Diving in!

I have been eagerly awaiting a chance to paint one of my aircraft for Bolt Action for many months.  Very slowly, I have been collecting 1/48 scale kits for all nations, eras and theatres.  

The Junkers JU 87, or Stuka, was particularly important in the early war phase which I am representing in my battle reports, so it had to be the very first one!

While I also have a 1/48 scale version of this, I thought that I would try the Blitzkrieg Miniatures kit.  It was an extra challenge to paint, since it is resin (aka heavy!) and the decals were missing.

This meant that I had to do them by hand.  Freehand is something I am very used to, but not this kind of geometric shape on such a large and unusually shaped surface.  Also, these had to be 'repeated' on both sides of the aircraft!

I found some references of markings from France 1940, grabbed a pencil, and got down to work!

I drew out a few 'guides' in the form of dots, followed by lines, just to indicate where each marking should begin and end, so that size would be matched up on each side.

I used a grayish/white mix and started by painting the inner white sections of the Balkenruz.  It will be easier to paint the black sections around this, thus 'cleaning up' and variations in the white lines. 

You can see that in this image, with the black filler acting like a ruler, straightening out the white areas.

This was repeated for all the markings.  If necessary, I went back in with the white to clean up the black areas, and even a touch of the dark green fuselage and wing color in case I needed to clean up an outer edge.

I still have to weather this some more, but that will probably wait until after I have filmed the next Battle Report in my Bolt Action series!!

I will be using some silver paint and sponges to 'remove' some of the dark green paint around key areas, like access panels, where the pilots and crew would be stepping on the wings, and so on.  Since that won't show up very much in the few moments that this will be on screen, I thought I could make that another how to article.

It certainly looks the part on my Ardennes board. I have not used an airstrike in any of my Bolt Action games yet, and it will be an important part of the next episode of the Battle Report series called "Sickle Stroke".

As I have researched the Battle of France, I continuously read about the methods used for dealing with the heaver French tanks such as the Char Bis.  While their standard Anti Tank weapons were ineffective "Door Knockers", the Junkers JU 87's were quite deadly attacking from above.

I want to represent this with the forces that have been chosen, as well as the scenario itself.

Just like the first report, I am trying to blend a historical set up with a bit of "What if".  There were many counterattacks planned by the Allies for the Battle of France, but between poor communication, coordination and even dead commanders, these hasty offensives ended up with poor support.

In this case, I wanted to see if a mixture of heavy French units could outflank a rapidly advancing German force that is attempting to cut off the Northern units of the French army that had gone into Belgium, etc.

This report will also feature the naming of some of my terrain pieces after the top Patrons of my Patreon Page.  The idea popped into my head the other day, and there are plenty of pieces of terrain that need names!

So, you will see Spark's Peak, McCoy Ridge, the Abassi River, and many more in Sickle Stroke!

To support the making of these reports (each one takes about 18 hours to film, edit, render, etc.), or to have a terrain feature named after you, here is the page:

BTW, I will be doing special patron only videos as well...

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel