SPA Modeler

Stuart wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 2:55 pm Sorry Gary, I completely missed this - it looks fabulous, your hard work really paid off and the figures look very good as well.

No worries mate! Thanks for those kind words, they mean a lot to me. I'm hoping to get some proper photos done this weekend. I appreciate your encouragement Stuart! Ta!

Gary Brantley wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:28 am Well friends, at long last, the finish line approaches for my tank. I've been futzing about with the two figures for a while and have decided they aren't getting any better. Yesterday, I put some final touches and details on them (well almost final... ) and put them on the tank for the first time since they were painted and modified. I believe the tank itself is finished and once I get the base for it done, it's off to the photo session location. I also plan to post some light-box photos too, for the first time. I'm waiting for some assistance from my dear friend and amazing photographer Richard Krall and of course, getting a suitable base done. Until then, I wanted to post this, just to prove that yes, I actually did get one finished after about a year!

Yesterday, I turned around and there sat a Bulldog on my kitchen table! Hey Bulldog!

Man, super nice! I really like the rust effects you pulled off. Figures look really casual, nice job laying out the scene and cool stowage painting.

Thank you very much Mongoose! I had to find a handy tutorial for "rusting" those muffler covers, and sure enough, it was really fun and easy. The red mud in Vietnam turned to red dust in the dry season and I wanted to replicate that red dusty look too. I hope it doesn't look too red in subsequent photos. The figures turned out okay for a beginner's effort, but I struggled mightily with their faces. Next time...

I really appreciate the comments and hope to have some finished pics posted soon. Thanks again!

Okay my friends, I want to post a bit of an update. My photographer friend Richard Krall and I took the Bulldog to the old granary site for some location pics almost two weeks ago. It was pretty cool watching him work; it really made my own photo efforts look pretty amateurish (appropriately so ). Well, we took a bunch of photos, arriving there a bit late for the best light but still managed. He sent me the files a few days later. Uh oh. In every photo that clearly showed the commander's M2 machinegun, that damned gun was tilted in its mount. Hell, it looked like it was mounted on some sort of ball-swivel ! Richard said he learned so much from his first model photos that he would like to shoot them again. And of course, I was up for that!

In the meantime, I ordered a lightbox to try to get some better inside "detail" pics. My first try with it showed a pretty good learning curve. I talked with Richard over the phone for some advice in using my camera with the box. I ended up using our Nikon D3300 DSLR on a tripod, in manual mode with a 1/30 shutter speed, f13 and ISO 400 for the best of my indoor shots. The lightbox came with eight or nine different colored backgrounds, but I've only tried the white thus far.

It turns out that that M2 caused even more issues. It is an Eduard resin product, and while nicely detailed (oh man, that teeniney "butterfly" trigger on the M2 is about the smallest PE I've ever fooled with!), I swear that thin barrel has a spring-steel core. I had worked hard trying to get that barrel straight in both the up and down, and left to right axis. One direction would look fine, but the other was curved, then the opposite would happen! I thought it looked okay when we went to the granary. It didn't. Not only was it still curved upwards, but also tilted as explained above. Crud. The tilting had resulted from the fact that the aftermarket M2 didn't fit the pintle mount as securely as the kit's gun. And after getting it in place, I was hesitant to bend around on it too much.

I should've though. As I sort of zeroed in on the camera settings and distance that seemed to work best with the lightbox, I wound up with 30+ pretty fair photos, but that M2 barrel looked like Bob Hope's "ski jump" nose! That just wouldn't work! Jackie and I had visited our son and his family yesterday to see their "new" house, and of course, dinner after that. We didn't get home until about 10:30 last night but all the way home I had been thinking about that gun. I decided that I would straighten out that barrel even if I had to break off and glue it back on right! So, I went to work on it then, and soon did completely dislodge the gun from its mount. I kept at it, glueing it back in place and gingerly tweaking the barrel. I bent it so severely I was sure it would break. I stopped when it seemed pretty straight. But this morning, that damned spring-steel core curved her up again. Back to it I went, bending that resin barrel even farther this time...until finally it did look better. Not perfect, but I'm afraid to press my luck further.

So, instead of waiting for Richard's return to Cameron, I'm planning on taking the tank back to the granary with my home-made base and camera gear and try my own location pics. I have about 10 or 11 lightbox photos to retake now that the M2 barrel looks better. So, until I can get the remainder of the pics done, here are a few final "sneak preview" shots. I hope to post a Finished Model article in the near future with all the pics.

These first three are from the session with Richard. He took 8 different "bird's eye" shots and I liked this best. The sunset pic would work if not for that damned M2!







This is one of my lightbox pics:



And just to show how bad the curved barrel looks, here's one of those:



Thanks for your interest in the Bulldog tank, and thanks for having a look at her so far!

Resin definitely has a mind of it's own. It must have been pulled from the mold still green. I suppose a brass casting would be better but it would probably cost as much as the rest of the project. That first photo is really good, and not many would notice the gun in that one. I wonder if awider lens would diminish the building in the background some, although it's nice as it is.

jeaton01 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:40 pm Resin definitely has a mind of it's own. It must have been pulled from the mold still green. I suppose a brass casting would be better but it would probably cost as much as the rest of the project. That first photo is really good, and not many would notice the gun in that one. I wonder if awider lens would diminish the building in the background some, although it's nice as it is.

Yeah, the gun isn't that obvious in all of the top views he did. In many of the granary pics, the sheer scale of the building does overpower the model and I cropped some away in those. Here's an example of that effect:



And, I noticed that in all the pics that had the building in sharper focus, it was harder to pick out the features or details on the tank. The out of focus backgrounds showed the model to better advantage I thought although that runs counter to good photography. Richard also took his photos from a greater distance from the model than I typically do in my airport pics of my airplane models. I know that I'll try to be closer in my own photo session and I think that will minimize that building's impact some. Really, the granary's facade is just too busy for a good location scene thus far, maybe I can find another angle or two to try as well.

Looks great Gary. M-41 is a good looking hunk of steel!

Wow, great photos. This little beauty turned out fantastic. Incredible details and pics. Awesome sauce!!!

cbaltrin wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 6:25 am Looks great Gary. M-41 is a good looking hunk of steel!

Thank you Chris! I sure appreciate that. I've always admired the Bulldog's looks too.

Brandons_Iron wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 9:12 am Wow, great photos. This little beauty turned out fantastic. Incredible details and pics. Awesome sauce!!!

Thank you too Brandon! I like hearing those comments, I've looked at it so much by now that I'm really anxious to call it finished.

I have at least a couple more photo sessions to try; some more lightbox shots for the pics that show that curved MG barrel and another trip over to the old granary. I had a brief phone visit with Richard today and I'm waiting until he has a chance to look at the lightbox pics I have now, then I will probably have some adjustments to try with the next batch of photos I take.

Thanks to both of you for the encouragement! Slowly but surely (?), I'm getting her done!

Gary, that looks top notch between your build work and the photography! I can practically hear the scene in Full Metal Jacket in my head looking at your photos with the factory setting.