Meng 1/35 Toyota w/ZPU-1 - Heaving a break

[papatika]

Hi all,

yet another Meng model, yet another armed pickup. My choice for this GB is Meng's Pick up w/ZPU-1.
There are soooo much builds and reviews about this kit, therefore I only took an outboxing picture:


There are so much rusty and dusty builds by great modelers, I don't want to do the same again. Instead of that I plan to display a snapshot when the AA gun is welded onto the chassis in a workshop. For this I've ordered workshop tools from Italeri.

When it arrives I'll put up some details about the kit.

[MarkVerploeg]

I think this is the very same kit that i entered
The pic is not showing though
I like the idea of it being repaired
That makes for a nice change
Good luck with the build

[papatika]

I think this is the very same kit that i entered
The pic is not showing though
I like the idea of it being repaired
That makes for a nice change
Good luck with the build

Hi Mark!

Yes, that's right, this is the same kit.
Talking about luck: Piece A17 was broken. I can't find the missing part. I have to replace it somehow...

Good luck and have fun with yours!

[MarkVerploeg]

Thanks
Is that the drive axle that is snapped in half?
Maybe it isn't such a big problem
You could make that part of the build like there is work being done there
If you have a jack to "lift" one of the wheel assemblies and leave the wheel off it makes it more visible and that way it is incorperates into the story
And if you have some styrene rods to make a spare part that is laying on the ground or somewhere near the truck
But that is just what come to mind if it happened to me

[papatika]

Thanks
Is that the drive axle that is snapped in half?
Maybe it isn't such a big problem
You could make that part of the build like there is work being done there
If you have a jack to "lift" one of the wheel assemblies and leave the wheel off it makes it more visible and that way it is incorperates into the story
And if you have some styrene rods to make a spare part that is laying on the ground or somewhere near the truck
But that is just what come to mind if it happened to me

I had something similar in my mind. I used the kit's sprue to rebuild the rod.


After painting you can't really see the difference. Here is the assembled and painted undercarriage:

I used Revell black as primer, Revell stone gray for the breaks, and AK aluminium instead of silver (I don't have one on stock).

[papatika]

Hi guys!

I was a bit busy lately I was mainly working on the interior. Nothing serious.
I decided to use some kind of light color. I found a nice one on the net. I know, it is the latest version, and the one in this kit is a much earlier one, but the colors are nice...


So I primed it with grays (a light one with MIG White primer and MIG Gray primer in 50-50, and with the pure Gray primer), and covered with Beige from Vallejo. The different shades look nice, especially on the seats. On the front seats I mixed up the light and dark grays by mistake...


I want to car with "not-so-worn-but-used" interior, so less damages, more dirt.


And here is the assembled interior:

I was confused by the back side of the front seats, how they shall look like, shall I use fillers or not. At the end I left it "as is". I still have to add some dirt to the lower part of the front seats' back side.



Next will be the chassis...


Bye for now!

[papatika]

Ok, so where was I? Oh yes, interior is ready and attached to the lower chassis.

Next up is the body part.
It went together without any problem. I sprayed it with blue from Vallejo (azul maybe, but not sure) over a layer of gray primer from MIG.


There is a ZPU-1 AA gun, which can be inserted into the bed (the back part of the pickup), but I like the following idea much better:

Tailgate can be closed, luggage or ammo can be stored under the gun, etc...

My solution will be a bit different. Evergreen I-beams were used to create steel stiffeners, and some pulled sprue diluted by Tamiya cement and shaped with a toothpick to imitate welding seams.

Painted with Revell's Eisen it looks pretty nice.


The beams were attached to the bed, some more details were painted and added to the body, and unfortunatly I managed to mess up the rear window pretty badly...





Rims and rollbar painted with AK's Xtream Metal Aluminium.


Before weathering it looks like this:


Next up are the tools from Italery, weathering, and finally the base.

CU!

