Diorama "Morocco 1943"

Many thanks for your kind words, T-rex! In the past I overlooked this kit, thinking that it's ugly and armless (no guns). So this is my first Quad truck.

Smeagol, I built a lot in the past, from Esci's and Matchbox's 1:72 tanks to Tamiya's Yamato 1:350 and I know my own limit. I don't have much patience and I have little modeling expertise. So I started outsourcing modeling services over a decade ago, about the same time that I setup my website. My website is 12 years old today and the number of builders has grown from 1-2 to 6. If you live in Thailand you could be No.7 if you can build them well. ;-)

the doog

Phaisal, that's a beautiful bike! My fiancee' would approve! She herself has a 2006 Kawasaki KLX250 street/dirt bike, and we love to ride in the summer here. Her bike also gets incredible gas mileage; my DRZ400 gets great mileage too, but not as much as either yours or hers.

Good luck with your new wheels!

Thanks, Karl! Your fiancee' rides a KLX-250? I wonder how high and heavy she is. I'm 5'8" and 141 lbs and I find that KLX-250 is too high for me. When I'm on it, it doesn't feel my weight and my feet barely touch the ground. Also the 250 costs almost twice the 125 ($5,000 against $2,600) so I bought the 125. Are dirt-bikes from other Japanese makers available there too? In Thailand, only Kawasaki has dirt bikes to offer.

Good luck with your wheels and woman!

smeagol the vile

getting something...for doing what they love,

That's a big assumption. If you or I HAD to build and paint every day for our livelihoods, I don't know how long we'd love it.

SteveM

Model Maniac wrote the following: ... just pee on it and walk away.

- Isn't that what they've been doing?

Yea, but I also think that is what he does with the people who Poopoo his posts.

In the spirit of Karl's nicety I will say that even though MM doesn't build these things, just puts them here for kudos, he is employing a bunch of modelers and said modelers are getting something, dunno what, money, room and board, whatever for doing what they love, I wish I could get in on that deal.

Phaisal, that's a beautiful bike! My fiancee' would approve! She herself has a 2006 Kawasaki KLX250 street/dirt bike, and we love to ride in the summer here. Her bike also gets incredible gas mileage; my DRZ400 gets great mileage too, but not as much as either yours or hers.

Good luck with your new wheels!

Model Maniac wrote the following: ... just pee on it and walk away.

- Isn't that what they've been doing?

Thanks, Karl! I got this from somewhere:

Thought for the day:

Handle every stressful situation like a dog. If you can't eat it or play with it, just pee on it and walk away.

BTW, I haven't told you that I got a new bike just over 3 months ago. It's the best dirt bike that I've ever had! Only 125cc, it's engine is as powerful as my former 175cc one, with better suspension and brake systems. It's very fun to ride and it can do 39.3 km/litre - that's about 93.33 MPG:

AI has grown into a pretty good modeler. I think this dio works fine for what it is.

A lot of the nitpicking on the thread though is a bit overdone IMO. I think we all know that the primary reason for some of these "dioramas" is just to put plausibly-related elements in a common scene. I think if we'd keep that in mind, it wouldn't have to get so bitter sometimes. This scene is certainly no worse than some I've seen from "regulars" here.

You gotta give credit to MM for his "keep coming back" attitude, lol.

Very nice, Always loved that Quad truck. Still one of my favorite kit.

"Bad neighborhood", I guess. I suppose that the German engineers took them off. Not sure what a bunch of farmers would be able to do with those, without a blast furnace LOL.

To the average US soldier, every tank was a "Tiger" or a "Panzer", and every shell fired at them was an "88". In this case, all correct.

No no no no no, its not the locals, its the Track Gnomes.

    STEP 1                    STEP 2                    STEP 3

collect tracks                  ?                          PROFIT!

bondoman

 

 

Here's another nifty pic he took there.

Bondoman, that's a really cool pic. I've often seen pictures like this of knocked out tanks that are completely missing their tracks. Does any one know where they go? Do the locals come and strip them for the steel? Those things are heavy, not exactly an easy task...

Or as Yoda said, Ignore them I shall, yes.

HeavyArty

subfixer:

So, you enjoy causing controversy? Are you implying that we should just ignore your posts? I don't get it.

 

Yes, he loves the controversy.  To him it is a measure of how great the pieces are since they are getting a lot of attention.  Good or bad, he doesn't care.  It is just the attention he is after.  The "Atta Boys!"   

