Zvezda Stormovik and a CowOrk

So unfortunatly I did not make it down to Vancouver for the Trumpeters Convention.  I'm sure it would have been a great time but I am still feeling a little burnt out from travelling and didn't want to face the 12 hour drive down and then back.  So instead I have made slow progress on a couple projects.  I finished my 1:144 Stormovik to provide some airsupport for my All Plastic Soviets.

I also started painting my prisoner for the Deathsquads Prisoner Exchange 2012.  Below are some conversion and in progress painting pictures (sorry I cannot figure out how to rotate them so you are just going to have to tilit your head.)  The ork is obviously inspired by Western movies, particularly True Grit and the Outlaw Josey Wales.  I had prievously not worked with Greenstuff very much at all and I learned a few things trying to get this guy how I wanted him.  Hopefully I will finish up painting him in the next couple days.    

 

Book Review: Eyewitness to Hell

   
     The book Eyewitness to Hell: With the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front in World War 2 by Erich Stahl.  Is one of the best war memoirs of world war 2 I have ever read.  It is written by someone who was in the action as a NCO, and later junior officer, in someone of the worst fighting that has ever happened; but by someone who was also at the same time in the action as a reporter recording what he saw.  Stahl doesn't explain in the book how he is both an active soldier and a reporter but you get the impression that he is a soldier who used to work for a paper and so continues to file stories from the front line.  Regardless it creates a fascinating mix of someone who is both a member of Hitler's fanatical elite but also also looking to explain what he is doing. 
     Stahl does make some attempt to explain why he is fighting; against communism which he sees as the ultimate evil.  But he also has serious doubts about the Reichs policy towards "racial inferiors", and he is highly impressed by the Ukrainian people and disheartened by how they are treated under German occupation.  His matter of fact descriptions of combat and life on the front are also excellent and he includes a chapter on being imprisoned by the Americans at the end of the war.
            Overall it is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone interested in History.  Particularly anyone interested in the Eastern Front during World War 2.   

Various Projects.

So rather than starting to document my travels I have instead jumped into a couple little projects.

The Deathsquads Prisoner Exchange, is where you convert and paint a model and then send it to a participant somewhere else in the world.  In return another random participant sends you one as well.  Some people are going over the top with multi-model dioramas and such.  I am aiming lower and hoping to do one well executed conversion with a nice paint job.  My plan is to do a cowboy themed Ork "hired gun."  I feel like the hired gun is a good call since it can be used across multiple squads.  I still need to decide on whether I want to try and mold a poncho for him out of green stuff. 

The Black Ork Nob has lost his topknot and received a hat and spurs.

I decided I wanted him to have both guns aimed forward, so I had to cut up an axe arm and re-equip it.

 I am also starting to try to convert my Warhamer Empire army to be a useable Renaissance force for Fields of Glory.  I bought some pikes off the internet and have had a go at cutting their spears away and drilling their hands out.  It hasn't worked out very smoothly with bit of spear left behind but from a distance I think they are starting to look all right.  The small sizes of FOG Renaissance units doesn't help with letting my poor conversions blend into the crowd. I will probably convert around 24 of them to pikes which will give me enough for 4 small pike and shotte units.    

I was hoping to be able to dip my Soviet and German infantry but it is still too cold and too much snow on the ground.  I'll also start writing up some museum/battlefield reviews this week, as soon as I find my motivation.