[MarkVerploeg]

Nice progres
It looks good and i like the way you changed the gun mounts
I keep mine like it was in the kit but this looks nice too
Keep up the good work

[papatika]

Nice progres
It looks good and i like the way you changed the gun mounts
I keep mine like it was in the kit but this looks nice too
Keep up the good work

Thanks Mark, I can't wait to see your solution.

[schweinhund227]

Nice mods on the kit thus far!!! Looking forward to more goodness...
Keep up the good work !

[papatika]

Nice mods on the kit thus far!!! Looking forward to more goodness...
Keep up the good work !

Thank you, m8!

I would like to add an Arab figure. A regular civilian, who works on the pickup, having a break.
Something like this:

or one of them:


Do you have any other suggetion?

[Coen]

I was going to use that second set on the dio that I was building for the GB, but I went in a different diirection eventually.
They're really nicely detailed and will probably look great, but I'd go with that first one if it were me, he looks superb.

[papatika]

I was going to use that second set on the dio that I was building for the GB, but I went in a different diirection eventually.
They're really nicely detailed and will probably look great, but I'd go with that first one if it were me, he looks superb.

Thank you for your suggestion. I also like the second one more, but currently I don't know how to place it.
I envision a workshop where the AA gun gets welded onto the pickup's bed.
Having the figure sitting on the floor... well I won`t sit on the floor to have a short break if I were him, because it's cold, dirty, and too low to see the job I've done. On a desk? Ummm... not really. Maybe on some crates? There will be some crates for sure, containing the parts of the gun. That's better, but I would leave my legs hanging.
The right one from the second picture in a grayish, dirty looking cloth... standing behind the truck and thinking on the job he has done until now... that's also feasible.

I don't know yet which way to choose.

[papatika]

Hi there!

Finally I managed to make some progress. My wife is a kindergarten teacher. Her institution was expanded this summer, and now she has a new room, new colleagues, new kids, thus tons of new decoration, games and other stuff needs to be created. And we have only one hobby-corner in the house...

So where was I? Oh, yes, dirt... I mixed some sand pingments from Humbrol and light dust from AK, but the clear parts were just too smooth, pigments did not stick to them. I used an old Opel Blitz to find out how to add pigments to the windscreen while keeping it's transparency. The winner was the DecalFix from Humbrol. So I masked off the paths of the windshield wipers, and covered the rest with some decal fix diluted with some water. The clear parts remained transparent, and it created a semi-smooth surface for pigments. Additionally a thicker layer gathered at the edges of the masking tape allowing a thin border to be created by a thicker layer of pigments.




The decal fix was used to build up a bigger amount of sand and dust in the truck's bed.


The rear window was still terrible, I had to hide it somehow. When I have to work on our car, and have to put tools on it, I usually cover it with a blanket. It protects the polishing and prevents the tools from slipping down.
I used some air-drying plasticine, rolled to very thin. I left the material to get a bit dried, and with a dull knife and a ruler on the waist side I cut the plasticine to size and shape. I did it to have rough cut, thus the blanket will have an old and used look.



When it fully dried I added some 1 and 2 mm wide masking tapes, painted it with a light coat of black, rearranged the tapes, and painted again.


Finally different black, brown, rust, sand and dust colored pigments were used to weather it.


The pickup is ready:




The tools will be from Italery's Field Tool Shop, which is a pretty old kit, originating from 1980s. (https://www.scalemates.com/kits/128150- ... -tool-shop)
Actually it is a nice kit, with nice details, and only a few fitting issue. You can find anything here, hammers, screw drivers, wrenches, tool boxes, barrels, a generator, an old welding sett, a lifter frame, etc.



I want to use some tools, a toolbox, the welding set and the frame.

