Matt, no problem, I'll scan them in later this morning. PM me where you'd like the scan sent. I was going to do that for myself anyway because I didn't trust the whole sticker thing to be durable.

Jerry, if I were to do the flies there wouldn't be room for anything else in the project. I have to say there were these little gnat like bugs out at one of the patrol bases we had that were worse than the flies, right at the beginning of our tour in '06 we had a real problem with them and quite a few Marines ended up in the BAS covered in bites from them. I can't remember if we ever found out what they were, but the problem only lasted about a month.

Nick, I was leaning more to the corrugated sheet roof for the IED factory. The people running the stands used the tarps to keep the sun off the customers and used the same tarp to cover whatever they were bringing home at the end of the day. You'd see the bare framing standing on their spot if you went by there at night, as soon as people were allowed on the street for the day those stands would be up and running again. The older kids and adults in Fallujah were the ones who were really sullen and showed animosity toward us, the little kids were a lot more accepting of us, and they remembered if you were an easy touch for handouts (God help you if they learned your name, although they knew me as ta beeb because they heard the Marines call me Doc). "Mister, mister you give me..." Heard it every patrol where we encountered kids. We liked it when we did, it meant we were less likely to get hit there; no kids, no people, equals bad stuff coming your way.

Why not try the meng middle easterners set? 2 kids + 1 male and female adult.

Paul

[quote]


I already have the set, and considered it. The boy doesn't have the right look -- too well fed. These little hucksters tended to be skinny, wiry boys toting coolers almost as big as they were. I'm planning on using that figure kicking a soccer ball around, his pose is nearly perfect for it. I just have to keep looking.

Hi John,

Thanks for the summary - sorry, I reread your log and realized I forgot what you said along the way - I appreciate your attention to the subtleties - like the "condition" of the kids, the presence or absence of civilians. Jerry, Romain, Kurt and others really tell quite a story with the exact placement and type/character of the people...sounds like you're doing the same - looking forward to your next post

Cheers
Nick

Thanks, Nick. You do a great job telling your story yourself, we have quite a pool of talent here, and we tend to be our own harshest critic. I see every flaw in what I'm trying to do and convey, my promise when I started on this was to get it right. For this one good enough probably isn't, I'm dreading the MARPAT cammies. Thank God we had the coyote flaks!! Hopefully you'll have some time to add to that beauty you're working on this weekend.

Hi John,

still on the right track as far as I see!!

What Marpat are you going to use: desert??!!?

If I were you I wouldn't forget the good old toothpick!! Such small dots can be applied easily with a toothpick! A bit tedious, but quite effective!

And another piece of advice if I may...if the uniform is a "mess" of small dots, carefully preserve any single-coloured item you may find for a contrast!

Keep up the good work m8!

Cheers

Romain

Romain, definitely MARPAT desert. They actually made us bring two sets of the green cammies as well as our deserts, but I don't recall seeing anyone wearing them and mine never left my sea bag. Thanks for the tips on doing the pattern and the single color items, that coyote brown flak really did stand out; it's the first thing I look for in a picture.

I haven't made much progress on this, my better half got sick over the weekend and between keeping things around the house running and snow removal this kind of took a back seat. Excuse me, ah, Mother Nature, you've made your point, you can stop the snow storms any time you want I'm running out of places to put it...

The mail today was full of items for this project, both M1114's are here, as are the Meng EOD figures and a TV news crew which may or may not make the cut.

Hi John,

sorry to hear that your wife is sick! Hope it's nothing serious and she'll be on the mend soon!!

Isn't it great to know you can rely on the mail services, snow storm or no storm!!

Capital choice fo the figs BTW!! I'm looking forward to seeing them painted up!!

Best wishes!

Romain

My apologies for the lack of updates recently. Reader's Digest version -- life kind of got in the way as it is wont to do on occasion. Hacked up thumb is healing, wife is feeling a lot better than she was a week ago, no snow falling at the moment so I might just be back in business, just have to play catch-up. While I haven't been at the bench very much this hasn't been on the back burner completely.

My original vision of the project called for a couple M1114's and an 1123, which won't work with the EOD team, they would have traveled with the MAP in their own vehicle and the dismounted patrol would have come from one of our patrol bases. Can't vouch for the rules after 12 May of '06, but until then RCT 5's policy was four vehicles or more to go into Fallujah proper and only certain vehicle types, for example the 997 ambulances in the BAS were okay to go between the FOB and Camp Fallujah but not to the ECP's or downtown. So, the 1123 is out of the picture and a third 1114 for EOD is in.

So, after sending an update to the person who wanted this project done for approval of the base layout I get an e-mail telling me they want to go with my original layout. Back to square one... SMH. I guess it's a good thing I didn't get rid of the original diagrams!!! Oh well, at least I hadn't gotten too far in the process and now the layout won't have elements paralleling the edges (I recommended against that from the start). Bottom line I finally have approval for everything. Semper Gumby still holds true.

