International Scale Modeller

Hi folks.

Here's my planned entry for the Modern Armour Sig: Leopard in the Woods

The kit:

Hasagawa 1/72 Leopard 2 https://www.scalemates.com/products/pro ... ?id=153806



Tooling looks crisp with a few minor seam lines and little flash. Nothing too exciting. The kit itself looks pretty simple: the tracks and wheels are all molded as one and there are no sub assemblies.







I don't expect the kit to take much longer than a hangout to build and a couple to paint so I can afford to put a bit of time into the dio. I want to add a bit of cammo netting to the tank and I'm going to have a go at scratch building a log cabin and a lot of fir trees...



Still looking for some figures to go with it...

Great idea for the dio! Good luck buddy

As I suspected, the kit build only took a few hours to put together with some Tamiya Extra Thin on last nights hangout.



A very nice kit. Zero cleanup apart from a faint seam on the barrel. Everything fitted perfectly.

I was planning on scratch building some camo netting to go over the front of the tank and the barrel but the majority of the detail on the kit is focused there. Due to the length of the turret, cammo netting would snag anywhere else. I may have to settle with some just on the barrel and front of the turret...



Now I have the model for scale I can start on the dio parts. Here's the footings for the log cabin:



Two layers of 5mm foam card glued together and cat little glued along the outside with slightly watered down PVA.

Next up, the log cabin...

Awesome Rich. I have moved this thread into the Builds section for you though

Awesome detail on such a small kit. Looking forward to seeing you paint it up!

Nice on Gav!

Managed to put some colour and decals on the old girl during last nights hangout. She's a bit shiney due to the gloss coat and pin wash but here's how she sits now:

Undercoat (poundland car primer):



Preshade: (Vallejo):



Base coat (Vallejo):



Camo:



Gloss coat, decals and a pin wash:





Letting this dry for a couple of days and then onto weathering.

In the meantime, work progresses on the log cabin:

Nice work Rich, certainly a fast build

Got a matt coat on the Leopard yesterday:









Happy with how it came out, only weathering left to do once the dio is done.

First attempt at the log cabin didn't go according to plan, so I'll be having another crack at it today...

Very nice. Can't wait to seethe dio come together.

Looks great Rich. I can't wait to see the wee fella on his diorama. There is something uber cool about seeing Leopards crossing terrain at speed, its majestic, but frightening at the same time!

Spent last nights hangout prepping green pan scourers to make a bunch of fir trees. My fingertips are killing me this morning! Ahh, how we suffer for our art...

Back to working on the log cabin. Realised quite quickly using the twigs wasn't going to work. Even though they look straight and true, at 1/72 then are miles off. Even more so when I started leaving gaps for the doors and windows:



As you can see, even at a few levels high the walls are starting to get out of line and massive (scale) gaps are appearing between the logs. In real log cabin construction any gaps or filled with wadding but some of the gaps in my cabin were starting to get as wide as the logs

So, I switched to 3mm diameter bamboo skewers and put together a few rows to check they layed straight:



I'll add a bark texture to the skewers once the cabin is constructed.

After trying to hand cut the notches on the ends that lock the logs together I quickly realised that doing it by eye/hand wasn't going to be good enough. Even 1/2 a millimeter at this scale throws the walls out.

I needed to build a jig to make sure the notches are always the same distance from the end of each log. I don't own any fancy tools or access to a high tech milling machine but what I do have is a dremel clone, a workmate clone and time to experiment. After pondering for a while I came up with this...



I made the stop block out of pink foam as it was what I had to hand, but the vibration from the dremel pushed the end of the skewer into the foam meaning that the distance increased every time I cut another notch:



Still, the concept was sound so I fashioned something a bit more substantial from an offcut of wood.



Now to prepare lots and lots of little logs...

You are building a log cabin? You're a brave man!

Started on the 'woods' bit of the dio. I might need more trees but this will do to start with.

Pine tree trunks. I started with random lengths of 3mm skewer, and cocktail sticks for the saplings. Bark texture was added by dragged a saw blade along their lengths:



Close up of the bark texture. I've deliberately left the wispy bits on to add a bit more detail:



Next I gave them a quick base coat of brown using a spray can I had lying around:



Once that had dried (didn't take long). A quick wash of watered down black acrylic:



The foliage was started a few nights ago - it's a tedious, finger tip destroying task:

I started with one of those green pan scourers. Cut into rough circles of random sizes, tease the circles apart so they are 1/2 as thick & rip the edges. I'll distress the edges further as I glue them to the trunks.

Really enjoying this one. Nice work so far!

Thanks mate - still a long way to go Doing two builds at the same time (this and Coen's Tiger SIG) so I don't burn out.

Still working out the logistics of the cabin roof which is why I've switched to trees for a while.

Those tree trunks really look the part I'll have to give that technique a go sometime.

Figures have arrived. Was only expecting 5 or 6 in the box!





Won't be using all of them but there's some nice character figures in there that will definitely be making the cut

Got the trees ready for a final spray to dull down the bright flock.







Log cabin is rising from it's foundations. Plan is to cut the doors and windows in once this is dry. PVA was used between each row. I'm hoping it'll look like cauking once dry...



And my first go at a 1/72 figure. Had to resort to ocular assistance though...



Can't get a decent shot, but he has tri colour camo on. I'll take another couple tomorrow in daylight:

Nice job I would need an electron scanning microscope to paint those figures

Great job on those figures!

Slightly better shots of the figure.

Log cabin and diorama base progress...

Log cabin finally coming together. Roof gables are drying and the door and window holes are cut:



Now it's stable enough to move around I've starting pulling the base (25cm x 25cm )parts together:





I also tried out the trees for scale with the Leopard by temporarily sticking them a spare bit of pink foam rock I had in my spares:

Still need to tone the trees down...

Added a bit of camo netting to the front of the leopard made from stretch bandage and sawdust:



Superglue was used to fix the folds and, once dry, any loose flock was removed and the whole thing undercoated in flat black:



I let that dry and drybrushed with a camo green:



Debating whether or not to add a brown to the camo netting but I'll leave it as is for now.

Log cabin is built!

Doors and windows glued to card and stuck from the inside:



Cable ends attached:



While that was drying, I put a layer of ready mixed polyfilla over the base and textured it in place:



Threw some base colour at the base and started test fitting the pieces:



Next up, finishing the ground work, painting the cabin and attaching lots of trees...

Wow, looks great. Love it!

Drybrushed the rocks



Flocked under the trees

Leopard in the Woods has finally got it's wood! The cabin has been base painted and just needs a highlight. A few grime washes on the road and the figures are all that's left to do...

Looks great. Very impressive little (and I mean Braille Scale) dio!

Something missing from this dio but I can't put my finger on it...

very cool dio mate! really imaginative

This builds been on the back bench for a while. I'd stalled on the cabin and the vegetation didn't feel right. Managed to get some time on it tonight on the hangout and it's starting to feel a bit more 'together'....







Moss on the cabin needs a bit more work. Also, the figures I have ready to paint are looking at me accusingly....

Just need to ready myself for the inevitable migraine

Aw yeah that looks awesome! Very nice way of doing the camo netting - it looks superb The dio looks great too; I like the trees and the moss on the house

So cool. Looks really great.