Ammo Encyclopaedia of Armour

[Mike]

Encyclopaedia of Armour
Ammo of Mig Jiménez

Following the excellent series of books on building aircraft models that we reviewed here, this new set from the same author deals with the altogether different subject of building and weathering armoured vehicles, including the sometimes scary subject of mud, although this isn't covered in the initial volume, which concentrates its focus on construction.

You might think that construction would be a bit of a "teaching Grandma to suck eggs" exercise, but you'd be mistaken unless you're a modelling god with total knowledge of the most advanced techniques. I've been knocking around armour modelling for a couple of years now, and I still found it very interesting reading with tips, tricks alternative methods to achieve the same results, and even some tools that I haven't yet come across. Construction is the bedrock on which you build a good model, because if your structure isn't believable, no amount of expert painting and weathering will fool the viewer into believing it's the real thing.

The book is published in a perfect bound card cover, which has fly-leaves folded within containing more information on the series as well as some pictures of finished vehicles. There are 152 pages within the cover, in a glossy white stock with colour printing throughout, giving it a quality air. It is broken down into sections, with further divisions as necessary within each section. Each technique is studied using the by-now familiar photo style, with a numbered sequence and description accompanying each step. This makes the technique under scrutiny easy to follow, and shows you what you should be aiming for throughout the process.

The book is broken down as follows:

1 Tools and Part Preparation

1.1 Tools and materials

1.2 References

1.3 Removing parts from the sprue and parts preparation

2 Assembly of Vehicle Interiors

2.1 Interiors in cars and trucks

2.2 AFV interiors

2.3 Detailing engines

3 Assembly of Vehicle Exterior

3.1 Basic exterior assembly

3.2 Advanced exterior assembly

3.3 Textures

3.4 Battle damage

3.5 Exterior detail

The steps to each technique are easy to follow, and the English translation is pretty good throughout. If you aren't a native English speaker, there are also editions in Spanish, Russian, Polish or French that might suit you better.

Conclusion
Another superb reference work from AMMO that will prove very useful to both beginner and experienced modeller alike. The information is well presented with excellent visuals and a nice clean design that makes reading a pleasure. I'll be keeping mine nearby, as a combination of a poor memory and sporadic armour builds means that I'm always forgetting the various techniques used.

Very highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of