AFV Modeller Publications BMW R75 Escaping from the Falaise Pocket 9780993564666

[Mike]

BMW R75 Escaping from the Falaise Pocket

ISBN: 9780993564666

AFV Modeller via Casemate UK

 

 

This book is an education for us mere mortal modellers as to what can be achieved with massive amounts of skill and ingenuity.  The theme is to recreate a picture from the closing days of WWII that depicted four German soldiers riding a heavily laden BMW R75 motorcycle and sidecar in an attempt to escape through the gap left by the enclosing Allied forces that were to create the Falaise Pocket, encircling a large number of Axis forces after the Allies broke out from the Normandy beachhead and moved through France toward Germany and ultimately victory.  The author, Robert Doepp is an award-winning modeller, and this is evident on every page of the book, so be prepared to spend most of your time with your jaw dropped wide open, drooling gently in awe of the skills demonstrated here.  I know some modellers are discouraged by exceptional modelling, but if you treat this book as a level of skill to aspire to by making little improvements to every successive model you make, you’ll soon be making progress.

 

 

It is a comprehensive book that runs to 111 genuine pages with a blank one at the end for obvious reasons, and is perfect bound in a matt-finished card cover.  It is broken down into chapters as follows:

 

• Introduction
• Construction
• Painting
• Figures
• Figure Painting
• Base
• Wartime
• Restored
• Gallery

 

It begins with some history of the author, and covers some of the events that both inspired and led up to the germination of this project in Robert’s motorcycle-loving mind.  There are some gorgeous photographs of previous projects, plus a few shots of the finished model R75 against the photo that it is based upon.  It also discusses the base kit for the bike, which is a rather old 1:9 kit from ESCI/Revell that brought many additional tasks along with it in order to make the model more accurate.  The work on display is truly staggering, from the genuine spoked wheels to the individually cut and laminated cooling vanes on the engine, it offers everyone a masterclass on how to improve their own models, and at the very least lodge some ideas in the deepest recesses of your mind that will help you one day when you have a scratch building or repair issue with one of your models.

 

 

The painting of the bike is almost as amazing as the construction, showing how much thought has been put into it, and how the model was broken down into subassemblies during the build to enable painting and weathering to proceed smoothly.  The figures are all built up using armatures that are custom made by the author, and at 1:9 scale they’re fairly large.  The basic shapes are determined then fleshed out with tubular shapes and extremities.  How to sculpt faces is just one of the useful techniques discussed.  Robert is clearly highly skilled as a sculptor, which is evidenced by the sheer volume of detail down to the stitching of the material sculpted into each figure.  They are each individually dressed to match their photo, and custom parts are made up from scratch, even down to the small differences between the standard stahlhelm and the Fallschirmjäger pudding basin, with one of the crew wearing a hybrid that must have been specifically tooled to meet the requirements of its wearer for unknown reasons.

 

 

 

 

 

The figures are painted in great detail both in the book and for the project, with attention paid to achieving a realistic camouflage pattern by using references of the real thing to guide you.  Face painting is also studied, and with that the sub-assembled figures are put into position.  An interlude shows the construction of the base, which has a muddy road bordered by a double line of cobbles as textural relief.  The completed model is placed on the base, after a section devoted to some very interesting pictures of various bikes during WWII, a gallery of the finished model is shown to round things off.

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

Robert Doepp is most definitely one of the few genius modellers that excel beyond all imagination, and is an inspiration to us all.  The book is full of lavish photography and detailed explanations of the techniques used, so even if we can absorb a fraction of what’s there, we should benefit immensely.

 

Highly recommended.

 

At time of writing, this volume is on offer at Casemate, and you can visit by clicking below

 

Review sample courtesy of