@Spitfire38:
@Redleg13A:
It takes me back to my military modeling days. When I was a teenager I would spend countless hours painting 1/72-1/35 scale miniatures to build military dioramas. I even did one for my Senior project in high school where I made a diorama of the US Special Forces camp at Lang Vei being overrun by PT-76 tanks and NVA in 1-35 scale…
Wow, those sound like really cool projects! You don’t happen to have any photos of these dioramas, do you? I bet you have a lot of experience in terrain and weathering as well. Really neat.
@Redleg13A:
Maybe when my kids get a little older I can start the hobby back up and practice on my Axis and Allies pieces since they look (the infantry at least) about the same size as 1/72 scale.
I have painted some 1/72 infantry, and it is almost the same size; probably a bit closer to 1/76. Good luck on all future customization projects!
Unfortunately I don’t…I did a whole bunch of them when I was growing up though.
The first thing about terrain and weathering I would say is doing a lot of research. This hobby is really how I became super interested in history because I had to make these things very very accurate since many of the judges in the modeling contests I would enter were experts themselves or even veterans of the pieces I was portraying.
For example. The first time I did this my dad came in (a Marine multiple tour infantry/door gunner Vietnam Vet) with a Dragon set of 4 US Marines from Vietnam and said, we’re going to build a diorama and submit it in a contest that was 2 weeks away. So I diligently started putting together and painting the Marine figures based off the colors that the box had set for their uniforms and equipment. After finishing a few he came in to inspect my work and flatly said “the uniforms are the wrong color”…I said that forest green was the color the box had on it. He mentioned “sure, maybe when they’re issued, but not after they’ve been exposed to sweat, dirt, and the sun for months on end. They should be a very light green to almost a white color because this portion of the battle takes place after the monsoon season and the sun will bleach those uniforms several shades lighter then when they were issued.” I was only about 12 at this time and didn’t really have any concept of what my dad did in Vietnam at that point…but it was at this point that I realized that 1. my dad really seemed to know what he was talking about…and I wondered why that was and 2. if he saw that, then the judges would certainly see that. The following week he dropped off a stack of books on the subject in my room and basically said; “If you want to make this right, you need to start reading.” And boy did I start reading lol. I ended up taking second in that contest but it lit a fire to really get into the nitty gritty of the research portion of not only the soldiers, their equipment, and their battles, but also on books that were published that concentrated on making your figures “come to life”. It took a lot of trial and error and I must say my neck, shoulders, and eyesight probably paid for it being hunched over for hours looking through a magnifying glass trying to get that oh so small piece of equipment just the right combo of OD green and weathered dirt color. It paid off though because my hallmarks ended up being:
A 1/72 scale diorama of a city block in the battle of Hue city near the citadel. It had about a platoon and half worth of US Marines and about a platoons worth of NVA. It also had an M48 Patton tank as well as a mechanical mule with a 106mm recoiless rifle mounted on it. Lots of weathering for the city damage and the battle damage on the tank.
The first one I did was of a portion of the line at Khe Sanh in 1/35 scale complete with a trench line, bunker, lots of sandbags, and jarheads either taking cover from incoming or shooting the “pig” (an M60 machine gun). Not to mention getting the mud the right reddish. In the trench line the level of detail went from expended C ration cans, spend shell casings, to rats running along the edges.
I did a 1/35 scale one of a PBR river boat extraction of a SEAL team under fire in the Mekong Delta. That was a very difficult one to do trying to get the resin I used as water to look realistic with the motor wash of the boat, the splashes of the team scrambling in the shallow water to get to the boat, and the splashes to make it look like rifle and machine gun fire was landing in the water around them as they exfilled. I don’t know how many times I had to start over getting it just right…but once I did…it looked awesome.
The senior project I did was on the evolution of Special Operations forces within the US military from WWII to present. I made a timeline over all types of different units we’ve had throughout the years with a description of their mission set, training, and utility. I mounted 1/35 scale representations of each group I had made on a board to the appropriate area of the timeline for graphic representation of what those troops would look like. Then I capped it off with the Special forces compound diorama set in Vietnam since that was Special Operations most prominent role they had fulfilled up to that point in their history. (9/11 hadn’t happened yet)
Sadly, once I joined the Army, most of my stuff either got destroyed in PCS moves or was unknowingly thrown out by my parents throughout the years…plus that hobby has kind of gone by the wayside. I still have a bunch of the unfinished models from those years sitting in a plastic Rubbermaid container somewhere in my garage…maybe by picking up the hobby again I can get my wife to get off my back about getting rid of it LOL!
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