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Malaysia WWII

PART 3: PAINTING

The painting of the bicycles started with some Gunze 1500 primer and a coat of Tamiya black with Gunze super silver and Vallejo natural metal for touch up of the metallic parts. As most bicycles were painted black in those days, only some minor highlights were dark grey was airbrushed on the upper surfaces.Initial 'rusting' was applied with the appropriate acrylic hues. The electrical line and brake line (made from stretched sprue) was included instead of the original intention to use copper wires as there was no appropriate ones near my work bench! With some artistic licensing here and there , the bicycles were quickly completed to move on to the figures.

The rider had his leggings redone and the figure is now primed for painting and attaching the various duffel bags, water bottle, ammo pouches, gun, etc...All the figures were painted in Vallejo colors and washed with some Fairbro airbrush inks. They received a fair amount of highlights and shadows, but my figure painting skills is nothing to shout about, so I will leave it at that.

PART 4: THE DIORAMA BASE

The diorama base started as a straightforward scene along a tarred road next to a rubber estate but initial posting found that there was a lack of urgency in the piece. So a major rethink resulted in a scene at a demolished bridge where a makeshift crossing made from planks were hastily put up to get to the other side.

The overall composition was carved out from scrap polystyrene and some cork board salvaged from a hot plate coaster. This was soon coated with a plaster sand mix with copious amount of PVA glue to bind the base. Some saw dust was sprinkled onto the vegetation areas and some scoured styrene strips were cut to simulate the planks.
The vegetation was a mix of preserved ferns, plastic aquarium plants and rope hemp while the tree was made from a mixture of stiff wire, dried teak flower stems and some putty to blend them all together.