Stricken Convoy - IndoChina - Part 1

Interesting commission this one, seemingly innocuous, but has proved to be one of the most challenging yet......

The basic premise was an ambushed French convoy, in Indo China. Essentially one truck was to be depicted as just having hit a mine and has been brown onto its side.

All the kit work is Milicast, which is lovely scale and accurate stuff, but some bits are very fiddly.

GMC Build

The three upright GMC's needed to have drivers and co drivers, this always means a two stage paint and assemble. Whilst you wont be able to see it, I know each individual figure torso and head is fully painted and detailed in there! Essentially the drivers and cab interior need to be completed, then assembled, then masked and then the main painting could begin. All the figures used were resin from Milicast, again fiddly making them fit but easier to work with than white-metal.

The GMC's have the slightest of resin windscreen frame, which I think can be modelled opened up or closed, I foolishly offered to add "glass" in the form of clear plastic. I will spare you the profanities used in assembling these and making them fit and aavoiding the "super glue" smears. 

The cargo bed frames, were also a royal PITA, I made a template and bent and cut appropriate metal strip and applied each individually. These were a nightmare to line up and get looking equal, I think I just about achieved it.

The Stricken Truck

The disabled truck needed some minor mods. The bonnet/hood was cast so I cut it down and added a sheet foil bonnet, so it looks as if it has been slightly dislodged in the course of the mine explosion. The mudguard was removed and replaced with sheet foil at a "jaunty angle". The Milicast Trucks are not designed to be displayed on their sides so detailing underneath was understandably minimal. Not being intimate with the carriage workings of trucks I added some bits and bobs from the spares box and applied "mud" to cover up and rough detail. Dont email me if i got all the guibbins wrong, it looks fine to me! The tyres I had to work worth as best i could, again these are solid and attached.

The Spilled load

After some thought, I decided to make the stricken truck and load as a complete vignette and have the spilled load attached to the truck bed. This was quite simply achieved by making a "base" blob from green stuff and added the first layer of drums. The next layer was superglued in place for effect, and so on. In the end, the whole ensemble is quite sturdy.

Oh and as you can see, have been playing with the blogger template, and in traditional style can't seem to get back to the original! What do people think, this one allows much more whizzy things to be done with the content, based on selection at the top of the page.

N