Quick weekend build and the next armor project

My friends, I decided that for the next project, I want to remove one box from the stash. A Pacific Sherman seemed like a very exciting build, and I had the M4A2 Late PTO from Dragon for several years collecting dust. I decided to build the famous M4A2 "King Kong" from Saipan because it's armored with thick wooden planks and plywood :) But disaster struck when I realized that I needed a different kit, an M4A2 Tarawa from Dragon. So I ordered it, the kit arrived today, and I also ordered some USMC figures, Aber PE, and a very important item - wading stacks, a cylindrical water tank, and a telephone box - a brand new release from Lanmo Model. However, I had to order this set from Aliexpress and it'll arrive sometime at the beginning of January. Not only I'm not down 1 kit in the stash, but the whole party was quite costly! :D But it'll be a very exciting project, with a nice small diorama with a palm tree and a wooden Japanese dugout. 

So... because I had no kit to build over the weekend, and because I'm in an old house-building mood, and because I wanted to get more practice with weathered wood effects, and most importantly - wanted to learn even more new techniques and weathered surfaces, namely cracked stucco with layers of peeling paint and old advertising signs painted on walls, I sketched a new facade! Inspired by an old French bistro/grocery store, with a few elements from my local old buildings.

I was very surprised at how fast the whole thing went together! I designed it to fit into a 14x14 picture frame, so it's quite small. I was blown away by how much you can do with styrofoam  - for example, the cracked stucco and the exposed cement and bricks underneath are all carved into that single block. You just have to press the foam down a notch with a metal ruler to get these multiple "levels". Of course, all the decorative elements are glued strips of foam, contoured and textured with putty. Also, a great way of sculpting bricks is to use a sharpened pencil. It's softer and smoother than a toothpick and it does everything in one pass - enlarging the brick lines and also smoothing out their edges. 

Another method I tried was with the doors and windows - instead of painstakingly gluing the "frame" from styrene strips and then adding the acetate glass, I started by cutting a panel of glass that would fit into the window opening and then glued all the plastic strips and panels on top of it, so the geometry is straight and the whole assembly is very sturdy. Painting will be another topic, but I already have some ideas. 

Also, I used a combination of acrylic wood putty and Tamiya putty diluted with denatured alcohol to achieve the desired texture. Wood putty has a lot of volume and it doesn't shrink like Tamiya does, but it's very brittle so it's hard to scribe authentic cracks into it. 

The electric junction in the upper right corner is my own 3D design and a very cute detail if you ask me - I have a handful of these in my house combined with faux wiring as decoration, so I was able to measure the real one precisely. However, they come in different sizes and I'd recommend scaling it up a notch because it's reaaaally tiny, just 3x3mm. 

Lastly, this one might actually receive a very small "base" just to make it look more natural. A little bit of dirt and some tall weeds and grass :) 

As we're getting close to Christmas I find myself running around all the time, remembering that I forgot to buy this or that, stocking up with groceries because I don't plan on leaving my house until the 10th of January, and everything is quite hectic - as is the tradition right before the holidays. So this little project is the perfect way to wind down and learn some new tricks along the way. 

Of course, I'm filming all of this and it'll be turned into one more facade video before we start working on the King Kong from Saipan :)