Najewitz Little Farmhouse and barn–ready for action

Seems like every single post I make here starts with “It’s been a while since the last post…”, but this time around it’s really been a while since the last post! Funnily enough not because stuff isn’t moving forward on wargaming front, mind you! The fact is that April, which didn’t even earn a single post here, was quite busy and fruitfull, thank you very much. But “real life” made it impossible for me to make any pictures and let’s face it, what’s the point posting something without pictures, right?

And so, here are finally some pictures, this time around from the finished Najewitz buildings that figured prominently and ‘in natura’ in my previous post. By now, they’re finished, painted and ready for featuring in those Chain of Command games I keep planning for.

Since those buildings are no longer available on the market, I will limit myself to saying that they’re very nice, but also very labour-intensive – couple of hours at the minimum needs to be spent on cleaning them up, glueing, sanding and filling. “Ready for deployment out of the box’ they’re not. But… once finished, they do look quite presentable and I look forward to putting them on the gaming table!

As for their preparation, they’re certainly a learning experience. I’ve cut some corners this time around and, after priming them in grey, I dealt with the interior quickly and efficiently with help of light cream paint in a spray can from Montana’s Gold product line. I’ve recently remembered about the existence of Montana and their spray cans and now I absolutely adore them. For those unfamiliar with the company, they produce spray cans for grafitti paintings. Wide range of colors, matte finish and very durable. Two coats were more than enough to paint the inside of my buildings. If you can find them, give them a try!

Exterior of the houses was painted with more traditional paints and techniques. Humbrol enamels were used on the stone barn. I tried to vary the shades of brown and do some wet-blending, but as usual I’ve chickened out in regard of palette and the end result is pretty uniform and boring. Oh well, maybe next time… The farm house was painted with… acrylic wall paint bought at local DIY shop. Perfect coverage and a whole lot cheaper than stuff from GW, Vallejo and such! I finished everything off with some Vallejo washes, just to dirt things up a bit.

Here are the promised pics, hope you’ll like them!

Najewitz french buildings, second batch–under construction

It’s middle of March, Saturday noon and outside it’s just friggin’ cold! Makes you wonder when this global warming thing arrives to Sweden! Oh well, this yet another cold snap gave me the opportunity to give some attention to another set of Najewitz 20mm buildings.

I’ve put together a the small farm building and stone barn couple of weeks ago. Now, I’ve spent almost three hours on making them presentable with help of “buckets” of filler and sanding sticks. I have to be honest, I am not a very happy bunny right now. Sure, they look quite spiffy, but the fit of individual components leaves a lot to wish for.

Anyway, here they are, ready for primer.

Najewitz French Café and garage

Couple of posts back I’ve posted a short note about starting work on a couple of 1/72 buildings from Najewitz. Well, they’ve been done for quite some time by now, I just haven’t had time to take the snapshots. And here they are!

My verdict about the kits? Construction was pretty straightforward, although I didn’t manage to get the walls to fit with each other 100 percent. In fact, the ‘hacksaw’ joints were quite prominent and even with generous dose of filler I didn’t manage to get perfect result. I have however to clarify that the issue could have been self-inflicted. Initially I tried to glue the parts together with plastic glue and was a bit surprised when it had no effect whatsoever. In slight panic mode, I switched over to super-glue and that worked much better, but I rushed the job and wasn’t very careful with ensuring 90 percent angles between individual walls.

Most problematic part turned out to be the roofs, or more precisely, getting the right angle there. I completely botched the job with garage roof and as a result there is a significant gap in the “joint” between the roof and the building.

Painting consisted of couple of steps. After a base coat of black from a spray can (big mistake, which I will not make again), I painted both buildings with actual acrylic wall paint. Let me tell you, those sample cans from DIY shops are worth their weight in gold, when compared with Vallejo or GW paints! Details like doors and window frames were painted with craft acrylics. Roof of the café building was airbrushed with Tamiya brown paint, while that of garage was painted with some off-green Vallejo paint. Not much consistency with techniques here…

As first step in weathering process, I gave both buildings a generous wash of Vallejo’s dark brown wash. Next, I used enamel washes to do some dirt and rain water streaks. Drain pipes were darkened with a couple of layers of different dark brown and grey washes.

The big although perhaps irrelevant question (after all, Najewitz isn’t selling these kits anymore) – are they any good and are they worth the cost? As for “any good”, you may judge for yourself, but personally I’d say ‘heck, yeah!’. They’re perfect for any WWII scenario in France or neighbourhood! In regard of value for money; here I must say that it kind of depends. You get two nice, but relatively simple kits for 25 Euro. With a bit of effort and investment of 6-8 hours I could probably crank out something similar on my own and here’s the big question – is the price worth a working day? To be honest, I don’t know.

Anyway, here are the pictures, hope you enjoy them.

1/72 Normandy buildings from Najewitz Modelbau

Well… this post was supposed to be a short and sweet introduction to buildings from Najewitz Modelbau, but I’m afraid I will kick it of with a rant. Over last couple of years, I’ve bought a grand total of five sets from these guys and was extremly pleased with the stuff I’ve received. Beautiful buildnings, minimal assembly, prompt delivery times. Of course when the packages from them arrived, I admired my new ‘precious’ and then placed them in my ‘stash’. Today however, I’ve came to realization that if my Chain of Command project is to ever lift of ground, I would have to force myself and actually put couple of these buildings together. With a sigh (another terrain project!), I dug up the boxes from Najewitz and picked one of the house at random to work with.

After I have washed the components and took the snapshots, I wanted to take a quick look at Najewitz’s site to check what they called this particular item. Well, the site is still there… but all the stuff they sold is gone. From what I can understand, the firm has switched focus and is now selling files with design plans for 3D printouts of buildings. I won’t lie, I am quite annoyed by this move. I get it that a company is free to do as it pleases when it comes to its activities. But at the same time, making lateral move like this, without much of a warning, is leaving me at least in a bit of a lurch.

On with the ‘first look’ at one of Najewitz 20mm Normandy buildings then, although I’m not sure there is much point in it anymore since it and all of its brethren seems to be no longer available on the market. Anyway… the building I will be working with is actually a set of two buildings – a café and a small garage. They’re made of plastic. The walls are about 5mm thick, while the roof sheets are bit thinner, maybe 3mm. There is minimal flash in some of the windows, but otherwise the casts are very crisp.

Construction should be simple – one just has to put the ‘teeths’ together and ensure that the angle between the walls is 90 degrees. The fit of components is pretty good, but I suspect some filler will be needed to hide the ‘tooth’ outlines at the corners. Roofs may be a bit more tricky and will probably need some sort of reinforcement, as I intend to make them removable.