Tamiya JS-2, part 2 – diorama

Posted by yansick on December 31, 2018
Posted in: Diorama, Scale model. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I started to work on the diorama for my JS-2 tank. I wanted to keep it small and simple, but as always I got carried away a bit, adding lots of details in the rubbles. The scene is supposed to take place right after the fall of Berlin.

I had a white plastic wedding cake column in my parts bin (leftover from some wargaming terrain I did a while ago). I decided to use this in the diorama as a way to suggest the destruction of fine german classical architecture. A library? A bank? Who knows…

Still, something was missing to really coin it. This small diorama had to evoque the fall or Berlin (and I didn’t want to use another nazi flag, as I did in this other diorama). So I sculpted a nazi eagle emblem, the kind of wich was afixed to many building facades in large german cities during the 3rd Reich. I used Apoxy sculpt and fine tools (including a needle) to sculpt, and did it while listening to an audio book of H.P. Lovecraft novels.

I know. No link. But somehow the combination of sculpting and listening to cosmic horror stories is really relaxing for the brain 🙂

Anyway, enjoy the pics for now: I’ll be painting all this and posting the results in early 2019.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Strips of cork. I cut them in small “bricks”, sanded the edges and glued them one by one. I took A LONG TIME! But the end result is very good.
The plastic column was butchered with a rotary tool…
I used epoxy putty to fill the hollow parts. With a saw, I also scribed the horizontal lines, to add a touch of realism.
More expoxy putty work.
The cock pavement is completed. I test fit the elements…
Work is started on the nazi eagle (Apoxy Sculpt).
The cobblestone is grouted with drywall compound.
With a heated needle, I made some holes on the column. I then used my X-Acto to carve around the holes to simulate bullet impacts on the stone.
Various debris are then glued to the base using white glue and wood filler.
The debris, from another angle.
The finished eagle. When it will be painted, I plan to but a chain near it to suggest that it might have being torn from the facade…
Again , the rubbles: bits of cork, styrofoam, pieces of wood, a some plastic bits.
Top view.
Test fitting the JS-2. The miniatures are to be repainted (I don’t like the green of their uniforms)
Test fitting: Another angle.

Tamiya JS-2, part 1

Posted by yansick on December 2, 2018
Posted in: Scale model. Tagged: , , , . 2 Comments

Wow! I’ve been really busy at work lately, so I had no time to complete my projects and post updates…

Still, I managed to find some time to work on this bad boy: a 1/35 JS-2 by Tamiya (kit number: 35289).

There’s not much to say: the kit went together beautifully. I made minimal modifications: bending fenders a bit, and replacing the handles of the fuel tanks with thinner metal strips.

As for painting, nothing special there too: same colors and techniques as my ISU-152

I am not done yet: some streaks and pigments need to be added to the upper part, and a few touch ups are still required.

I am currently painting the miniatures, so stay tuned!

Meanwhile, enjoy the pictures…

AT-AT Imperial Walker

Posted by yansick on April 28, 2018
Posted in: Diorama, Scale model. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I needed a break from painting tanks. And I wanted to work on something simple…

So I dug up an old model from the “maybe-I’ll-finish-it-someday” stack: A 1:100 AT-AT from MPC. This model was produced in 1989 and is quite decent, even straight out of the box.

The kit was slightly damaged (missing a piece on a leg and some other bits) and the barrels of the two slim canons were broken. I had to dot a little bit of scratch building to fix all this, but nothing serious.

The model was painted in pale grey then heavily weathered with oil paints and washes.

The large rocks on the base are made from bark and cork, while smaller rocks are just real pebbles and coarse sand.

The snowspeeder that came with the kit (in fact, there was 2) is not very detailed by modern standards, but with a good paint job and weathering it looks ok.

The snow was made by mixing Woodland Scenic Snow with Matt Mod Podge in a “peanut butter like” consistency. It was then applied onto the base with a small spatula. The models were pressed on the mix. Once the surface began to dry, I used a hobby knife and a tooth pick to shape the snow around the models and near the rocks.

Once the snow was completely cured, I sprayed small amounts of white paint (just a mist, really) on the whole scene to tie up the different tones in that “frosty” winter feel…

The smoke for the snowspeeder crash is simply a small ball of synthetic pillow stuffing material, lightly painted with the airbrush. The fibers are a bit coarse to my taste, so I might replace that little detail one day.

As for now, I consider this project done. I’m satisfied with the overall look of the scene.

Enjoy the pictures!

 

 

IS-3 Diorama

Posted by yansick on April 7, 2018
Posted in: Diorama, Scale model. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

At last!

I had a bit of time available to complete my IS-3 diorama!

I scratch builded the furniture for the barricade from plasticard. The cobblestone road is made from a sheet of foamcore. I also printed small newspapers to add to the debris on the street. The miniature is from Mini Art (kit 35027).

Enjoy!

An old panzerkampfwagen II…

Posted by yansick on January 14, 2018
Posted in: Diorama, Scale model. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Right after Christmas, the urge to build a new model was really strong for me, but I wanted to build something simple and quick for a change.

On my shelves stood an old Panzerkampfwagen II Ausf. F/G from Tamiya. A kit produced in… 1971! The kit includes 5 figures. I only intend to use the tank commander figure.

Just to give you an idea of the simplistic, toy like nature of the kit: There’s almost as many miniatures parts in the box than actual tank parts…

Vinyl tracks (without details on the inside), molded on suspension, tool clamps that are just plain rectangles, no hole in the barrel, etc… The kit is way under modern standards and would require a tremendous amount of work to make it really accurate.

But I really didn’t want to put all the efforts (and after market products) required: I just wanted a fun build.

