Jump to content

Pierce Arrow AA Truck 1/35 Scratchbuild


Recommended Posts

Thanks for all the positive feedback chaps - much appreciated!

 

Time to paint the gun, starting with an overall black enamel. It should have been matt, but came out a little satin, which is fine, and actually works very well for the body of the gun itself, so I carefully masked this off using white tack.

51281720914_260badbe0a_k.jpg

 

I sprayed a mixed mid grey Vallejo air-colour at 45 degrees and a white model air white from above, followed by brushed white highlights – none too neatly, but shouldn’t matter.

51282012890_6831dcd5cb_k.jpg

 

I’d foolishly removed the white tack mask at this stage, so had to re-apply it before coating with overall model air mid-grey (light ghost grey I think).

51280249122_085aa4b3c3_k.jpg

 

I dabbed some sponge anthracite grey chipping on, picked out the wooden handles in a buff colour along with the canvas sack and applied a black oil wash.

51281721234_5a051fa2aa_k.jpg

 

The pre-shading was a bit underwhelming after all that and the chipping a bit OOT (I often seem to go a bit overboard with this), so I think I will eventually attempt a bit of drybrushing after all once the oils have fully dried.

 

On to the nail caviar at last. I’d been relieved that this vehicle was a bit lighter on the rivets compared to the Wolseley armoured car, but as I also need to do the inside on this one, I’ve actually probably got more rivets on this one in total. Once glued on, I sprayed the interiors with Halfords grey plastic primer (I find it helps hold the balls in place a bit better) and will spray on a black preshade before an overall white coat.

51281720409_88870032ed_k.jpg

 

And finally for now, I knocked up a new box for the ammo to spill out of:

51281169288_eee04e55f8_k.jpg

 

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’m not currently spending much time at my boat, which is a shame for this project as that’s where it lives at the moment. Nevermind, there’s always something to get on with. In this case it’s thinking about a diorama. Looking at the marvellous stuff some people pull together, I think I need to up my game – theAA2000’s recent fantastic work inspired me…

 

 

So I want to try something similar (or at least as close as I can get). The use of a strong vertical element is definitely a winner in composition terms, so I’m planning to ape his superb work and construct a building. I did consider building the tail of a German aerial victim, crashed into the ground, but 1/35 scale WW1 German aircraft kits are a bit thin on the ground, and scratching one would be more work than the actual AA truck, plus I couldn’t quite visualise how I’d do the wreckage, so a building it will be.

 

I also usually include figures. I like doing figures, but I have much room for improvement, and for this one, I’m currently inclined to leave them out. One of my reference photos appears to show the truck in a French(?) street with a rather formal building behind. I browsed the Miniart series of buildings on-line and found one I could base mine on – I’ll scratchbuild it of course.

 

I bought some 5mm foamboard from a local sign shop – good value (I think) at £20 for three 1.5m x 500mm sheets which should last me basically forever. I’ve not used this stuff before, but I love it already! Glues with plastic cement (it’s polystyrene after all) and it cuts and shapes really nicely. If you’ve not used it, think firm but slightly squishy plasticard.

 

I cut out a base and set (pun intended) about carving out some cobbles using the back of a fairly hefty Xacto blade. I marked out the lines in pencil, but then used the blade freehand to get a bit of wobble.

51296739058_0a02fa3897_z.jpg

 

Please forgive the crappy photo quality – I’m missing photoshop at the moment and relying on windows “tools”.

 

Despite the slightly wobbly lines, they were still a bit too regular, so I “damaged” the tops with the handle of the knife – really pleased with the result, and it’s so easy!

51297274649_b2c5796cf8_z.jpg

 

I cut a selection of thinner slices of foam – this isn’t easy, but the resulting, again, rather wobbly thickness I can live with. This stuff is so flat and regular, that a bit of variation helps I think. These were glued on using tube cement to form the pavement, and the kerbs and paving slabs carved in using the back of a scalpel this time for thinner joins.

51296560681_72daa3e0a8_z.jpg

 

Here’s the overall base so far.

51296738323_b2c55c9630_z.jpg

 

Great fun! I’ve drawn up a building façade on CAD, but I scaled it a bit too big (familiar cock-up), so need to re-print before I can cut that out, but I’m really looking forward to it.

 

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really good work Model Mate! Cobblestones are sooo tedious to make but yours look very realistic already so nicely done. I'm glad (and very humbled) my build has inspired you and I'm looking forward to seeing your progress on the dio & building!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Back to my boat, and back to the truck – or rather, the gun.

