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Speedboat on the Italian lakes


Ozmac

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Sometimes I'm not very serious with my model building, and this diorama is a case in point. I thought of the idea for the diorama first, then went looking for a model to build, and took a while to find anything suitable. And so, my starting point was a Soviet WWII military speedboat, the only suitable speedboat model kit I could find. Almost seems a shame to waste what is probably a very nice military speedboat, but as the kit's instruction notes mentioned, the Soviet boat was actually based on a pre-war civilian speedboat.

 

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This is Mr Lothario taking the ladies for a spin in his new speedboat, somewhere on the Italian lakes.

 

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The ladies and Mr Lothario are super-cheap ($10 for 100) Chinese 1/43 scale figures. The plush seats on which the ladies recline are a bit rough, but they are actually made from the plastic handles of Gillette Ladies' Shavers. They had the right sized ripples that kind of look like plush seating, if you stand back a bit.

 

And just in case you'd like to build a proper, military model of the kit, here it is.

 

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It's 1/35 scale, made in the Ukraine. The hull halves go together OK, which makes life a lot easier, but a lot of the detailed parts need fiddling with

 

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The kit also includes some metal parts and PE, so it should exercise your modelling skills.

 

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This is just to give you an idea of its size.

 

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Apart from the ladies' seats, the other part of the build that I enjoyed was making my first fake wood paint scheme. This involved a base coat of wood colour, then dry brushing on very streakily (with a toothbrush) some burnt umber, then some burnt sienna. The backdrop is just a printed out photo stuck on the wall behind the boat.

 

 

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Very good. Very Gerry Anderson.  Love it! That Gillette SWMBO Razor handle seating is a good tip, thanks! Have you seen my Razors? No I haven't !:rolleyes:

 

 

PS. Where is the Hood ?

Edited by bzn20
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That looks great! It reminds me of some speedboats on Lago d'Orta, from holidays many years ago.

 

Its a happy vignette :) 

 

The wood finish is great and the water...

 

Do you mind me asking what did you use for the water effect?

 

:goodjob:

Best regards

Tony

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Lucky Mr Lothario !:D... Seriously, something really nice and entertaining and beautifully built ! :goodjob:

 

BillyD

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Edited by Billydick
trying to get rid of spoiler spaces - unsuccessfully
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Quote

 

Do you mind me asking what did you use for the water effect?

 

TonyTiger66: the watery look comes from applying about 7 coats of a gloss decoupage glue called Mod Podge. I apply each coat liberally with a thick blobby brush on top of a painted base of mostly navy blue given "depth" with lots of randomly blobbed-on splotches of green, black, light blue and white. The Mod Podge is water based and dries fairly quickly. It goes on white but dries to clear.

 

The wake is made by painting the base of the wake in very pale blue (almost white) then covering that with clear silicone sealer, spread out with a spatula to look the part. Finally, once the silicone sets, it's dry-brushed in white, using a stiff brush to apply the paint sparingly.

 

All in all it seems like a complicated process but each step doesn't take long, and to get the water right takes about a week. I didn't think up these methods myself, of course, I found them online, YouTube the most helpful.

 

This is the You Tube vid for how to do the wakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFOpc8Q6a7M

 

And this is the You Tube vid for the Mod Podge water effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgWt137zpkQ

Edited by Ozmac
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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you for the information and links on the water effects :) .

 

I would have replied sooner but can't find every thread I was following, prior to the forum upgrade :confused: .

 

Its just a matter of understanding how to use the 'activity' options.

 

The water and wake really are very convincing, it looks and sounds like fun to recreate :) 

 

I'll check out those YouTube links now :thumbsup2: .

 

All the best

TonyT

 

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