Apologies for the recent lack of updates, I haven't managed to shoe horn much bench time into my day recently. Given Mother Nature's recent temper tantrums in New England and the ice dams on the roof the house has been occupying more of my time than usual. Sat down last night to try to make some headway with the first of the 3 1114's and heard the ominous drip-drip-drip in the basement. You guessed it, a leak; this is after spending three hours taking ice down from the siding and removing a 2+ inch "glacier" from the deck. Hopefully everything will be back on track soon.

Good luck in dealing with those Northern winter issues my friend. Here in the Sunshine State it's currently in the low 70's and people are freaking out -

Man, I'd take anything over 30 right now and smile about it. The local hardware store got three pallet loads of the tabs you use to melt ice dams and they didn't last beyond the afternoon, people are losing their minds up here, too.

Dam ice damns! ... uh, I mean ... damn ice dams! Hang in there!
Mid 50s here on the Western Slope of sunny Colorado for about three weeks now — 70s in Denver! ... weird!

LOL! My sentiments exactly - damn ice dams. Only way to deal with them is the application of chemical weapons with extreme prejudice. My favorite is calcium chloride. On the project front, I have the third and final 1114 on the way thanks to eBay which will be the EOD team's vehicle, and MB is releasing their modern US set just in time. Some will find their way into this dio following some judicious surgery to make them Marines. I'm hoping to be able to put up some pics today or tomorrow.

Just found this sprue shot on Dragon's announcement page of the MB figures I'm waiting for, could it be an M249 with the plastic stock instead of the minimi stock we've been getting over the years in plastic? Sure looks like it. Pre-order sent, I'll take 2 please!

http://www.dragonusaonline.com/multipic_main.asp?pid=MAS35170&s=3

The "Man Down!" set looks really nice. What is the #19 weapon though? I have no idea what it is supposed to be. The SAW does have the solid butt stock too. Nice.

SCAR w. EGLM I guess.

I've been following this one. Out of interest, did you consider Live Resin's M249s? I bought a set of their SAWs to replace the one in the Master Box Iraq War 1 kit (stacked up Marines). They are incredibly well detailed and worth the price. I honestly have no faith in most of the weapons that come in Master Box kits.

Good luck with the rest of the build Doc. Looks like its going to be a big one.

I have my reservations about the weapons in the MB sets, too. A bunch of Live Resin stuff is on my list since I want to have one look to the helmets and weapons. Love their stuff! I was just very surprised that a plastic manufacturer finally caught on that the stock on the SAW changed, it's only been about 20 years or so. Although I have to admit Trumpy did include a paraSAW in one of their weapon sets.

Okay somewhat with regard to hobbies, but definitely on point about Fallujah. Someone I'm friends with on Facebook shared a video with me of a documentary on YouTube called November War I'm not going to paste a link to it here since some of us might be effected badly by it. Not sure what the person who shared it with me was thinking but it definitely tells it like it was. If you want to know what it was like there, you hear about from guys who lived it. Just be warned, it stirs up a powerful reaction.

John is right. It can sometimes upset our fellow vets. I'll done my time in the box. So I can understand where he is coming from.

Thank you John for your service.


Tom

Thanks to you as well, my Brother. Just the name of a really bad place often evokes a very strong reaction for those who have been there, and that place carries a very negative energy. I don't want to be responsible for causing a Brother or Sister any distress by posting a link to it, even if I warn them beforehand.

On a project related note the final 1114 arrived on Saturday, so vehicle wise we are up. Figure wise, not so much. But that's coming along. I had to revamp all the buildings with the exception of the open air produce vender. Good thing I had only mocked them up. There will be new buildings appearing through the week as they get cut out and mocked up. The weather has been co-operating and my son has decided he doesn't need as much help with his senior project as he thought. Good thing about being a mentor, you just have to give them a shove in the right direction and occasionally Santa Claus an answer if they're about to make an unsafe mistake. Besides, as I told him, it's his senior project and needs to be his work.

Spent the weekend working on the mean streets of Fallujah since SWMBO and the boy were visiting one of colleges he was accepted to. I really have fallen behind on the schedule I set for myself, of course having to go back to square 1 with the layout and design didn't help any. And having the knife decide to bite me really impeded progress. So, without further delay here is "How I Spent My Weekend At Home".

This is the revamped IED factory next to a combination residence and shop. The roof of the shop will be a terrace for the residence. Disregard the tape, nothing has been glued yet.


IED Factory with abandoned residence above. This was going to be a bit longer, but the changed layout required I cut it down just a bit to accommodate the building in the previous picture.


This is the only building from the previous layout to have survived the debacle that set everything back. There will be a balcony on the two story building and the produce stand will be in front of it. Its' layout is reversed and now looks like the 1:1 building on the outskirts of the Jolan souk, we took down a bunch bad guys in it mid-April of '06.


More to come, including the internet and phone center and the infamous "Fallujah Candy Store". Now that this operational pause is over, we are once again Oscar Mike. See ya in the funny papers!

Hey John,

Glad to see everything is recocked and ready to rock. I can't wait to see the completed buildings. So far they look good. I can imagine what they will look like with surfacing, some paint, and the details added. This is going to be a good one.

Cheers,
James