I had an idea of building a cart with truck wheels and a leaf suspension; I'm sure they're common in rural areas worldwide. The donor cart came with the
Miniart country road diorama.
I also wanted to try some new techniques.
Here's the cart with an Arab on a donkey and the "engine", the horse from my build of the Master Box
Gentleman Jim Jameson - Hired Gun. Jim is now riding an
1880s Albert Robida inspired flyer, so he didn't need the horse.
The start of the leaf suspension is in the lower right:
The suspension was a quick build. I added some Meng bolts. The wheels are M113 wheels, the tires are from some anonymous 1/24 or 1/25 car model and the axle is a plastic rod to fit the wheels:
I made a rider from body parts I had in my body bits box. The legs may be from the Academy 1/35 Hetzer; I repositioned one of the legs and extended the pant legs with some ProCreate epoxy, which is great stuff - it stays somewhat pliable after curing. I don't know where the torso came from, but I added a hood, also made with ProCreate. The head and arms are optional parts from the excellent
Zvezda M-72 motorcycleThe guy was probably not going to be clean shaven, so I experimented with a way of giving him more than a 5 o'clock shadow. I remembered the great rusting technique from
Araki so I tried something similar on the head. I used the tip of a fine scalpel to score the beard into the plastic . He looks little like Paul Teutul here:
I had a hard time figuring out how the horse is supposed to be harnessed, but I found some pictures online and took some artistic license.
Here's the cart finished. The yoke on the horse is made with ProCreate. The strap on the back is just some depron foam cut and painted. All the harnesses are painted Tamiya tape, except for the reins, which are wire-wrap wire:
I added a spare tire at the rear; not sure if it works. The shovel and pickaxe are from one of the first 1/35 kits I built after getting back into the hobby; the Tamiya Sd.Kfz.222:
The cargo is from several sources; the tarp and wooden box are from Valuegear. The beer bottles and wooden crate are from Miniart, the plastic water jerrycan is from Meng, the solar panel is a leftover from a previous build. It's connected to a box (battery?) from the Tamiya Gama Goat. The large bag resting on top of the wooden box was made from leftover ProCreate:
Even though the figure source was of a Russian soldier, he looks African-American or middle Eastern here. He's sitting on a Procreate cushion that I made by squishing his butt into the putty before it set. The fuzzy look on his hoodie is some Tamiya weathering powder brushed over a clear matte coating.
Something to his left drew his attention (and that of the horse). A guy can't enjoy his beer in peace...:
Overall, I'm not that pleased with how this came out. The harness system was a PITA and the shading on the guy's pats looks messy (doesn't look this bad in normal light)