Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey guys, making my first Diorama right now and I have got started.

Scale: 1/35

Location: Manchuria

Time: 1930s

Nation: Imperial Japan

Scenario: A Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go is parked up with its crew of 3 chilling out. The Tank Officer is talking with a Cavalry officer and his guard about the plan of attack against an enemy hold out.

Kits: 1 Dragon Ha Go Tank, 1 Dragon German Cavalry Kits, 1 Tamiya Japanese Infantry Kit and 1 Mini Art Japanese Tank Crew.

So far I have assembled and base painted the Tank (has a fair bit of work to go), have assembled the cavalry officer and got the base ready. For the base I purchased an A4 photo frame which will make a great base to build the diorama on. I am still waiting on the Tank crew to arrive. As we speak I am assembling the Cavalry soldier.

The cavalry is being kitbashed from the German Cavalry kit and the Tamiya Soldiers. Very little is actually known about the Japanese Cavalry (that I can find) but in my books and so on it talks about them being used a lot in flanking actions and messenger roles to co ordinate attacks. So in this they will passing on plans for their Ha Go tank to support the Infantry in the next attack.

I think the kits for this are lovely, the Tank crew will tie all this together. The Ha-Go blows all kits I have ever done out of the water with detail and options.

Anyway here are my progress pics:



Cheers Guys

Love the tank! The brass etched exhaust(?) is so cool looking.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Love the tank! The brass etched exhaust(?) is so cool looking.

Yes it is! I haven't painted that bit yet but I love brass. The Dragon kits all have it.


The tank has enough brass bits to have every hatch, view port, site and vent open on the tank along with brass decals and normal decals. Amazing stuff. The Cavalry has brass reigns for the horses along with brass horse shoes and more!

Thanks man. The Type 95 is my favorite tank, Its a tiny tank as well. Many tanks simply Dwarf the thing.

Ok so finally finished the tank, well I need to matt varnish it now just giving the Decals time to set in.

Not happy with the result though, I didn't dry brush enough for the weathering and the tracks aren't as "used" as they should be so that will be done later.













After the matt and some more weathering I can move on to the Cavalry and the Infantry. To work on the base I am waiting for some plaster to arrive.

Still heaps of work to go! But heaps done.

Looking good!

Looks good so far!

Cheers guys. Hopefully over the next week a horse can be done.

Never painted a horse before but boy are they hard to paint.

Are the Arabic (I assume) characters on the tank freehand? If so Wow. That's really good. If it's a transfer... I WANT

 LeCacty wrote:
Are the Arabic (I assume) characters on the tank freehand? If so Wow. That's really good. If it's a transfer... I WANT

Japanese writing but yes it is a transfer! Freehand is limited to diamonds atm haha so I wish!

These transfers are very nice, unlike GW ones they have very little clear bits around the actual art, so that combined with varnish makes for perfect transfers!

I have spares if you are interested...

Cheers Guys



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hey guys, still waiting on my tank crew but here is my Lizardmen Project right now.



HEAPS more pics on my blog below.

http://theimperialpatrol.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/lizardmen-have-arrived.html

These models are amazing. Honestly I was expecting 6mm models to look a lot worse! I will be sure to show off my models as I paint them. Tonight I will start with some basic warriors.

Cheers guys

Started the bases for my Kings of War Samurai army. The Diorama is waiting on the Tank Crew to arrive still and the Lizards need some minor basing touch ups so expect some 6mm Fantasy updates in a few days.

Anyway I painted up 2 Cannon and did the basing for my army so far, what do you think? Tips etc?



More here:
http://theimperialpatrol.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/kings-of-war-samurai-beginning.html

6mm basing being done too, however this time with painted models!

Any ideas for basing?

http://theimperialpatrol.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/6mm-lizardmen-worjk-in-progress.html

Looks great!

Cheers mate.

Man, 2 people today have spoken to me with british/australian words! Nice!

 Matthew wrote:
Man, 2 people today have spoken to me with british/australian words! Nice!

....

New Zealand mate... We are like... a more British Australia (think better and nicer).

Third time! Sorry, missed the flag there...
Also, I do like New Zealand more than Britain and Austrralia, mostly because of the epic nature... and the kiwis. Mostly the kiwis. Also the way you pronounce kiwi, it's like 'keuwi'.

 Matthew wrote:
Third time! Sorry, missed the flag there...
Also, I do like New Zealand more than Britain and Austrralia, mostly because of the epic nature... and the kiwis. Mostly the kiwis. Also the way you pronounce kiwi, it's like 'keuwi'.

All good dude.

Plus Lord of the Rings, I know a few people who moved here because of those movies. Also unlike in Australia the bush here has not tried to kill me so that's a bonus too...

Yeah, no SPIDERS THAT EAT BRIDS.

And that's what is important at the end of the day. The way our animals eat each other is very normal indeed. None of this backward "bug eat bird" food chains.

Spent about 5 hours on this Troop of Black Powder Ashigaru.

I am waiting on transfers for the banner, and the back banners will be used for Combat troops only I think. Took about 5 hours to complete this unit (base was done earlier). At this rate this project will be done in 1 month. I did it at table top standard I think.

