Hi all

@ PPT - nice work on the M48 and figures. Looking forward to the end result
@ Tim - thanks for the comment

Here are photos of my figures and furniture/accessories. The weathering will be done once they are placed on the base




Sorry about the quality. These were taken with a digital camera.

Regards

Greetings everyone,

I wanted something unusual so I choose 1/48 F-5A Freedom Fighter from Testors (Kinetic has a 1/48 F-5A, CF-5A in the works for next year, go figure….).

I finally had some time to start so here is my progress so far. The kits detail is spartan so I am adding some interior structure and a resin ejection seat since the cockpit will be very visible. I’m not going for super accuracy, just some extra work that creates the illusion of detail.

Fortunately the kit is nose heavy so no weight is needed. I also cut the leading edge slats, flaps and positioned them as I observed in some pictures. I also drilled out the short exhaust nozzles and added some tubing to suggest more depth. I still need to figure out a refueling probe and those funny shaped wing fuel tanks that were normally fitted.

Here is the progress thus far;











All the best,
Brian

Wow Brian, some pretty impressive scratchin' for 1/48th. Nice work.

Happy Modelling, -zon

Hello all,

Nice campaign here.
I've chose to work on a Bravo 6 set for this campaign>. I must say I do truly LOVE the Bravo 6 figures. Excellent detailled, unquestionable action poses, and the topics covered are very vast (australian sas in Vietnam and most of all Indochina War french para !)
I've chose this set which represent two nice camo and great tense poses :


This is the first time I work on those camo, and it's quite a challenge (My next camo challenge is ACU )

I will post picture here tonight.

All the best,
Julien

Muhammad: I can already see the scene forming in my mind, that's some impressive work there. Don't worry about the photo quality, it's just fine for posting in this thread.

Brian: Funny thing is I had the same exact thought when I saw your first photo, just consider this a primer for the Kinect kit The F-5's are beautiful aircraft, and your scratchwork is really going to help that kit stand out. I think your approach is going to work out well.

Julien: Thank you
I agree with your thoughts on the BRAVO 6 figures, and that is one of my favorite figure sets. They're a little harder to get over here in the States, but I feel they are well worth the hassle.

Hi Jeremy,

You're welcome
As announced, please find below picture of my in progress navy seal.
The figure is shinny because I paint with oil and enamel and I didn't apply yet the matt coat. But the life jacket will stay shinny as it is supposed to be a kind of plastic. I really enjoyed painting the camo (it was the first time on this genre, woodland I guess, for me). I gave it a greenish look, inspired from a pant I've made tailored in Vietnam during my holidays.
I will still have to apply shadow to the camo in the most important folds.
Regarding the radio set, I've added two handles. I remember having seen pictures of this set with smoke nade attached in the back (I guess it was on the Young miniature bust). Does anybody have good reference pictures of that ?
Lastly, I must say that after having exercise my skills on Bravo 6 figures, It's VERY HARD to come back to styrene.....
A picture weight thousands words, so here they are
Best,
Julien

The LDNN will follow as soon as I finish this one and arms of the navy seal are not glued yet.

Nice camo job,Julien! I`m looking forward.
Please,check your e-mail, I sent you photos that you asked.

Vladi

Some pretty good pictures of a PRC-77 with Smokies here mate

http://www.redplanettoys.com/kb_html/kb_nam_radioop.html

Fantastic camo job there mate too. Maybe not 100% accurate for Vietnam but a bloody good job.

Julien: great job on the camo!!

Happy Modelling, -zon

Fantastic work on that figure so far. Should be a good one when its done. Are they going in a larger diorama or on their own?

Work continues on my little O-1. Spent the last couple of nights sanding out some nasty ejector pin marks on the tailplanes and rudder and glueing in the cockpit interior before its ready to be closed up. Should have more pics in a day or two.

Hi all,

Vladimir : thanks for your references, they were very helpful.

Scot : Thanks for you comment. regarding accuracy, I know that the light green strips should have been more beige. But I wanted to reproduce the green shade of those uniforms due to the weariness (I've noticed that on references I found on internet). Thanks for the link to the radio set. I will be a damn challenge to reproduce those tiny lettere on 1/35 smoke nades !!
Thanks zon for your comment, I appreciate.

Stephen, thank you very much for your words. In the ned I would to include him in a small vignette with the LDNN but I don't know if I will have sufficent time and energy to complete that before end of the campaign..

Best,
Julien

Hi guys

@ Jeremy - thanks for the comment. I hope the completed diorama is exactly as you imagined

Here are some photos for this campaign. As always any comments or suggestions are welcome. Please visit my gallery for more photos

Regards












Time for a break.......Have a good Christmas and New Year everyone

Muhammad: Great work on the dio, figures and vehicles. Very nice to see. thanks for sharing.

