It was a dull, showery sunday, that's how I ended up in the Glasgow Fort shopping centre (not really a fort!) looking for clothes with the family. As I was there I managed to work swinging by HobbyCraft to at least look at their model section and their clearance isle. Thats where found the Airfix German Reconnaisance Kit for £3.49 comprising of a SD Kfz 222 armoured car and a kubelwagon. Should be a nice flexible couple of vehicles (as far as I can tell) so I bought 2 - one for European games and one for Africa settings (I've a box full of Airfix Africa corps and 8th Army sitting around as well).
I also picked up a second box of German infantry (for £2.99) to go with my other one. Just the job!
And finally an impulse buy of 2 boxes of Airfix British Paratroopers. Hmmmm, a bit of a mixed box I must say now that I've looked at them. Strange poses and quite a few of limited use (see plastic soldier review for details), but with effectively 2 boxes for the price of one hopefuly I'll manage a workable strike force from them. Maybe I'll leave the unnecessary impulse buys next time...
Must admit, I had a look at the British paras myself the other week based on childhood memories and was sorely disappointed by the quality and overly soft plastic used. Aww, well mark it up to boyish nostalgia ;)
ReplyDeleteThe plastic is very soft. I've not started to work with any of my Airfix yet, but I'd read somewhere on the interweb that spraying with hard gloss varnish before priming helps stiffen the figures. Experience will tell.
ReplyDeleteFor black undercoating, Citadel Chaos Black in the spraycans is pretty good for soft plastic. If you are more of a white undercoat chap then Plastikote do a white primer spraycan intended for painting plastic garden furniture which you can get in Homebase, this is excellent stuff. I've used it recently on some Airfix US Marines and swear by it now.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice. Sounds like the Plastikote is just the job (easier for me to get my hands on as well). Cheers
ReplyDelete