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"Tour Jackets, Souvenirs, and Trinkets" Completed

J

JamesOLeary

Master at Arms
I have been working slowly but surely on the third diorama in my "Shopping in Long Thanh" series and this one will be titled "Tour Jackets, Souvenirs, and Trinkets". In this diorama, GIs fron the 9th Infantry Division are shopping at two places - one that sells things like tour jackets, Ao Dais, dolls, and other souvenirs and trinkets and one that sells the black lacquer paintings of village, farming, and fishing scenes.

I already had two GIs posed and primed, sonic started painting those and got one of them completed. He is a conversion of the figure I sculpted that is being produced by Custom Dioramics under their Yanks range. I changed heads and used a right arm from Hobby Fan and sculpted the tour jacket over his shoulder. I painted him with acrylics. I think he turned out fairly decent.

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For the structures which will also be the backdrop, I used building blocks and materials from Hansa Systems to form the facades of the buildings. There are other methods that other modelers use, but I like the Hansa System because it uses blocks similar to Legos making construction easy and allowing the modeler quite a bit of flexibility in creating building. They have full building kits and bags of the various building blocks and materials available.

The left side of the building will be the shop that sells the most souvenirs and the one on the right will sell black lacquer paintings. The door to the souvenir shop will be closed and the windows shuttered. The window at the other shop will be open and I plan on placing a figure behind it. To make the stucco texture I used one of the textured earth products and lightly sanded the surface to smooth it out a bit.

After the shops are painted and the accessories and figures are in place, I will add the roof. Sheet styrene will be used to block off the back and part of the right side.

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Thanks for looking.
Cheers,
James
 
It has been a while since I have done any updates on this project. I tested positive for COVID on 21 March and wasn't able to do much since I was isolated in a back bedroom and the stuff for this project was elsewhere in the house. I did work on several building facades using the Hansa System with this one being the one I will be using for this diorama. I textured it with a Desert sand texture paste and sanded it down a bit to create the stucco effect. In these photos I am figuring out the placement of figures and accessories. I am going with this layout for the accessories, but have since added another Vietnamese civilian figure and changed the locations of where they will be positioned in the scene.

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This is the new positioning of the figures. After I looked at the photos, I realized that I need to turn the female a bit so she will be looking at the guy with the tour jacket over his shoulder.

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These are the Vietnamese civilians running the shop. The guy with his shirt tucked in is a conversion of the ARVN figure from Masterbox's "Somewhere in Saigon" kit with a head from the "Charlie on the left!" kit. The guy with his shirt untucked is a conversion of a guy from a company I do not recall, with the shirt sculpted with Magic Sculpt and a head from the "Charlie on the left!" kit. The female used to be a hooker from the "Somewhere in Saigon" kit, but she has been transformed into a merchant by sculpting new clothes with Magic Sculpt.

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Today I completed the painting of the second GI. He is a supply guy from the 15th Engineer BN of the 9th Infantry Division. He is wearing the 15th Engineer unit Crest on his hat and his jungle boots are spit shined. He is a conversion of a Bravo 6 figure.

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I got the first of the three Vietnamese civilians done this evening. The photos are not that great and I found a few things that I had to touch up on the figure, but at least it gives ya'll a good idea of how he looks.

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Thanks, guys.

I am kind of digging these types of scenes. I might do a few more in the next couple of years. Heck, I have enough facades that I built when I had COVID that I can make several dioramas.
 
Today's progress on this diorama consists of completing the fourth out of five figures. The blue was kind of challenging for some reason, but I think it finally turned out ok.

Photos aren't that great, but it gives you an idea how he turned out and where he will be located in relation to the other figures.

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I got the fifth and final figure completed. I wasn't able to edit my photos due to a memory issue, but at least you can see how she turned out and the placement and interaction of figures.

Now to finish the building and to paint all of the accessories.

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