Snatch Land Rover

A terrible picture, but not much to see anyway. I took advantage of the Model Zone liquidation sale and treated myself to the Airfix 1/48 Land Rover Patrol box set for £15. One of which of course, will (should) work perfectly alongside my very old (15 years plus) white metal Lanny. Of course, it's scaled correctly and as you can see from the picture, lines up frame wise quite nicely, but it's probably about 20 years older in design times. According to the bumpf it's been used since the 90's so I could fudge that into the mishmash of the UNIT timeline without too much trouble. I may pick up another set so I can have two armoured hard tops for the troops and the older soft top can be a command/scout vehicle. Ideally, I'd have got a Bedford 3-ton truck, but they go for a bomb as diecasts on eBay.

The second Lanny in the Airfix patrol kit is the WMIK, which is probably a bit too hardcore for fudging into the UNIT fluff as is. I may try and UNIT it yet, but somewhere in the back of my head I keep thinking it may work as a more realistic basis for the SAS Force Panther...

carry on camping

ok, just to explain that I haven't been completely idle for the last few weeks - although due to a couple of weeks required for cat sitting in November, can't guarantee how much will be happening next month... anyhoo, this little project has been bubbling away for a while and mainly involves the simply splendid APEX Investigators from Fenris... what those figures initially led me to, was a kind of field research team, useable for UNIT or even a SG-1 kind of set up... the main requirement was a main research tent and that took some working out... but I got there in the end...

all very army surplus and Time Team and I have two of them - it's essentially made from a basic frame of metal tubing which kept the basic cereal card cladding in place, additional tubing was added inside to represent the rest of the frame, thin wire was glued on the outside to match the inside upright tubes and then clad over in normal paper (did experiment with tissue paper but didn't work)... the roof is lift off, and is essentially a normal build for any kind of roof, but with tubing and paper cladding to give it some more shape and I reckon it works... the only stumbling block now is whether I try for a wooden sheet floor or plain grass - both appear equally common on photos of the real thing....

now, all the lab equipment inside needs power, so I needed a generator... this came from a handy sci-fi crate again from Fenris. I added some wire for the stand/handle thing, added a petrol cap with some tube and g/s and tweaked some of the detail to show as somekind of dial indicators, need to add some buttons still...

now the crate had no detail on one side from the casting, so I press moulded the grill pattern on one side with siligum and made a g/s copy on the otherside (sorry Ian)... it's not brilliant, does the job and may well get hidden a bit by a bush or something, but after the 2nd attempt, I was happy enough...

a bit big maybe, but for a chunky robust portable generator it does the job...

next was some flood lights, annoyingly this was the greatest time sink after the field tent, as I was happily press moulding the lights I'd made as and when I had a spare bit of g/s - but when I came to add them, I realised that design wouldn't look right - they are good, and will come in handy with the planned bunker as they look more like wall emergency lights I now realise... my second attempt has proved not very press mould friendly, so I need to rethink... but I have a few of these at least...

the final need for this little project were tents for the field workers themselves, so I cut a bit of bluefoam to shape, added wire for the supports and g/s'd it to get a nice smooth(ish) finish... a bit of detail was added for the access flap, seams and so on and tried to make it match one from Argos... there is a vent flap on the back, but it doesn't show up on the photo... all it really needs now is some cleaning up and adding the zip tab thingy... not sure how well that will press mould though as I would like a couple...

Chieftain tank WIP

finally moving on the diecast Corgi 1/50 Chieftain tank... glossy bits are wear the paint was chipping far to easily while I was still working on other bits of it, so nice and varnish in spots for now...

the toy originally fired missiles which I didn't have anyway when I got it off eBay... the raised turret hatch doubled as the firing button and sections of the upper turret had the handy slogan PRESS TO FIRE... the barrel also had a huge raised section that appeared to be just somewhere for a secure bolt to go - presumably those missiles really shifted... either way, out came the Dremel and out flew some scalding hot flakes of metal at speed... much sanding and g/s'ing later and it looks good I reckon.... and differences regarding the turret and anything else can be put down to UNIT modifications to the armour... so there...

the black bits on the barrel were originally plastic and had apparently at sometime been attacked by a small mammal judging by the teeth marks... these came off as the plastic was too soft to sand and repair and were replaced with plastic tube and g/s... need to paint these and finish the lower hull which has only just been attached (hence the silver screw head which can't be hidden), then touch up the lights and gloss varnish for decalling... toying with a brown over the tracks and dry/wet brushing black over them... need something...

