28mm Horsa Glider - A huge and excellent blog of resin...

The last two weeks were quite here. I've been working on many different miniatures but didn't produce anything finished. Simultaneously I had some busy days at work and some efforts for the 1812 ruleset I'm taking part in. Many irons in the fire. Maybe too many...

Anyway I didn't want to bore you with daily WIP-shots. For the next week there'll be some more Vikings, the FIW British for BfC and some more 1812 French and allies.

But now for my entry for the recent fortnight bonus round of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. The theme was 'vehicles' and I decided to prepare a 28mm Horsa Glider which I need for the Pegasus Bridge project.

The eagle has landed and the Red Devils disembark.

For this bonus round I painted a British Horsa. This glider was used by British and allied airborne troops to be carried into combat during Word War II. Its most famous employments were the invasion of Sicily, the airborne landings prior to D-Day and Operation Market Garden in September 1944. The Airspeed Horsa glider measured a length of 20 metres and wingspan of 27 metres. It had no engine and was drawn into the air by a larger towing aircraft like the Handley Page Halifax or the Douglas DC-3. It was capable to carry 25 fully equipped soldiers, a jeep or a 6pdr antitank gun.

The huge model is about 30cm (about 12  inches) long.

This actual model here is a 28mm Horsa by Grand Manner. It's a hugh model. A solid blog of resin from Dave Bodley's gifted hands. It shows all important characteristics and was assembled very quickly. The only thing I improved were the supports of the main wings. I substituted the white metal rods with solid brass ones since I thought it might be slightly too heavy under the hard circumstances on the gaming table...

 For painting I used my old airbrush and Vallejo Model Colours with suitable thinner. All in all it was an interesting experience to paint such a great model. Merely the tail seems to be a bit too short. Although I didn't paint the white and black stripes too broad I wasn't able to attach the transfers on the side correctly. Therefore I attached them slightly forward. It looks fairly alright to me but for the next Horsa I would repaint the tail with thinner stripes...

Wingspan nearly 36 centimeters (more than 14 inches).

However I'm glad to have this piece finished. Another step for my Pegasus project and another fortnight bonus round passed on the painting challenge. With around 260 points I'm nearly half done with my 600 points target and I'm rather confident that I'll be able to collect the missing points with the remaining fortnight bonusses and the other stuff on my workbench.

By the way Fran Lee won our 600 points race! Congratulations!

Therefore I owe him a painted miniature as well deserved price. Drop me an email mate to talk about the what when and how.