The models are great. I wish they had better faces and I wish the details on the armour stitching was more pronounced, but overall I am happy. Since I had white Spray Paint I did them red instead of black, adding gloss to some of the armour.

Anyway here are some picks, it's 1:30 AM so I will do some more indepth stuff later for them. Had a lot of fun! 90 more Ashigaru, 50 more Samurai and 12 Cavalry left to go... plus an epic Samurai Giant.

Any tips advice etc?

Pics: (I don't think these pictures do the unit justice...)



Cheers, better pics under normal not late into the night light to come...

First, I am no great painter, so any advice from me may not be particularly helpful...

Your ashigaru look nice and clean, most likely much cleaner than mine would be, nut first thing I'd try with - forced shadows. They have a lot of parts that are obscured from zenital light ("sun from above") - faces, upper legs, bits of armor and weapons under their arms and hands. I would think about where the deepest shadows would lie, maybe holding a miniature under larger lamp (in fact, Your photographs illustrate just that perfectly), and then carefully put in these places a couple of darker shade of paint, before applying washes and highlights. And just a little bit of extra highlight on these nice curved cuirasses.

Regarding Your diorama - it looks good. My only comment is about using twigs and branches. 1:35 is a difficult scale to use natural decorations, "1:1" branches are too obviously out of scale, having either too little curvature, or too few branching points to imitate anything realistic. In Your case it is grossly out of scale, having constant thickness over 2+ tank heights and branching points every 2m or so. I'd advise to look through railway modellers forums for suggestions on imitating various trees at large scale.

Cheers, and please post more in progress shots!

Cheers mate, it doesn't take a great painter for advice.

I have done another 2 bases of bows since these pics and I ditched the blue (the details are pretty soft so it is hard to do). Unfortunately the lighting in the house is not as bright as I hoped, so the camera has this fancy compensation but it takes away the highlighting I did. The photos look very flat. I have not shaded the skin much but the grooves under the armour plate lines and arms are shaded, even the hats are highlighted. I hope to get some decent light tonight or tomorrow so I can show them off a bit more. But yea OI think the faces right under the hat need some more shadow.

Yea I will be honest the tree is very odd, I was trying top be cheap. I have actually snapped a piece off to try make it look more like to scale but I have not touched it much beyond that. The ground is also a little flat for a diorama of that scale but that is fixable I think.

Thanks for tips dude, I will post some more pics as soon as there is daylight when I am home.

Will be waiting to see them!

There is no bad thing in doing hobby on the cheap. In fact, as soon as current backlog clears a bit, which should be sometime in September, I'll be doing my own cheap trees for a similar scale (54-58mm figures are very close to 1:35), so I will grab some twigs myself and see what happens there. Maybe even do a post about them (a post about twigs and branches... I love this language!).

Also, the diorama ground may be flat in colour and texture, but it may as well BE that flat - events in Manchuria went from barren inner Mongolia to a rather lush forests, so You have Your artistic license to go for anything (provided Your markings on the tank are right...). What You really can do is add some tracks, maybe a beaten dirt road to bring some in contrast. After all, most action there stayed close to roads and inhabited places.

Cheers!

Nice work on the Ashigaru there!

Wirecat wrote:
Will be waiting to see them!

There is no bad thing in doing hobby on the cheap. In fact, as soon as current backlog clears a bit, which should be sometime in September, I'll be doing my own cheap trees for a similar scale (54-58mm figures are very close to 1:35), so I will grab some twigs myself and see what happens there. Maybe even do a post about them (a post about twigs and branches... I love this language!).

Also, the diorama ground may be flat in colour and texture, but it may as well BE that flat - events in Manchuria went from barren inner Mongolia to a rather lush forests, so You have Your artistic license to go for anything (provided Your markings on the tank are right...). What You really can do is add some tracks, maybe a beaten dirt road to bring some in contrast. After all, most action there stayed close to roads and inhabited places.

Cheers!

Awesome, yea I tried to do tank tracks but since I used house plaster for the base instead of putty it did not work so well... Next diorama will have a road etc because I will have to use a putty for the base next time. AGain im just tinkering with cheap stuff I have lying round. All I had to buy for this was the model and the frame.

Yea I looked at a lot of photos of the area and one thing Id say I am missing is large tufts of dry looking grassy stuff, which I will try add after the crew is done.

Crew arrived in NZ the other day, should not be far from getting here.

 Azazelx wrote:
Nice work on the Ashigaru there!

Cheers. I have done 2 more stands of bows, and 2 guns with crew. Right now im working on 33 pikemen. I was mean't to take photos yesterday but I was invited to a game with them so hopefully there is enough sunlight to do it tonight.

Hey guys.

1 Week in and I have painted 68 models. Individually they aren't great but as a group I love them.

Pics



More stuff here:
http://theimperialpatrol.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/samurai-army-1-week-wip-68-men-painted.html

Im getting pretty tired from all this painting though, tempted to take a break, but I MUST continue. I think I can get this project done with extras in less than 1 month and have the army look pretty decent.

That's a great looking army you've put together in an amazingly fast time!

Aye, speed and quality there! Love the pike block!