit rough.

You can really see the difference in how the weathering looks depending on the lighting between this last image and the first one.

Decals, which are hidden by the weathering, include the bridging weight, Recce AoS, Highland Division sign, WD numbers, recognition stars and allied stars.

As usual, two aerials for command vehicle. It will also have two crew members which I've still to paint. The other Humber A/C's will have one crew member each. Turrets have all been magnetised as well (other than on the LRC's which are glued down).

With the new painting style, I've managed to make some progress on the other two troops. I'm hoping to have one more finished in the next few days. Other vehicles still need more prep in the form of stowage and base spray, so that will slow down the rest.

Hope everyone is doing well and keeping safe.