Greetings fellow Braillers. While working on other projects I was also building the Dragon kit #7305 for the Pacific Campaign. My SWMBO suggested the vignette idea and also the various experimental photographic techniques. All pictures were taken in 100% manual mode with our DSLRs. In many cases these are time exposures and only a couple employed a remote bounce flash.

First up is the vignette setup or base.



The pictures.















It was quite an interesting experiment. As it's a 1/72 scale kit I put it in this forum as opposed to the Diorama one.

Comments always welcome.

Cheers,
Jan

Hi Jan,

Nice looking Sherman, and I like the setting. I have been experimenting with photo backgrounds as well. I have found a cheap source of high definition photos, of countryside scenes, in local estate agents. I go to the high end properties and get the property detail sheet which usually has a view of the local countryside to tempt the buyers, but provides good backgrounds for me (and for free!).

Paul,

Thank you for your comments. It was an interesting build and not without some issues (mainly the suspension and tracks). My SWMBO and I have been avid amateur photographers and have what I can only say is a vast library of photos from many diverse locations. The "Destroyer" saw action on a number of Pacific islands and I believe Peleliu was one of them. I looked at several pictures of that island and tried to find something in our archives with similar topography.

The picture was taken by us on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. In several articles it if referred to as having a south Pacific feel. This is my first ever vignette and was quite the learning experience. The hardest part was trying to get the ground cover and foliage of the foreground to match and transition to that in the picture.

Cheers,
Jan

Really great vignette there, Jan. It looks very realistic and it's hard to believe that it's such a small scale. It looks like you used some form of static grass at the back of the base to blend with the background photo? I have followed some of your builds in the past and it appears that you have finally conquered problems you were having with creating vignettes. That first picture with the single prone figure rally caught my eye.

Regards,
AJ

Thanks, AJ. I wouldn't say I conquered anything, just blind luck this time. There isn't any static grass used at this point, What I used was Woodland Scenics sets of what they call Blended Earth. A sort of mix and match to get it to look as close to the picture as possible.

Cheers,
Jan

Hi Jan,
Very nice looking Sherman!

Thank you for your comments and interest, Dani. It was quite a change doing this kit after the Matchbox M40 for the campaign.

Cheers,
Jan

Jan,

You did an excellent job on the SHerman. I like the background too! Interesting effect, looks very good. I have seen were Adobe Photoshop is used to copy and paste up the subject into a background with equal results - something I have been contemplating. However, I like this approach better as it looks more realistic once you have acquired the experience. Your on the right track Anyhow, you've been very busy and you've even gotten your wife involved - cheers to you and your wife

-Eddy

I appreciate your comments, Eddy. I have tried the Photoshop approach but was never happy with the results. I've literally spent hours trying to meticulously outline around a subject and ultimately the results are never worth the effort. I've tried some other software such as Gimp but that too fails except with the simplest objects (ie - a barrel, pole or box). This method/process that my wife suggested appears to be the simplest and most effective. It also helps if one has a ton of albums filled with 5X7 prints from travels and photo courses. It should work with most Braille scale subjects but for larger scales you end up with the expense of needing larger format prints.

Also, keep in mind that you'll still need a variety of different ground cover to help blend the base with the image. Once I get this method down pat I'll see about writing a feature on the process.

Cheers,
Jan

I love your DE STROYER Jan! Another great build.


I have a question, can I slap on the PE wading trunks on Tarawa Shermans or did they land via LST's?

According to what I found during my Pacific Campaign build, the Shermans on Tarawa weren't fitted with wading gear. Many of the Shermans were stuck on the beaches due to the lack of wading gear.

Toby, Michael's (mopnglo) responce, while accurate isn't the end of the story. From what I learned during the same campaign, it appears that the Pacific Theatre Sherman's came in a number of configurations. The earliest, as Michael pointed out, were minimally waterproofed. After a few experiences they started fitting them with "field modified" wading stacks. The predominant ones for the theatre had sheet metal bases over the exhaust and air intake areas with the top part being the body of a 50/55 gal. (200 l?) drum open at both ends.

Here's a couple of examples (FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY).





The first is obviously one with the trunks cut down. The second picture is of the standard configuration. Further images of these can be found at Henk of Holland's Site.

According to Armorama's resident Pacific Campaign expert Bob Card (BobCard, Pacific Campaign leader), the larger squared off wading trunks that you see on Dragon's Deep Wading Gear Shermans were for the most part not used in the Pacific. What I mean is like those that appear in my review here. He did mention to me that a few might have been available near the end of the war.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Jan

Your Sheman looks very nice, I like the back drop idea, it creates a very suitable background, adding to the atmosphere.

Just a thought, have you thought about changing the colours to black and white, to see how it looks ? It can be an interesting contrast when its in B & W, like most WW2 pictures were.

cheers
Neil

Thanks for the comments, Neil. If you could have looked through the Campaign in the Pacific (far too many pages), you would have seen my earlier attempts at trying to create period B&W images. As that's such a HUGE campaign I've decided to reproduce some of them in this thread. I'm still learning to use my software so I may not have got things totally correct.













Hope that these prove interesting.

Cheers,
Jan

Hi Jan

These are good, I like the hues in picture 4 the best, but like all photography (or art) its very subjective to the eye of the beholder, so what you like best is the most important

cheers
Neil