Leaderboard

Finally got around to building this. Used some of the Lone Star Models resin and Flightline Engineering 3D stuff. Couldn't find a vac canopy set so the kit canopy it is. I know it's not accurate but I really didn't want to scratch built the Vought float....YES, I'm lazy. Besides, I have a new review kit to build so this has to get out of the way! I have to add the small recognition lights on the underside but that will have to wait. (Actually, I need to do more research as they were ordered in 42, so I'm not 100% sure this one would have them) Looking closer now, I really need to get better lighting. The bottom of the float looks bad. The sanding dept. will need a new quality control chief for sure!

I enjoy photographing my models as much as I do building them. These are scenes made just for the camera and are not diorama per say. I use Nikon 950 Coolpix series cameras for these shots. Very cheap on eBay ($20 or so) and have great depth of field. Figures are from various sources; Revell, Preiser, Kit Figures etc. Odds and ends are from ebay. Background is handpainted. P-47D, fuel truck and P-38 are Hasegawa and jeep and B-17 are Academy. Control tower is by Airfix.

I made this small diorama/vignette with figures from Master Box and sunflowers from Fredericus Rex. The figures are made right out of the box. I did add a Tamiya figure and an resin figure, those are the guys in the background deep in the sunflowers. The MB figures are very well cast with clean crisp detail. The sunflower kits are laser cut paper and are a bit tricky and time consuming, but I like the results. Each packet makes 14 flowers, I used three, I wanted the sunflower field dense like the reference photo. The base is a piece of foam board laminated to a thick styrene sheet covered with spackle and static grass and grass tufts. The figures and the flowers are painted with a mix of Tamiya, Vallejo model colors and a bit of artist gouache. Gouache is an opaque watercolor that dries with a super flat finish, it also mixes well with model acrylics and can really punch up the colors. The photo of the abandon BT-7 in the sunflower field was the inspiration for this project. Dennis

I was reading "Helmet for my Pillow" by Robert Leckie. In the book he mentions US Marines encountering the saltwater crocodiles in the creeks, inlets and streams during the campaign on Guadalcanal in 1942. That book inspired this little vignette. The figures are bashed together from the parts box. They are a mix of resin and plastic, Warriors, Airfix, DML, and Hornet heads. The crocodile is from the old Tamiya dinosaur set. The "crocodile" might actually be an alligator, but for this project, it works as a crocodile. The water is made of cut up thin clear plastic pieces and then covered and the waves built up with Liquitex clear modeling paste. The bamboo is made by JT scenics. Anyway, thank for looking.