I decided to build and paint that little monster as is, OOB. No fuss. The only modifications I did were to drill holes in the main gun and machine-gun barrels and fill the gaps at the bottom of the hull with plasticard.

The decals gave me serious headaches: They were very thick, yellowish and did not stick well to the model. A huge chunk of the big letter R on one side of the turret even broke of during weathering. I made a Nazi flag from epoxy putty to hide this.

The diorama was pretty basic and quick to make. Again: no fuss.

The whole thing, diorama included, was built in little less than 2 weeks.

It’s not 100% done:

  • Tank commander figure is currently drying (oil paints…)
  • Some details in weathering need fixing (the antenna rack for example was made of wood on the real tank and I want this to be more obvious in my paint job)
  • I want to ad a bit of oil spills on some wheels and on the engine deck

Overall, it was a fun project. And in the end, it doesn’t look so bad for such an old kit.

Enjoy the pics!

 

IS-3 Tank …almost done!

Posted by yansick on October 22, 2017
Posted in: Scale model. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Almost done! Some minor details to fix: add an antenna, add some mud on the mud scrapers near the drive wheels and glue the tracks to the wheels.

I don’t think I will be able to create sag in the tracks since they are too tight… I should have known better not to glue the front wheels, wich act as track tensioners.  Once the tracks will be glued to the wheels, at least they will stop “levitating”…

Small diorama coming soon! Yeah!

IS-3 Tank …a new shade

Posted by yansick on October 7, 2017
Posted in: Painting, Scale model. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

I decided to finish the IS-3 tank from Tamiya I built a while ago.

As soon as it was on my workbench again, I thought it was too dark and not “yellowish” enough. I was afraid further weathering would make it even darker and conceal the details. So I decided to do a bit more highlights.

I think its color will be much more suited now for weathering and washes.

I also decided to go for a small Budapest 1956 Diorama instead of the original Berlin Victory Parade 1945 I was planning to do, so I will be able to put the model amongst debris and barricades (also this gives me more latitude for heavier weathering, since the tank would have been in service for 11 more years by 1956). The Hungarian insurrection of 1956 was pretty violent, the streets of Budapest were a mess and a number of JS-3 were involved (event destroyed!).

Entwicklungsfahrzeug E-10 – Part 3

Posted by yansick on October 1, 2017
Posted in: Diorama, Scale model, Step by step. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

The small diorama for my E-10 tank is almost completed. Yeah!

I took some photographs during the build.

I got inspired by some pictures I saw of the Reichsautobahn and a tutorial from AK Interactive on Youtube.

I don’t have any AK’s modelling products, but I thought I could replicate the same effects with my own stuff.

In case you’re wondering, this project was super-quick! It tooked only 2 days to build this little diorama. I think that without the overnight required for the drying of the ground material, it could have been completed in a single day. Which is sad, in a way: I love building dioramas. This one was too quick to build…  😦

I added a description for each picture, to explain the process.

Enjoy the pictures!

A small wooden base I had lying around. I might repaint it later, since I don’t like its glossy finish.
A paper template, to plan the layout.
The main elements of the diorama are placed on the paper. to visualse the composition.
I traced with a pen the position of the elements on the template. “A” is for the main attachement for the tank, “F” for figure, “D” for drum, and “W” for water.
I used cork sheets for the road surface, since the texture of it is quite close to the texture I want. Plus, it is quite easy to damage the cork and make it look like broken concrete or asphalt.
See? Quite easy! This little dent will be one side of the small water pool.
I glued the cork on the wooden base with my hot glue gun. Quick and simple.
Prior to gluing the cork in place, I scratched and dented the surface for better adherence.
I’m using wood filler as the base material for the ground work.
Once it was a bit dry (after a few hours) I used a smal brush and tools to give the paste a earth-like texture. The wood filler was applied quite thick, so I had to let the whole thing set overnight.
The surface of the concrete road was brushed with a mixture of glue, wood filler and fine sand. I brushed this liquid mix leaving some brush strokes to simulate concrete road texture. A strip of foam was added to represent the asphat expansion joint between the concrete slabs.
Various small rocks and sand was glued using diluted PVA glue.
I used a mix of Liquitex Ultra-Flat Medium, Mod Podge and water as a fixative after the PVA was dry.
Overall view.
Basecoat with acrylic paints.
First, a wash of earth brown and sand colors. Followed by a dusting in various pigments. The whole thing was then held in place with fixative. Then I painted the rocks various shades of grey and beige to make them pop.
The bottom of the water hole was painted a darker shade of brown.
Stains and dust details on the concrete surface…
Airbrush time! Two darker line were made on the concrete to represent the trails left by rubber tires on the surface. A white line was painted (actually, it is more a pale grey line as pure white would have been too bright). I also dusted the whole surface with just a little bit of Tamiya Desert Yellow (XF-59).
A little bit of black was painted in the cracks and with a small sponge dipped in gray-brown, I added the chipping for the white line.
Overall look.
Vegetation is a mix of various small plants, roots and grass turf I had. The larger plant in the foreground is handmade (tutorial comming soon, maybe…)
Another view of the vegetation. The small leaves are basil leaves.
Water effect (Woodland Scenic) was tinted with beige acrylic paint and poured in the hole.
I might have to pour a second coat on top when this one will be dry, because the suff tends do “sag” in the middle (it contracts when drying).
A preview of the diorama with the tank. I still have to work on some details, but overall it is almost done!
A preview of the diorama with the tank. I still have to work on some details, but overall it is almost done!
A preview of the diorama with the tank. I still have to work on some details, but overall it is almost done!