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“There, but for…………..” 1/48 Tamiya Sherman British IC Firefly in Europe during 1944 Vignette


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This was my project in the M3/M4 Medium Tank Single Type Group Build. The kit itself was lovely to work on and I added a few extras from the Hauler PE set for this kit, as well as using a metal barrel and some resin stowage from the Black Dog set, also designed for this kit.

While I was working on this build, Bertie started his thread for a possible Entropy GB, which gave me the idea for the burnt out turret scene. Luckily, I had the parts for a Sherman turret in the spares box. It was originally from a HobbyBoss 1/48 Sherman. The figures and telegraph pole are from Tamiya and most of the green, scenic materials are from Woodland Scenics and Army Painter. The base is a thin sheet of MDF with expanded polystyrene packing material on top, to form the landscape. Over this I applied some household filler to help create the look of the hill. More details about the base can be found in my WIP thread.

As usual everything, with regards the painting and weathering, is done with acrylic paints, all applied by brushes. The mud texture is the only exception, which is from Vallejo.

 

Kit: 1/48 Tamiya Sherman British IC Firefly

Paints: Humbrol, Revell, Citadel, Railmatch, Vallejo acrylics, all applied with brushes

Extras: Hauler PE set, metal barrel, Black Dog Stowage set, Tamiya figures and telegraph pole, spares box turret and various parts from a 1/48 HobbyBoss Sherman kit, MDF, expanded polystyrene packing, household filler, Vallejo European Mud texture, Woodland Scenics Blended Turf, Army Painter Grass and Flowers Tufts, thread and Lead wire

 

WIP thread: HERE

Photos of the tank on its own can be found: HERE

 

These photos were taken with my usual sky photo backdrop behind:

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This next set were taken without the photo backdrop so I could take some slightly different angles:

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The following photos show what it all looks like as a whole:

 

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Thank you to everyone who commented in my build thread. Comments and suggestions welcome.

 

Kind regards,

 

Stix

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Wonderful work. Beautiful brush painting as usual. Nice attention to detail. I like the scene construction. Although, if I was them, I would not be smiling. Better get off that ridge as quick as possible seeing they are such a lovely target silhouette against the horizon. No wonder a previous Sherman suffered a disastrous fate.

 

Ray

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1 hour ago, nimrod484 said:

Solid effort all round for tank, diorama and figures! Well done, Stix, especially at 1/48 scale. 

Hi nimrod484. Thank you very much for your comments. You are very kind.

 

43 minutes ago, Ray_W said:

Wonderful work. Beautiful brush painting as usual. Nice attention to detail. I like the scene construction. Although, if I was them, I would not be smiling. Better get off that ridge as quick as possible seeing they are such a lovely target silhouette against the horizon. No wonder a previous Sherman suffered a disastrous fate.

 

Ray

Hi Ray. Thank you for your very kind comments. Yes, I do know what you mean about the faces. I don't think these are some of Tamiya's best figures. As I mentioned in my build thread, the moulding is very soft. Not Tamiya's best effort by far. In some photos, well to me at least, the expressions look more like a grimace. Which is closer to what it should look like. The lighting also has an effect on how they look too.  Hopefully they don't detract too far from what I was hoping to show.

Kind regards, 

Stix

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23 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

Hopefully they don't detract too far from what I was hoping to show.

 

Not at all. I was actually having a joke. Fantastic work in 1/48. I was actually amazed that such figures existed in this scale.

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Coo! And here I was, thinking that you were just administering the GB when all the time you were building a masterwork! 

 

It's a great idea for a diorama. I class it as such, rather than a vignette, because there's a story happening here. We see the soldiers' reactions to the dead tank and imagine their internal narratives. Sure, there's not much intereaction between the figures but that is an important part of that story. You see something like that and it makes you think... "I thought these things were supposed to protect us. They can't even protect themselves."  "We'll be alright if we get the first shot in, I hope." And so on.

 

The figure painting is very good. You kept it restrained and thank goodness avoided the google-eyed look.

 

The tanks both of them, are excellent. I like that the serviceable one is lighter in tone to the dead 'un. It's a spring/winter effect, life and death.

 

Good groundwork, simple theme done in a realistically complicated way. It doesn't distract from the main events. And the cut telephone wires are excellent, lead wire was exactly the right material. 

 

So yeah, nice one Stix!

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