Desert APC conversion

 My latest conversion is this armoured personnel carrier, more cheap but useful goodness from Poundland.  There's another recent article about it on the Glue in The Carpet blog which I'm sure many of you will have seen, GJD is obviously much quicker at turning around his buys as I've had mine for several weeks and have only just got around to finishing it!

As has been mentioned on other blogs, this is a French VAB personnel carrier which comes in 2 flavours, 4-wheel and 6-wheel, the latter being primarily an export model.  I've already got a 4-wheeled version which featured on my blog in March last year, I've decided to go for a different colour scheme with this one.

The first thing to change was the weedy missile launcher turret which had a strangely positioned pair of skinny little tubes on each side.  After removing the screws to take the whole thing apart, I disassembled the turret and got rid of the missile tubes.  The replacement pods come from a Mechwarrior clicky figure (might have been a Jes II missile carrier or something like that - an excellent source of satisfyingly chunky missile pods!).  They were drilled & mounted on a cocktail stick that fitted snugly in the pivot-point of the turret.  Why use a cocktail stick instead of a bit of brass rod?  Because I can't find where I've put my pack of incredibly useful bits such as rod, wire, plastic girders etc, that's why!!

With it's huge wheels, I thought that this would be a suitable vehicle for desert operations on sandy terrain.  Colour scheme matches my recently painted NSL Power Armour, in fact I thought of it for the APC first but took so long to complete it that I felt compelled to try the scheme on the infantry while I was waiting.  Base colour is Humbrol 93 desert sand, Vallejo reflective green mixed 50/50 with the sand colour for the main camo stripes, plus Vallejo cold grey patches here and there.  The whole thing received a wash of Vallejo sepia ink with base colours drybrushed on top, followed by an all-over drybrush of Vallejo bonewhite to give a dusty finish.  Wheels have been left the basic sand colour rather than trying to tie in the camo - if you have stripes across a wheel it tends to engender a stroboscopic effect as it rotates, drawing the eye towards it rather than helping it blend in.  I know that out little model vehicles don't actually drive around and get shot at, but I still try to follow the principle if I can.

The last photograph shows a GZG armed colonist to give an idea of scale.  I only got one of these APCs at the time because I wasn't sure how it would look with the huge wheels.  I think it probably works OK (though I wouldn't like to try and squeeze out of those driver's compartment doors in an emergency), but as Pounland didn't have any left when I last visited, looks like this one is destined to be lonely!

VAB Armoured Personnel carrier

This French VAB was something of an experiment, inspired by Paul Owen's article about painting KraVak grav tanks as seen on the GZG web site.

Here is the VAB as purchased, 10p in the local charity shop - was probably part of a cheap bulk "army vehicle" set when originally sold. I've always liked the VAB body shape, I prefer the 6-wheeled version but this one will do for now. Reminds me of the old Action Force troop carrier.

GZG security guard for scale.

First thing to do was drill out the rivets and disassemble. After a quick dip in paint stripper and a scrub with an old toothbrush and hot soapy water, the metal body shell had a grey spray undercoat.

Re-assembly was easy, the only awkward bit was heating a screwdriver blade to melt the base of the gun-mount pin, fixing it in place. Rather than re-riveting I just used epoxy resin. There was a large rivet-hole under the front glacis plate but I covered this with a large plasticard trim vane as seen on many amphibious vehicles.

Basic colour scheme is Humbrol matt 60 brick red and GW goblin green applied in wavy bands. I also added a few thinner black lines, but you can't really see them on the completed vehicle!

A wash of heavily diluted matt black provided shading, then I drybrushed the whole thing with Humbrol 93 desert yellow for a dusty finish. Headlights are painted silver, other bits such as the horn and shovel head are GW chainmail. Tyres were painted Humbrol 29 dark earth, then drybrushed with matt black. I hope that's given the effect of road dust/dirt stuck in the treads.

A worthwhile experiment - although the initial paint job looked very harsh, the shading and drybrushing have blended it together well. Looking back, I shouldn't have left the camera set on the colour-boosting "Fuji Velvia" setting - the colours aren't this vibrant in real life, so it looks rather more subtle than it does here!