Modelling > SciFi & Fantasy

Gate: Thus the Japanese Self-Defense Force Fought , Idea for Diorama

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elmayerle:
If anyone is interested, I ended up, by accident, purchasing two full sets of the first two seasons on DVD from Malaysia.  I can let one go if there's interest.

strikehawk:
A little update

First off, I'm sorry for not being as active as I would've liked but between issues already stated I, my wife, and my mother have all had stays in the hospital in the intervening time but, nearly 90% of my model collection, library, and tools have been moved into the room I claimed as my office. I now just have to wait until our finances settle down so I can get a couple of desks from Goodwill to use as workbenches.

Now, as far as my update, just before Xmas last year I was able to acquire a kit from Galaxy Hobbies M1240 M-ATV. This is either the same or the US equivalent to the smaller vehicle used in the JSDF 3rd Recon's convoy. If you've seen the anime clip, the smaller of the convoy that mounted the M2HBMG whose gunner used the Panzerfaust IV on to wound the dragon. In case anyone would like to order this, I found it via eBay but I'm sure that other places stock them. Manufacture's stock number is 'GH72A01' or 'GH72AO1', hard to make out the number because of the font that was used on the box.

The kit is tiny as one would expect for this scale, in fact, I was ribbed for have this as my scale of choice due to the fact that I have to now wear glasses. According to my dearest and longest suffering friend from childhood, it's because my eyes just gave up one day after having to deal with models this small for over 50 years. Anyway, the kit has quite a few small parts including one fret of PE brass and a sprue of clear plastic for the 'glass'.

In total the box contains one Zip-Loc bag holding the PE fret and the decal sheet, said sheet is additionally protected by a slip of paper covering the inked side.

One Zip-Loc bag, in fact, all sprues are in Zip-Loc bags, holding the clear sprue.

One bag holding the five, black, soft plastic tires. I love that they saw fit to include the spare in the same material and not cast in styrene the usually resulting in a spare can't match the color of the others and a tire with a high chance of mismatched tread patterns or worse, a bald tire with no tread at all.

The rest are 4 bags holding separate tan plastic sprues and parts.

The one leaflet instruction sheet also holds the painting and decal guide, sadly, only one desert color scheme though, and decal placement instructions. Of the two double-sided paper sheets, one is an advertisement for the T Models TM7201 M1114 Up-armored HMMWV. This kit also includes PE parts.

The other is a flyer for other kits from the same manufacturer including the same kits only with the M153 CROWS II turret.

As I mentioned earlier, I was ribbed for choosing such a small scale and asked why I didn't go with 1/35th instead. My answer is that the deciding factor was the size and appearance of the dragon as well as its price. With one 72nd scale, I can source a dragon or wyvern, with or without a rider, from Games Workshop or similar close to the size I want as well as how it looks. The dragon in the anime has a more classic European middle-ages look unlike the facial features of its Chinese or Japanese cousins. Believe it or not, there was either a series or movie length documentary on the myth of dragons as well as their biology, physical traits, and mating behavior. All was a fiction of course but it did take the stories and history into a deeper look than what had been done before. Anyway, there are major differences between the two or three sub-species of the animals.

Then there is also the fact that 1/35 Medieval non-combatants, women, aged, and children, are hard to find. I did take a look at some very old MARX Toy company playsets, re-pops, and third-party items in the same general scale and found that they could be painted quite reasonably having done this with a couple of WWII GIs back around 1983 or 84. Once again it came down to not only comparative sizes but price as well. These old toy soldiers were and are still well detailed but they're closer to 54mm_1/35th scale and would look wrong should they be posed talking to a 35th scale JSDF member.

To me, not only can I source the same style of figures from 20-25mm or76th scale lines, their slightly smaller hight and builds would fit in historically in that people, mostly Europe and the Americas, are now taller and heavier than their ancestors. I want to build a more peaceful scene from the anime after the dragon is done showing a recon team interacting with the locals in a village somewhere. I have several Aoshima and Fuji kits with JSDF figures that, along with some figures of American troops, would look good talking to a woman in either medieval rough woolen clothes or a Roman tunic. Aoshima includes in its kits a figure of a man with a camera so one could pose the vehicle he came with either an Otaku that's a, according to a girl in one of my favorite animes, 'an over obsessive military fanboy.' Either that or he can be used as a reporter of some kind. For those who don't know, and Otaku is a person that has a hobby that borderlines obsession. The term is mostly associated with guys like me that read and watch lots of manga as well as having to have every item associated with the series that he's into.

As time goes on the term is getting wider use, I've heard people be called military otakus as mentioned earlier but there are also train, car, food, music and airplane otakus out there. There are even, gasp, model otakus amongst us but they also answer more commonly to the call of 'rivet counters'. ;D Anyway, back to my plans, first we get all the money, then we get all the women, after that, we can take over the world....

Ahh, sorry wrong plans. My next purchase will be the dragon like I said I want a western species of them and unless someone knows of other companies it looks like GW is going to be the one I'll have to source from. So, here is the list of what is to be purchased over the next few months,

28mm scale dragon

Two M1114 up-armored HMMWVs

Compatible 1/72 scale modern military figures

Medieval or Roman era peasants and high born civilians, hopefully from just one source to have a constant scale in either 20-25mm or 72-76 scale in either resin, 'lead', or resin.

For the second, more pastoral diorama I want to build huts, houses, buildings, church square, or market place as well as the food, drink, and other goods found in such a location.

My friends kidding aside, it's my opinion based on my experiences built up from 1968 that for a lot of subjects and era's, 1/72 scale in the scale that offers the most variety for what one needs for their build. Not only that but it lends itself well to those that are starting out in building from scratch as the scale is easier to work with, 1"=6', with only 1/48th scale being easier to calculate with it's .25"-1'. Hopefully, I'll be able to post and the next project updates a lot quicker and have some construction pics to go alongside it.

One last thing, I belong to a local model club and at this last meeting several members, the ones that were giving me crap about the scale I chose, seemed interested in the project. That lasted until I uttered 'anime' and 'what if', then they started in on 'this is why I hated Misawa' and 'anime, that explains a lot about you.' My response was my usual middle finger and two words accompanying saying as well as taking comfort in the fact that one, was in the Air Force and was a lesser being that a Sailor and the two of them have never, to my knowledge, brought anything to a meeting, either built or unbuilt. To top things off, the second guy is one of the most annoying rivet counters I ever met. At least when I was an active Warhammer 40K player my collection of armor and select figures were on permanent display at the hobby shop that game was played at. Right now I'm at the longest time I have ever been at away from building a kit of any kind but even when I'm not able to build I'm still going over a diorama build mentally so I know exactly how my build will procceed.   

strikehawk:
A little update as to this project, Fujimi recently released the JGSDF Light Attack Vehicle and I was able to pick it up. Unlike some other companies that only ship one vehicle, such as a Jeep, per box, this, as with other Fujimi kits has a pair per box. I've also found some medieval and Roman Empire set figures that will be of great use. My original idea was for the fight between Lt Itami's group and the Flame Dragon but that may change to them visiting Coda or one of the other villages. So far I've still not been able to get my office up and running. If it's not one thing it's something else but it is getting there. I just have to find a decent dragon model.

Jeffry Fontaine:
Nice to see you back to the forums and modeling again. 

strikehawk:
While I haven't quite been actively building models yet I have been gathering up kits that either I want to have a second go at or ones that I need to include in projects I've been planning for the past few years. I started out at the What If forum but somehow lost my password and was never able to recover it or open a new account so I came over here. I'm glad I did, I also recently joined another forum but the welcome I got there was less than welcoming. Even now, when I post a topic it's wither ignored or hijacked.

So, in other words, I'm very happy to have joined here, it's very comforting to find support for my ideas, anime isn't well accepted by 'serious' modelers. The fact that I get encouragement for this idea is a big reason that I enjoy posting what I come up with. Back to my actual building, at some point this summer I should have my new desk and shelves installed and I can get back to actually put a dent into my growing stash.

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