The arrangement will be something like this:


As you can see, there are some serious fitting issue with the frame, but nothing that Tamiya putty and sanding can't fix. Revell's Eisen gave a nice undercoat, dry-brushed with MIG's Rust Primer, and upgraded by some dark brown wash from MIG. Since I have no chains in this scale I twisted a couple of thick wires, and glued it using white glue. The "chain" was treated the same way: dry-brush with rust, washed with brown.



Here I am now, I hope you liked the progress.
I don't know yet how the base shall look like. How does the ground of a workshop in the desert look like? Something like this?

[papatika]

Just a quick update about two new tools with 3 pictures.

the toolbox:


the welding set:


and how the project currently looks like:

[rwsmith14]

Thats look very realistic !!

[papatika]

Thats look very realistic !!

Thanks.

[Nige201980]

Wow mate stunning.

[papatika]

Wow mate stunning.

Thank you

[TommyKillander]

Great stuff!

That blanket looks awesome and the rest of the tools and utilities looks fantastic too... It will make a great dio for sure


Tommy

[papatika]

Great stuff!

That blanket looks awesome and the rest of the tools and utilities looks fantastic too... It will make a great dio for sure


Tommy

Thanks, Tommy! Two wooden crates and the dio base remaining, I hope I'll have enough time.

[papatika]

Since this dio should display a moment of a building process, it is inevitable to have some packaging laying around. I decided to build 2 wooden crates, one of them empty, and one with the ZPU-1 in it. The next weekend I invited my wife to McDonalds for a coffee, and "found" some wooden sticks (for mixing the coffee). The crates will have a dimension of 4x2x1 centimeters. To figure out the exact numbers I created a 3D plan with SketchUp.
I cut the sticks to size, and built the sides using CA glue.


After that I painted the inside walls dark brown as base color and for shading. Next up a coat of "new wood" from MIG was added, and "old wood" and "light wood" was dry-brushed for highlights.


Then I assembled the parts, punched holes with an old ball pen for nails, and painted the exterior in the same way, but spraying in an angle to create artificial shadows, and using more of the light colors. Since the overlaying paints covered most of the nails, I repainted them with the dark brown base color, and blended with dry-bushing. With a very small amount of "streaking grime", and some "dark earth" and "sand" pigments the bottom parts were weathered.



The crates will be stuffed with straw, but first I need to build the ZPU-1.

So, here I am now. And I think I'll be able to finish this project in time. Two weeks left though, but 2 busy ones...
Here are some shots about the plans, how the dio will look like:




Cheers!

[papatika]

Marry Christmas everybody!

I'm proud to announce: the stuff is 99% ready!

It's time to put the base together. It will be a desert-scenario, and I have a small, 18x18 cm MDF for the support, and I'd like to have a "splotch" of sand on it.
First I draw the basic shapes on a kitchen towel, cut out, covered it with white air-drying modeling clay, and glued it on. The goal is a dry desert, so used a hair drier to speed up the drying process. Meanwhile I continuously folded it carefully to have cracks on the ground. The underlying kitchen paper prevents it to fall apart.
Different sized gravels were added for the small and medium stones. For the big ones I chose two nice pieces of coal from the leftover from the last BBQ. Primed with Revell's sprayable gray primer, and glued to the base.


Adding a nice coat of Revell's sand in different thicknesses, adding different earth tones (paint and pigments) here and there resulted a nice texture. The pigments really popped the cracks out. The MDF was painted to oak brown, and the sand was glued on it.


Finally some grass, and the rest of the dio were glued down.



The building part has been finished, basically. A few tits and bits are still missing. You'll get more detailed shots in the final reveal.

Thank you for your attention and comments! See you on the next GB!

[tiking]

Very very nice. Well done.

[papatika]

Very very nice. Well done.

Thanks!

[papatika]

Final reveal: http://www.intscalemodeller.com/viewtop ... 11&t=15830

[Dopplershift]

Great thread! Many thanks for all those useful pointers.

[papatika]

Great thread! Many thanks for all those useful pointers.

Thanks and your welcome!