1/72 HobbyBoss Curtiss P-40B

Gallery Article by Greg Kerry (Chinagreg) on Jan 15 2015

 

      

This is my second attempt at a low-flying diorama. Actually, the ground part of this one was already done - the plane added as an afterthought.  The P-40 is one of HobbyBoss's Easy Build kits and is generally good enough though with some odd simplifications. For example, the narrow doors which should be present for the main undercarriage legs are completely missing.  On the other hand, you get a choice of open or closed canopies - but for a kit with only very basic cockpit detail.  Also, the Easy Build aspect of these models is not always quite so easy especially around the wing/fuselage underside which often (not just for this particular kit) needs some filler and sanding.  There is no easy undercarriage up option either. Nevertheless, for this kind of diorama these kits are fine for me.

I made the plane wheels down first just to see what it would look like.  I finished it in Tamiya acrylics (brushed), with artists acrylics for a wash and drybrushing.  I wanted only a generic Flying Tiger so "68" became "86" and the Disney tiger emblems were left off.  The decals for the Chinese Nationalist insignia are in the supposedly faded colors - which look rather bright to me (on the boxtop, the model is shown with darker blue roundals).  The white of the shark's mouth teeth wasn't dense enough to cover over the camouflage colors.

 

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The wrecked Japanese tank is one of Dragon's superfine little gems about which I can say little. The soft plastic figures are from Caesar Miniatures and seem pretty good; after washing and drybrushing their detail looks impressive. You can find good references for these in Osprey's Chinese Civil Wars volume.

The house wall is a small slab of actual plaster with wood detail. The plane is supported on thick wire disguised by the cotton wool smoke. The base is nothing more than an old plastic chocolate box cover with groundwork from tissue paper and glue, with real dirt.

Greg Kerry

Photos and text © by Greg Kerry