Stalking The Hills. Afganistan dio

[longlance67]

Howdie all,

the postman came today with some goodies for my entry ;D




for my entry i will be going for a U.S Army Ranger diorama set on a mountain trail patrol in the moutainous regions of Afganistan. Been wanting to an afgan themed dio for a while and faniced the challange of scratching a narrow road winding up a mountain side

My entry will consist of Hobby boss's Landrover RSOV



have only peeped into the box but so far and it looks like a good kit, may have to add a radioset as it doesnt appear to be included in the kit which ill rob from my old tamiya hummv

Also picked up this set from Master Box



its a nice kit, very nice facial detail and the poses are great

time to get cracking gents ! ;D

cheers

shane

 

[Eastrock]

Nice to see you join, Shane

Looking forward with your build

 

[longlance67]

Thanks Eastrock

ill get a bit done tonight hopefully

been trawling throught the net looking for reference material which is proving tricky and also been looking for photos of the communication setup for the rsov but so far ive found nothing i have a singar set lying around ready to use but need to find out where it goes on wagon


cheers,


shane

 

[spud]

i have this kit also shane and it looks like it will be a nice one, looking forward to seeing your idea come to life. And Good luck

 

[longlance67]

Thanks spud,
we are gonna have a lot fun with this havent done a dio in an age


got a little bench time in today with the landi and must say ive been looking over the spures and im very impressed with quality of their parts little or no flash, injection marks are all in hidden places where they wont be seen. There a few issues....but these are small: wrong style fuel / water cans and mention of radio setups and the m240 and MK 19 seems a little under sized. But not to worry i can sort most of these problems out by raiding the spare bits box and swapping out the MK 19 with tamiya's offering which looks pretty close to the real steel

got so exicted when i realised the kit comes with a full engine. ;D
engine and farewall assemblies went togther without a hitch with a combined part count of 21 parts







the firewall has details on both sides but forgot to take a photo of the outward facing side :-[



now to undercoat and get painting and weathering ! ;D

cheers,

shane.

 

[spud]

Very nice Shane glad to hear it was a full engine

 

[longlance67]

Spud,

ya it does seems to have a very busy undercarriage which is good to see
The only thing im gonna model the hood down......so we'll never see it all dirtied up :'(

but mind you i may change my idea to model the landi broken downn

 

[spud]

hehe ya be a shame to hide it

 

[longlance67]

spud,

im seriously considering it now, might add a little more drama to the scene,
my orgianal idea was of having the Landi and its crew dismounted scoping out activity in a village below the mountain road,

but im kinda thinking of having the patrol vehicle broken down, the crew dismounting to try to fix it quick to get out of the exposed position. As they are a big stationary traget they would attract some small arms fire after a while, so im thinking of them taking slight small arms fire from one or two figthers and one of the rangers scoping for the shooters with his M14

how does that sound ?

 

[spud]

ohh that sounds cool

 

[longlance67]

ohh that sounds cool

sounds like a plan

I love when a plan comes togehter lol

 

[Eastrock]

plan looks great shane, the crew are in hurry repairing
the jeep, instead hiding the details.

looking forward to it.

cheers!
ER

 

[longlance67]

Thanks for the comment mate,


i think thats the scene ill go with and get most out of the model



cheers


shane

 

[schweinhund227]

Shane ! Nice Dio idea you've got ... Love the Wolf ! and with Yankees in it... ? yeah I know.... they are using some of them ... why not ?

The whole concept sounds familiar ! I think someone else is working on the same ...(idea) but that's OK !

Looking forward to see more pictures of that KIT ... the engine alone rocks ! Keep up the good work!


Norm.

 

[Eastrock]

That my friend would depend on the final outcome of the build, there's a lot of same builds this year compared to last year... by the least we gave all out and have fun.

 

[spud]

is there another one of these jeeps in teh comp?

 

[longlance67]

spud,

im not fully sure if there are any other landi's in the comp havent come across any thus far


shane.

 

[Solander]

Cool project idea and a nice start!
Will be watching this one

 

[longlance67]

- Solander,
thanks for the comment and glad to hear your enjoying the project so far


Started work on the base last night and today, went looking online for photos of the Afgani mountain roads to get an idea of how best to tackle sculpt the groundwork and found a nice picture that filled the profile of what i was looking for

http://so with something basic to work with i began putting the basic elements of the dio base togehter using blue foam blocks

[ATTACH=full]25645[/ATTACH]

wanted to have the base to have a sharp turn and then wind further up the side of the mountain and have sharp cliff dropping off the edge of the road. So began sculpting the cliff face first with various hobby knifes and grades of sand paper

[ATTACH=full]25646[/ATTACH]

next thing on my list to is sculpt a vertical mountain face

more to follow soon,


cheers

shane.

 

[longlance67]

Howdie all,


got a quick update to share with yee
got the basic groundwork sculpted and glued the base sections together, next to go on is a layer of modelling clay and ballast for the road and may add a small wall section to the cornor of the base to add a little interest



just off the bench from weathering the engine assembly, got a few washes down and hopefully will have some photos up tomorrow,

till then gents ;D

cheers,


shane