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Building the Otter

My plan was to only leave the drive hatch open, so I was not concerned with the minimal interior, but I did add the interior door detail, as it would be seen from the open hatch. With all the interior complete, the interior was given a coat of Tamiya Fine White Primer followed by a couple coat of Vallejo Air White. A couple washes of Mig Neutral Wash, some Ak Interatice pigment, and detail painted, time to close it up.

With the top glued in place, the weld seam will need to be detailed as before using liquid cement and scoring with hobby knife. Then time to add the exterior detail. The fenders in the kits are plastic molded, but I chose to use the PE parts from the LZ Models detail set. Again these were heated with a torch for ease of bending, and then formed and soldered.

Looking at some reference images, I noticed that some of the exterior details was missing, most notably some tie downs. So I scrimmaged through my spares box and found some to apply. Also the steps below the doors are missing, so formed these from brass rod and CA’d into place.

To form the mount for the Bren, I started with two pieces of straight wire, then working from the front, started adding the bracket detail. Without accurate measurements, I “guessimated” the length. Once the CA had set, I then formed around shield for mounting.

Painting and Decals

With all the exterior detail in place, it was time for painting. This started with the usual coat of Tamiya Fine Primer, followed with a couple coats of Vallejo Air Olive Drab. Note I did the painting prior to mounting the frame for ease of some detail painting. Set aside for 48 hours, I then did the frame detail painting and a little bit of weathering.

Mating of the frame and upper body went without a hitch, and then it was time for decals. Mirror Models do provide decals, but there is a color issue with the formation sign and there are insufficient decals to complete the vehicle. I believe this is due to only a rear image of the reference vehicle seen. The vehicle I chose to represent is one from the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, 11th Field Company Royal Canadian Engineers. The markings are shown on the Armoured Acorn website, a link to which is at the end of the review

So my only option for some of the markings was print my own. I did this using Paintshop to create the markings, transferred them to Word for layout and size, converted the page to PDF for printing. this may seem like a long process, but it works for me. The decals were printed on white decal paper from Bare-Metal.

Once the decals were set, and after a couple of clear coats, weathering was completed using True Earth, Mig, and Winsor & Newton Water based Oils. I won’t go into full detail on the weathering, as there are many ways people prefer to do it.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a great model to build from Mirror Models, even with a couple of small shortfalls, the average model builder can find ways to complete and detail this great vehicle and model. I would definitely recommend to all to get and build this model.

Armoured Acorn website Live links