Travelling
with the Daimler armored car across the finish line was the Textron M1117 Guardian
as produced by Trumpeter. As you can probably tell, this vehicle is designed with a
mine-resistant lower hull due to the amount of IEDs that US forces were encountering
in the middle east. The angled surfaces also apparently helps out in deflecting
RPG hits. It is used for many of the same roles as the HUMVEE, though the M1117
has a lot more armor protection.
The
Trumpeter kit is a pretty simple build. About the only thing that speaks
against it is they have chosen to use rubber wheels instead of plastic. This
seems to cause weird chemical reactions over time, and still needs to be painted
in order to look at least passably realistic. Maybe these are of a different chemical
composition than earlier rubber wheels; only time will tell.
Once
again, this model shows up the problem with large areas of single-colored skin
and the downside of not weathering models. I suspect on the next armor kit I
will do some experimentation with at least a bit of color moderation on the
larger panels. Maybe some post-shading to emphasize the natural shadows? That will hopefully reduce the toylike nature of a small armor piece like this.
This is completed vehicle #18 (7 aircraft, 3 vehicles, 0 ordnance for 2018), finished in May of 2018.
This is completed vehicle #18 (7 aircraft, 3 vehicles, 0 ordnance for 2018), finished in May of 2018.
Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteI agree single color vehicles are difficult to portray and not look like toys. A bit of color changes (ie forced shadows, highlights, using variations of the base color, in moderation, would tend to break up the monotony of a monochromatic paint scheme.