 

I drybrushed the grey bits (very carefully) with the base light grey colour. I find Vallejo’s air-colour paints actually drybrush really well, as long as they’re left to dry out slightly before attacking the model. This did a good job of calming down the chipping and oil washes I’d applied earlier.

 

The black parts got a drybrushing of anthracite, followed with a dusting of graphite dust and a quick swipe with a brass/gold Sharpie for a vertical bar that appeared from photos to be brass.

The final touch was to glue the (genuine brass) barrel in place.

51306549193_a7f64460fd_z.jpg

51307074259_1abb6b2642_z.jpg

51307362935_275cbe2b06_z.jpg

51305610227_0c3787015c_z.jpg

51306549223_e5dff27151_z.jpg

 

I’m really pleased with how this has turned out – hopefully the rest of the truck won’t let the side down.

 

  • Like 14
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for all the positive feedback folks – it really spurs me on.

 

I cut out the front sections of the main cab and fixed them to one of the side panels. The visors were cut out and I made up the circular sliding plates from 0.5mm plasticard.

51311675050_4835d65234_z.jpg

 

I glued in the visors and added some external hinge detail.

51310873503_70f375f48e_z.jpg

 

I made up a dashboard (complete guess) and fixed it inside along with a machine gun mount to the passenger side visor opening.

51310674696_9e76d952f5_z.jpg

 

This got a bit of internal bracing added and was sprayed with primer.

51309930952_618408dc38_z.jpg

 

The forward section of the cab appears to require a raised area, so I superglued another layer of coffee stirrers on and added a plastic strip to the resulting step. I made up a seat, pedals, steering column and levers and added them to the floor. The seat cushions were added from milliput.

51309930957_2262efc16c_z.jpg

 

The floorboards got a wash of brown and black oils, focusing the dirt around the gun base and the door positions. I tried using the brown oil on the seat cushions, but it’s not great, so they’ll get a coat of acrylic brown in due course when I paint the levers and pedals.

51311675065_3444bf5664_z.jpg

 

I added a strip of cheapo masking tape to the ammo strip and gave it a wash of brown and black oil paint.

51310873568_c4a3d005ac_z.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Minor update – I broke out the airbrush and fist sprayed some black enamel pre-shading on the interior panels.

51311879137_4fc37cf080_z.jpg

 

This was followed by a coat of white enamel.

51312823373_5ed7d6a8a7_z.jpg

 

And while I had the Tamiya olive drab out to spray my M3 Lee, I painted the ammo boxes.

51312823343_9e7c7b2fef_z.jpg

 

Chipping and washes next….

 

 

 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

HaHa! No, they're duds - no explosives on this build.; well, apart from glue and thinners I guess. Thanks for the positive comments - scratchbuilding can be a bit funny when it comes to detail, especially where there's very little info about what the various parts look like. Making it up can be challenging, but freeing at the same time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very brief update, as I’m separated from most of this project for a little while and I need to let oil paint dry – extra boring to watch, as it takes forever.

 

After the white enamel dried, I sprayed a couple of coats of Klear, diluted 50% with water (and a tiny drop of washing up liquid).

 

This was followed by some dark grey acrylic sponge chipping, concentrating mainly on the doors and handles and which I managed to keep relatively restrained thankfully.

 

Due to the rattle-can primer and the very matt nature of Humbrol white enamel, the best I could get was a satin sheen, and unfortunately this has a tendency to “grab” oil washes and stain the whole lot rather than allowing a nice sharp detail pin wash. Not so much of a problem for the brown oils as they’re useful to provide overall dirt staining, but a bit of a shame for the black, which would be better just running neat lines and rings around rivets and straps. Once the oils are fully dry (which will take a while), I’ll try a Vallejo dry-brush as I did with the gun – it worked rather well for that, so I’m hopeful it’ll tone these panels down a bit as well.

51322153740_1e30cf5025_z.jpg

 

51322153770_79b5451b0a.jpg

 

51321156091_6619e60ba7_z.jpg

 

In the meantime, while I wait for the oil washes to dry sufficiently for a drybrush, I’ll paint the fantasy dashboard acrylic tan colour followed by a brown oil wood-grain streak/smudge and a drop of black for the single dial – maybe a left over dial decal if I can find one that fits.

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...