The Road to Singapore: Malaya 1941-42

[Steven000]

Nice progress Tim! :thumb2:
Steven

[rtfoe]

Hi Tim, beautifully done.:thumb2: Dragon has the Model97 gun I think in their Japanese figures for Peleliu and Tarawa. Looks nice and snug in the turret.

Cheers,
Richard

[BigGreg]

As usual you deliver very nice updates with superb details..

[TIM FORSTER]

Thanks guys.

Now I have been having a little more fun with interior detail...

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This is all loosely based on some interior shots I have of the real thing - but there's a fair amount of artistic licence going on. Basically I have used anything I could find in my spares box that looked even remotely right. Just enough to supply some shapes in the gloom beneath the turret or beyond the open driver's hatch.

I also used Archer's rivet decals for the first time. These are a really neat idea - tiny resin rivets that come as slide transfers. You just have to cut out a strip, soak it in water for about 30 seconds and then slide it onto the model.

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Here I have used them in the turret. The asbestos panels (a fairly unique feature of Japanese tanks) were made from plastic strip and tea bags!

[Mini Me]

A lot of added detail on this Tim, it will look the bomb when all painted up. Cheers, Rick H.

[rtfoe]

Greatly enhanced Tim...it's more than enough to appear like the real thing once closed up and in the gloom. Reminds me of the scratched mock up models for the Starwars movies all made up from bits and bobs of several kits. :thumb2:

Cheers,
Richard

[SimonT]

Some nice scratching Tim :thumb2:

Don't know why you bothered buying that Tank MG though - for the amount you actually used you could have easily scratched that

The 'creative gizmology' ,as Shep Paine called it, will definitely provide enough of a suggestion of internal detail

Are those a couple of cylinder heads on the right and rear?

[scottie3158]

Lovely work Tim it will look excellent when painted.

[TIM FORSTER]

Thanks guys.

Star Wars? Shep Paine? Are you kidding?! I wish...

Yes, maybe I should have just stuck with adapting a Bren gun in the end - but the straight magazine is a little hard to re-create. As for the bits an bobs, yes Simon they may be cylinder heads for all I know - they came from a T-34 interior.

So here is the beginning of the diorama. The jungle scene is certainly going to be a challenge - but hey, that's half the fun!

The starting point for the base is insulation board rescued from a nearby building site (it came in bits, hence the odd gaps). This was glued to the baseboard and then carved and sanded to the desired contours. Then I added a frame from hardboard.

From the photos of the Maur River action, the road is actually quite wide. There is also quite a wide band of scrub before the treeline. However, artistic license (and limited space) has forced me to contract everything.







The 2 Pounder shown here is the Sovereign 2000 resin kit. However, in the end I have decided to go for the Vulcan version which, to my eye, is more true to scale.

The 'trees' are simply twigs inserted to give me an idea of the height and number required. Even though these are already shorter than true Rubber trees in this scale, I think I can get away with making them considerably shorter still.

For the trees themselves I am going to be using the wire technique, best demonstrated by the 'tree master' Gordon Gravett...

[Mini Me]

Terrific progress Tim, I agree with you on the tree height.......best thing for me has always been to hunker down as close to ground level as permits, then look up as if you were the same height as the scale you are modeling in......gives a whole different perspective. Rick H.:thumb2:

[adt70hk]

Stunning work on the inside of the tank!!

Well done.

Andrew

[scottie3158]

Always a joy to follow your work.

[TIM FORSTER]

Thanks folks.

So I decided to get cracking on the rubber trees...

A bit of research led me to believe that the trees we are looking at in the images go by the Latin name Hevea brasiliensis and are described thus: "Typically 30-40 m tall with a leafy crown. The trunk is cylindrical, unbranched up a long way and then with much-branched leafy canopy, but frequently swollen towards the base. The bark is pale to dark brown with a smooth surface and the inner bark pale brown with abundant white or cream coloured latex."

I started off by making a rough scale drawing based on images I had found on the internet. This was mainly to remind me of the correct proportions and height: 35cms. This is not intended to be true scale height because they would appear to tall (I believe this has much to do with the fact that, close up, we tend to look up at trees, thus for-shortening them in our mind's eye).



The trees were then constructed using the Gordon Gravett method, i.e. start from the top of the tree and work your way down. Although his trees are generally designed in a smaller scale (for model railways) it seems to work just as well in this larger scale. The florist's wire I used, which comes in handy 35 cm lengths, is actually the same brand that he uses! The best guage is the smallest: 30 gauge.



Twisting the wire into shape can be done easily by hand, although pliers help for some of the bigger twists lower down. As you can see, you make a number of separate assemblies which are then combined to make a larger branch or part of the trunk.




In order to make more smaller branches / twigs at the tips I came up with my own trick: looping the single wire around on itself, twisting it back on itself and then snipping the loop to separate it.




Having said all of that, assembling the trees into a realistic and accurate shape was not as easy as I thought. I made quite a mess of the fuse wire used to bind the clumps of wires in place, which is why I resorted to using masking tape to cover up some of the roughest areas.

Here are the trees temporarily installed...




I then coated the trees with PVA glue. Here, however, I made a schoolboy error. For some inexplicable reason I decided to hang them upside down whilst waiting for them to dry. I guess I was thinking that the glue would run towards the tips of the branches and help to create a graceful point. It didn't and instead formed some ugly lumps. However, I am confident that this will all be hidden when it comes time to add the foliage.

The next stage is messy - and fun. Basically you make a mixture of PVA and plaster powder (I used a ceiling product called Artex recommended by Gordon) and add some colour (I used acrylic brown paint) and then 'paint' it onto the trees. After a few coats were applied and left to dry, I sanded them down to try and make them as round and smooth as possible.



Initially I started making the fallen tree (which should be behind, not in front of, the Ha-Go, unlike my earlier shots) using the same method, but I felt that it just didn't look right. So in the end that tree ended up joining the others at the back of the diorama and I constructed another using real dried heather branches, a wooden dowel and some masking tape. It has yet to be covered with the PVA / ARtex mix, however.

So finally here some shots of the diorama with all the trees assembled, but yet to be painted. I have some foliage on its way. The road, buy the way, has only been started by gluing a thin cork mat into place.

[scottie3158]

Tim,
The trees are coming along very nicely.

[Mini Me]

I don't see anything unnatural about them, so if the lumps are still there they seem, to me at least, to be part of the tree. I think its an excellent method and I am going to remember the wire tricks for some tree work I have in mind for the future. Thanks for posting the steps you took to make these Tim. Rick H.