Canadian Sherman III in Normandy

[thewrongguy]

Hi, 1st post on the forum.  

 

Joined because of all the press it was getting over at doogsmodels.com/ , which has been an incredibly helpful site for brushing up on the basics after a 20 year hiatus.  Been modelling again for a little under two years, focusing exclusively on armour but I plan on trying a plane in the coming month or so.  Some other forums I've tried out have been pretty petty about things, so I hope this is like the old Sparforum in that it's laid back.

 

Any ways the good stuff, it's a Tasca Sherman III with ultracast dry transfers   The building is a miniart vacuform with roof, rafters and shingles made out of coffee stir sticks and wood veneer.  The two figures are miniart with hornet heads.  Although I hate how my figures usually turn out I'll give these guys a generous B-.  I'm at least willing to prove they exist.  I didn't paint the frame since I'm hoping to take it to a show on Saturday and have run out of time.  There is things I would change about it if I had to do it all over again but for a 1st dio attempt and where my skill level is at I'm happy with it.

 

 

Thanks for looking

 

Cheers

 

 

Jeff

[StreetFightingMan]

Wow, great build! The colors look great and clean. Some would argue that everything in every diorama needs to be covered in a dozen dirty washes, but frankly, I appreciate scenes like this. Overall, I feel that this effect, where colors are faded more than "dirtied up," looks much more convincing when compared to the real thing.

 

Also, and this will sound REALLY petty, I think the tie-down on the back of the Sherman looks excellent! It's so hard to get realistic tension on those, and you nailed it.

 

I hope you like it here. There's a little tension lately because of the shake-up following the last forum's demise. I don't know if you've belonged to other modelling forums, but I have to say, LSM and SPAR are the two friendliest places you can be to share modeling fun.

 

Welcome to the forum!

[Heinz Bar]

Excellent work my friend.  Doogs is a great teacher isn't he.  The building work is most impressive.  The Sherman looks great and so do the figures.  Only improvement I can see would be to show some bare metal on those three bar cleat tracks.  If you look at period photos, those track cleat faces that contact the ground are warn to a shiny bare metal, even in mud.  There are several techniques you can use to do this.

[nmayhew]

Welcome Jeff

 

Thanks for bringing your Sherman to us at LSM

 

Tasca's kits are beauties aren't they?

 

I really like your dio too

 

Hope to see more of your work down the line

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[Grant]

Nice Dio Jeff, as the others have said, those Tasca Shermans are super aren't they. I agree, not every Dio need to be grimy and dusty. It's great see the actual model and, who's to say, this might have been a small farm house outside a village where no fighting of any note took place and nothing caught fire. Or some clumsy b*gger just drove a Sherman through it.

[rkranias]

congrats on your first dio, well done.

[Dave J]

Welcome Jeff!

 

Fantastic Job!

[thewrongguy]

Sorry for the late reply, been busy with work and our 10 month old. 

 

Thanks for all the compliments.

 

I took it to a nearby IPMS show and got a 2nd in a cut throat category that had two entries  , however I took some solace that the judge said it was a difficult decision.  I've never done the club thing before but it was a fairly enjoyable experience. 

 

I'm really enjoying this forum as opposed to some of the other I've been on.  I'm planning on building my 1st plane in about 2 decades next and am pretty tempted to try doing a build log so I can get some constructive feedback as I go along.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff