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...

can't see the wood for the trees...

Well, the trees were de-sponged and re painted (and in the case of the smaller plain woodland scenics trees replaced), colours in the photo don't quite match for some reason. The bigger trees had additional branches added, so there was quite a bit more to redo on those, they look ok, but I won't know for sure until I come to add the foliage, which I have been trying to do for a couple of days now. On consultation with a few folks, I've tried PVA and Superglue, but not holding at all (apart from a couple of flecks which you may see), but I may need a better application method.

ooops

well July appears to have escaped me... the manor house is waiting on some laser cut panelling from Fenris Games and I really want to get that bit done before moving on to other bits... I've been working on the trees, but am not 100% happy with the finish look, the heat hasn't really helped I have to admit (and Borderlands has been it's own time sink), but my plan for them just isn't working out - I now need to decide if I glue clump on top of what I have or strip it back and some more branches... I fear the latter is more likely. Just need some decent clump foliage.

basic build done...

ok, basic build is done, some little kinks to fix, narrow gaps mainly where the floors meet, but they are easy enough to solve...

forgot to cut a window in the attic at the very back - will do that later... actually, I had to replace that entire wall as it was a slight warp, measure twice and all that... hell, measuring once would be novel, I tend to cut a piece and then cut the other pieces to match... which isn't really recommended.

and so the attic - perfect for staff quarters, storage, dormitory or strange and vile experiments in the dark arts...

so, next (after the gap filling) is some detail both in and out, bannisters and so on, chimney is going to go here:

but waiting on a fireplace before I commit. Then the beaming begins... I may take a break before then though, just to recharge.

first floor WIP

first floor walls up... I haven't quite decided on windows in that end wall just yet, or door placement for the room at the top of the stairs, so those need working on...

I couldn't do balsa for floorboards as normal, due to the thickness, so I bit the bullet and carved the floor boards into the foampvc for the first floor, quite chuffed with the finish...

I also redid the stairs, made from scratch from foampvc, toothpicks, plasticard and a cocktail stick, which means they match the ones I had to make for the access to the attic.

the pub/manor/farmhouse WIP

ok, basic walls for the pub/manor/farmhouse

some interior walls needed, stairs aren't attached just yet... most furnishings won't be, so I can swap out for pub/homely furniture and so on...

I've altered the original footprint, so the building conforms slightly more to the classic T plan, this just meant narrowing the main hall - which has actually helped with a problem I hadn't forseen with the overhang needing to cover the bay window, it would have stuck out too much if it was flush with the main door wall as it was... this way is much better.

have skimped a bit on windows, I want a few plain walls to have some flexiblity with adjacent buildings/lean-to's and the upper floor will have plenty of light down into the hall... it should make sense... there will be a small back room for shady dealings and a hefty door - a cellar hatch gives some scope for smuggling and a passage into the neighbouring stables to avoid the local constable.