Windmill 123...

UNIT helicopter...

1/48 Corgi diecast Bell 47 that was one of many bargains from Salute (cheers Karl)... basic repaint over the existing job - made easy as the plastic/metal used the same olive green as me (although have noticed a blip in the pic on the top of the skid which stands out, may have rubbed some paint off without realising...), the danger sticker was on the original (carefully painted around) and homemade UNIT decals were added...

couldn't for the life of me remove the bubble canopy to paint the interior (the single screw did nothing when unscrewed) so it was either paint it or have a crappy plastic interior... on the plus side, it matches the Mobile HQ and Lanny windows and will never look like it's piloted by the invisible man...

speaking of which a flight stand is in hand...

UNIT pilot....

still working on his ride, but a quickie for the UNIT pilot...

after trying just the visor shield and giving him a logo (all very Top Gun), but that didn't work so finally settled on the familar UNIT mustard for the helmet... tried mirrored shades as well, but they didn't look right either, so stayed with black (which helps hide the fact that the face is slightly off centre in the helmet)...

need to varnish and then finish the base, but July was looking bare as I've been doing stuff, but not finishing much...

the figure is from the Mo-Fo Mogadishu range, have plans for the wounded downed pilots in the same pack...

UNIT rollcall...

right, this is UNIT as it stands (minus sundry civilian hangers on - hmmm... I guess Harry falls through the cracks there)... at least almost everyone is in focus...

UNIT Landrover

photos aren't brilliant as I was running against the low battery indicator...

1/48th white metal model I bought about 10 or 12 years ago and promptly buried in the lead mountain. It was only when I saw one on eBay (which went for a horribly large amount) that I remembered it. The hamfisted gluing of a decade ago made it unlikely to fetch anything near the mint kit got...



It's the same scale as the Mobile HQ and (assuming the BBC OB van is based on a standard Bedford chasis) they match up quite well and really gives the Mobile HQ some real bulk...

UNIT Mobile HQ

As seen in The Claws of Axos and The Daemons:

Must be twenty years I've been painting on and off and this is my first vehicle I think.... didn't strip the original paint (didn't have a container big enough - she's big), but did what I could to hide the earlier decals and chips... painted in a darker olive green than the UNIT troops, Devlan Mud wash really worked well with the nooks and crannies... I think it looks better than than the original BBC livery, but of course the stripe had to stay (had toyed with doing it the UNIT beige, but as the stripe is at head height that would look silly) and once the UNIT logo was on, it helped bring the white stripe in a bit... homemade decals - first time in ages doing decals, so they may be a bit rough and ready compared to some, but I'm happy... do need to tweak the windows though, all black isn't working...

Before and After:

The original had a knackered chasis so the body dropped at the rear, that was replaced and I may have jacked up the wheels just a smidge compared to the original, but I reckon it (and the paint job) gives it more of a military look, very off-road... ideally though I'd like to have a couple of steps down from the doors, but hey ho...

UPDATE: Now with added windows:

Possibly more muted than many had suggested on Frothers and LAF, but I like it... too bright would have distracted from the vehicle I think...

two Doctors, two companions, a box and some old bits...

A couple of Doctors finished, along with some companions and the rebasing project makes some headway... they need varnishing/dullcoting and some grass tufts adding, but here you go...

3rd Doctor and Tardis:

7th Doctor and Tardis:

The Doctor and Liz Shaw:
Liz was sculpted from the story The Silurians, so the Doctor is in his black velvet jacket and cape as worn in that same story and throughout that season.

The Doctor and Jo Grant:
Jo was taken from Day of the Daleks, which meant annoying bloody red and black plaid shirt which was done and redone and redone again over about 3 evenings... still working on a more colourful later 3rd Doctor.

I have to say, difficulties of sculpting a likeness aside, they are really ugly miniatures... the Pertwee and McCoy are fine in my mind, but the girls could at least have been made to look at least feminine facially and there is just only so much you can do with them...

The 3 Doctors (so far):

UNITs finest:
UNIT finally get to the front of my rebasing queue... again just need the bases varnishing and some grass...