Happy Modelling, -zon

Good work on the dio's lads
everything is looking fantastic

After a very hectic 13 weeks i havce finally managed to get back on here





T-54 VS Chi Ha 57mm
Who will win?

Hello everyone,

Muhammad, very nice wortk on this dio. You pay a lot of attention to details despite the size of the scene. Very good job. My favorites are the tree, very realistic, do you have any in progress shot about it ? All the little accessories that give life to the scene and force the viewer to search for them, and finally the positionning of the whole. My only critic concerns the soil. The red earth for me is too uniform. I remember during my holidays there I've seen red soil, but it was usually tempered by some ochre or yellow tone. Maybe with an airbrush you can add some varity to the tones. My two cents.

Jack, nice build, eventhough I'm not a specialist. Do you intend to make a dio out of it ? like this famous picture when the Vietcong entered Ho chi minh town ?

Scot; thanks for your comment. I don't understand why you say It is not an accurate camo ? I reproduce lowland ERDL camo, where I did a mistake ? Thanks for your help.

I'm making good progress, and trying to find how to reproduce the antenna for the radio set. there is so much way to do it !!
I'll post pictures as soon as I can

All the best,
julien

Let me start by saying mate that the paint job is really, really good, far beyond anything I can do.

But there is a little bit much black in the pattern to my mind if you have a look at these links http://wardepartment.prophpbb.com/topic627.html and http://wcoastraiders.webs.com/apps/forums/topics/show/3431014-difference-between-erdl-rdf-woodland you can see in lowland the black is really only and edging to the other colours. The Highland and Delta ERDL have a bit more dominant black pattern.

Ironically, your patterns are so sharp and crisp that is looks a bit more like the later , and better printed, woodland pattern.

Of course I could be completely wrong, having only seen old, faded Vietnam era camo.

I'm keen to see how it comes up after a flat coat, I think it will really be something special.

As for a radio antenna I used a piece of solder for mine. Bashed flat at the top and left round at the bottom. Scored a spiral line around the base to represent the flexible goose neck. It worked out OK, I'm sure someone with better skills could make one that looked spot on.

Hi Scot,

Many thanks for your compliment and for your valuable input. I was not offended by your point, I was just trying to see where was my mistake in order to improve my ERDL camo skills next time
I see what you mean : black stripes should be more subtle and on the edge of the other colors. Unfortunately I'm unable to redo it at this stage without ruining the whole camo. I will maybe add another layer of oil green to done down each color, I don't know. The oil paint is now dried, and it's more matt.

Thanks for the explanation for the antenna. I'm a bit scared by this challenge. By any chance, do you have any picture of the stuff you described in 1/35 ?

All the best and have fun in this campaign

The Chi ha will be part of a dio eventually
but i have no plans to put the T-54 into a diorama
thanks for looking either way

That is one AWESOME diorama!!! Its the huts I find most impressive.

Hi fellas

Thanks for all the positive feedback. It has been interesting and sometimes challenging in completing this dio. I'm glad that it got finished as planned (before the New Year)

@ Julien - unfortunately I do not have any progress shots of the trees. However
- the coconut trees are scratched as per Chas Young's and Thanan's tutorials
- the grass is made from hemp which is sprayed with various shades of green and brown
- the small jungle plants and poppy flowers are from Fredericus Rex
- the trunk for the big tree is made from a 4mm electrical multicore cable with copper wires being used for the roots. Holes were then drilled for the branches (which are seafoam). Once completed they are covered with tree bark paste, and then primed in black. Basalt grey and ochre brown are then applied before being highlighted in deck tan. The leaves are Noch's leaf scatter

I hope the above help. By the way I used vallejo paint for all my models

Best regards

Thanks Muhammad for the precision.
Noch products are for railway models mainly, no ?
I never tought it could give a so natural aspect in 1/35.

All the best,
Julien

One last question : where can you buy hemp (apart from a drug dealer ) ?

Best,
Julien

Julien: Noch products are actually quite excellent for use in other scales when used appropriately. They were actually recommended for use in 1/35 vignettes through this site.
As far as hemp goes, you should be able to find it in various forms in craft or fabric stores. It's actually a pretty common material.

Muhammad: Your diorama actually did turn out as I expected it to, very impressive! I agree with Julien, your groundwork would benefit greatly from some additional tonal variation.

Jack: Congrats on finishing! It's great to see a T-54 in those markings. Have you tried any of the methods such as using pins or string to pull down the top runs of the tracks down to give them the proper sag?

@ Julien - you're right the Noch series are mainly used in the railway modelling. You can get various shades of colour for the leaves. I usually use the green shades, but however ran out of different colours, hence only the dark green is used.

Excellent comment on the hemp. They can be found from any hardware store, and are used for pipe joints

Regards

Don't you get hemp from rope? or is that jute? or is jute what you used to make the grass? Of course you would expect hemp to be good for "grass"

My feeble attempt at figures and a 77 set antenna are a few pages back, or look in my photos.