Italeri GMC DUKW

The last model to be completed in 2017 is a GMC DUKW. Clearly, I am still on my wheeled vehicle kick. This is probably the largest vehicle I’ve completed so far, though there is a HEMTT truck and a Dragon Wagon in the stash that will be larger. And of course, once I start delving into actual armor, many of those tracked vehicles and MBTs are considerably bulkier.

The kit is Italeri. It must have been in the stash for ages, and one day I just happened to run across it, thought it looked interesting, and took it upstairs into the short finals queue in the hobby room. There were individual bits of the construction that were tricky, such as the splash guard on the front of the vehicle. There are supposed to be two rear-view mirrors near the front windows as well, but they broke off at an unknown time during the painting process. One assumes that they went to feed the insatiable Carpet Monster. A long search on the floor didn’t turn up anything, and they certainly could have broken off in the garage paint area as well. Ah well. 

The decals came from the kit for a DUKW of an unknown unit in western Europe 1945. Even though I used MRP Olive Drab, which has a definite semi-matte sheen, there wasn’t any great evidence of decal silvering. I continue to experiment with this new (to me) paint line.

DUKWs seem to be everywhere these days. We have a number here in Seattle that are used for tours, and there is one in particular that is used by the SeaFair Pirates each August. If I could source decals for that one, I’d give it a shot. Strangely, it hasn’t attracted any aftermarket decal artists.

This is completed vehicle #15 (17 aircraft, 3 ordnance, 15 vehicles for the year 2017), finished in December of 2017.