Republic P47-D Thunderbolt

[Christopher Ellul]

Hi

Here is the project I did this summer.

It's in 1/72.  Kits used are Airfix P47 old tool, Academy 1/72 for the Opel Blitz and Italeri 1/72 for the soldiers. 

The Dio is depicting a bombing of a small building and basically it is a representation of what some airmen had to do during the second World War.  The subject chosen for the construction was 1st. Lt. Walter R. Frederick, he only had 1.5 aerial kills, but was top strafer with over 30 confirmed ground kills, thus for that matter I had to construct and build all the decals for this particular build, also I experimented with a motorized propeller.  Hope you like.

 

The following is how I have built and designed the nose art:

1st picture shows one of the 2 planes used by Lt. Frederick in the European Theater.

2nd. picture; I photoshopped the nose art to reveal a bull

3rd. picture; I super imposed a face of a bull from a 1940s comic

4th. picture: traced and scanned

5th. picture: designed

 

 

The inspiration for the build came from the following WW2 Picture.  The picture is showing a P47 Strafing and ammo truck, the picture was taken from the gun camera of the 2nd plane:

 

 

Last but not least some pictures of the build process:

 

 

 

 

[GRK]

Great diorama, I’m always amazed at how creative people can be to recreate a scene. This definitely looks like it captures the moment well 

[Christopher Ellul]

13 hours ago, GRK said:

Great diorama, I’m always amazed at how creative people can be to recreate a scene. This definitely looks like it captures the moment well 

Thank you very much for the lovely comment, the trick (at least this works well for me) is imaging the scene as a whole and then keep on replaying it in slow motion in your head until you find the point that you want to reproduce, then you just keep it there on pause and start building your builds around that still image in your head.  Photos from the era also help you to get your target