ErikT

Why? Why do people have to make me feel so inadequate? Amazingly well done, especially for such a small scale (my favourite scale, no less).

Cheers, everyone! This is still one of my favourites.

Thanks! For the trees, I bought a Christmas wreath of fake pine boughs with the thin plastic needles, then cut off a few different lengths and brushed glue all over everything. Then I dusted them with static grass and painted them when dry.

Canada, along with other NATO forces, kept a presence in West Germany from 1957 to 1993 as 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group. Here we have some Canucks working on getting their M109 set up for a big combined forces exercise in 1982. The M109 is the only thing here that wasn't either 3D printed or scratchbuilt. This was my first attempt at a small-scale cam net, which wasn't a complete failure, though I did learn what not to do after several tries. It's a piece of stretched gauze with crushed up leaves from my yard glued to it, but I think it looks okay. This was also my first attempt at evergreen trees. Everything was painted with Tamiya acrylics and weathered with Abteilung oils.

The decals came with the kit, but the entire camouflage pattern I masked and painted myself.

I just Googled 'Saab Gripen' and scrolled through the photos that showed up. As soon as I saw it, I didn't care if it was only ever just a concept scheme. I had to do it!

They are the ROCO brand, but most of them are broken and in pieces. I got a small box full and I think I might be able to resurrect a half dozen decent models.

Back in my Army Engineer days, our Regimental QM was clearing out some old stuff and he gave me a bunch of these HO-scale models that they used to use for table-top wargame exercises before they went digital. So, I painted a Leopard C1 and an M113 up, 3D printed a bunch of troops, and made up a base that resembled my old training grounds, the Western Area Training Centre in Wainwright, Alberta. The only thing I forgot to do was make proper tracks in the sand and set the two models down a bit into the base. Argh. Everything was painted using Tamiya acrylics.

Thanks gents! This is still one of my favourite ones. And definitely most of the credit for the water effect goes to Studio Blue Ocean. That guy is amazing.

Continuing with my freefall into the 3D printing rabbit hole, I found this pattern on Thingiverse and scaled it up slightly from 1/100 to 1/72. I think it turned out fairly well, and I was able to use it to experiment with some different weathering techniques without breaking the bank. The only real modifications I made were to open up the ballistic windows around the machine gun mounts and replace them with clear film, though in retrospect I probably should have found some better machine guns with thinner barrels. The jersey barriers and traffic cones are 3D printed as well, and the roadway is cork. Overall a quick and dirty little vignette that taught me a lot.

Being a Frostback from the Great White North, I enjoy doing Canadian models whenever I can. Both kits have been in the stash for a while, and I found some decals online for the CF-104 Starfighter, so I decided to do an older brother / younger brother kind of thing. And can you call yourself a Canadian soldier (or Airman) if you haven't had to chase a moose out of the training area or off the runway? Not in my experience. We had one walk up to a helicopter while the rotor was spinning in Wainwright. Had to shoot blanks at him to get him to leave before he got decapitated. The ladders, wheel chocks, pilot, and majestic polygon moose are all 3D printed on my Mars 2Pro printer. Paints are all Tamiya with weathering using Abteilung oils.

Why do I keep looking at things that make me feel inadequate? Your model is astoundingly well done.

Thanks again, friends! I honestly don't remember what colours I used; I just mixed some of my Tamiya paints until they looked close to the colours on the internet photos. It's been almost two years since I built this one, and I didn't keep notes on the paints. Sorry.

Having seen some of the tremendous work on this site with rusty, abandoned hulks and destroyed buildings, I had the idea to build a diorama depicting something abandoned on the battlefield myself. Here we have American soldiers fighting their way through a system of trenches and emplacements somewhere in northern Europe several weeks after D-Day. The squad has taken momentary shelter in an abandoned Flakvierling trench, the anti-aircraft gun now silent following a strafe by allied aircraft days prior. The gun has started to rust a bit in the few rainy days since being abandoned, but not too badly yet, a testament to the maintenance and diligence of its former crew, now fled, wounded, or killed; one may never know. The battle continues, however. The American soldiers are cautiously probing forward, shaken more than a little by the near-miss of a mortar shell that impacted only moments before, showering the trench with dirt and sand, and collapsing one side of the emplacement. The gun set and troops are all Tamiya, but all of the remaining details were 3D printed or scratchbuilt by myself including the green stuff Nazi flag and the milliput sandbags. Everything was painted with Tamiya acrylics with some Games Workshop paints and washes here and there. Abteilung oils provided much of the weathering. This was my most ambitious diorama to date, and I like to think I'm starting to get the hang of realistic detailing. I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks. Yes, there aren't a lot of good free models for download; this one was scaled up from a 1/100 file, and it shows in the fine (not so fine) details. The aftermarket parts are definitely great for dioramas and fine detailing. Have fun with your new printer!