1/72 Hobbyboss Bell UH-1

Gallery Article by Greg Kerry on Nov 30 2015

 

      

This little diorama should really be titled something like US Cavalry 1870-1970. It's an attempt to copy something I've seen in military artwork where subjects from two different periods are combined together in a kind of magic realism with some connecting theme: in this case traditional cavalry with Air Cavalry. Having got the idea from a painting I then did a quick internet search and to my amazement found real photos of just this thing albeit traditional US Cavalry supported by Apache helicopters. Seems the US Army itself recognizes the powerful symbolism of such images.

The Huey is the first Hobbyboss kit I've built that wasn't one of their simplified Easy Builds. Despite that, I found it to be a real gem: perfectly fitting parts, beautiful transparencies, reasonable decals, and lovely packaging. I finished it with Tamiya acrylics, then tubed acrylic washes and drybrushing. The decals are from the kit but meant to be only a vague generalization; Air Cav shields were added to the kit's door just to emphasise the theme.

Click on images below to see larger images

The ground figures are very (very) old Airfix soft plastic items. In fact, they may be the first such soldier set I ever bought as a child . . . about fifty years ago. Somehow, I had managed to hold on to them and wanted to use them one more time in a serious model just for the sake of nostalgia. They're not so good really. The figures lack any weapons other than sabres, they have no stirrups . . . but each figure was in an individual pose though most of the horses were the same. Still, with careful painting they came out well enough.

The base is nothing but an old plastic chocolate box. Groundwork is my usual tissue paper soaked in white glue, covered in fine dirt, painted with tubed acrylics again. The tree is just re-worked twigs.

The dreamlike effects on the photos are nothing very clever. They were achieved using the photo editing ap on my Microsoft Surface tablet: different combinations of the Area Focussing and Vignette features.

Greg Kerry

Photos and text © by Greg Kerry