I have pretty much come to ignore them as well.  The last few batches have gone without a reply on most of them.  It is better to just let them fade away to later pages as they don't change and never will.

I get it, ignore them I will.

subfixer

So, you enjoy causing controversy? Are you implying that we should just ignore your posts? I don't get it.

Yes, he loves the controversy.  To him it is a measure of how great the pieces are since they are getting a lot of attention.  Good or bad, he doesn't care.  It is just the attention he is after.  The "Atta Boys!"   

I have pretty much come to ignore them as well.  The last few batches have gone without a reply on most of them.  It is better to just let them fade away to later pages as they don't change and never will.

So, you enjoy causing controversy? Are you implying that we should just ignore your posts? I don't get it.

Thanks for all comments and compliments! I really appreciate them! On second thought I think "Tunisia 1942" would be a better name for this dio. But then again that would be very probable and thus not questionable and debatable as it has been. So I retain the original name. ;-)

Great pics, B-Man..

Wish I'd have been able to save Dad's pictures from WW2... He lost 'em (Along with a bunch of other stff I wanted) in the '93 flood...

telsono

Hans - that vehicle must have gotten great gas mileage to get all the way to Morocco without the Vichy troops stopping them! That officer must have his magnetic declinations wrong or reversed sideways. If you read "To War In A Stringbag" you would remember that the French weren't too hospitable to the Brits they found in country.

Mike T.

Here's another nifty pic he took there.

Now don't go gettin' all "RC" on me, Mike..   Sorry, lol... I switched from the Percocet to Oxycontin today, lol...

Hans - that vehicle must have gotten great gas mileage to get all the way to Morocco without the Vichy troops stopping them! That officer must have his magnetic declinations wrong or reversed sideways. If you read "To War In A Stringbag" you would remember that the French weren't too hospitable to the Brits they found in country.

Mike T.

telsono

The title for one thing is terrible for this subject as the British didn't enter Morocco, it was the Western Task Force under Patton (US 2nd Armored, 3rd and 9th Infantry Divisions). Using Algeria or Tunisia in the title would be more accurate, especially the latter.

Mike T.

Now THAT woulda been funny if the dio had an officer with a map pointing one way and the Arab pointing the other...

telsono

The title for one thing is terrible for this subject as the British didn't enter Morocco

Sure they did, when the Germans ran them out of Egypt in '35. Didn't you see that movie?

The title for one thing is terrible for this subject as the British didn't enter Morocco, it was the Western Task Force under Patton (US 2nd Armored, 3rd and 9th Infantry Divisions). Using Algeria or Tunisia in the title would be more accurate, especially the latter.

Mike T.

haha yeah I agree with you on that. Just meant that this is a little more palatable than the usual shake and bake, out of the box builds AI's done in the past. The people and the vehicle more or less fit on the base, the groundwork doesn't look like a huge after thought...

And for the average budding builder to stumble across this thread- might look like a bunch of elitists picking away at every little thing. There's a history with the builder and I think for that particular builder's history this one could have been a lot worse. Could have made a smaller base the size of the Quad and forgot to add the camel and in a last minute effort- glued it down on the roof!

I think this might get a few looks if it were at a contest or a show or something, probably wouldn't take a metal, it's more or less forgettable and doesn't have a plot but it's not blatantly ridiculous. I think it sure fits in nice and maybe even stands out among the rest of the "collection".

I only comment for the sake of budding dio-builders anyway, who may stumble across these...  Frankly,it doen't look like Moroccan desert  and other than a title nodding towards such a locale, there's little evidence, aside from the Arabs and the camel, that it's Morocco, or even 1943, or that it's the Golan Heights in 1967... Matter of fact, it looks more like the Golan Heights than Africa..

I'd have to agree on the lack of a story, a few little hints of one with the shared conversation over a meal, but what stopped the Brits from driving right past? Are they lost? Out of fuel? Bored? Meal break? All of the above?! I do like the weathering on the Quad and everything's well painted albeit not dusted or blended into the groundwork. Tracks and prints would be nice.

I think given the past problems of the builder- no story is much better than 5 or 6 competing elements with no theme and only pure imaginative comedy to tie them together on our part. I'd say this is a pretty solid piece given expectations.

No tracks or foot prints that I can see, plus there's very little ground color tying the figures and tractor to the groundwork..  No storyline that's readily apparent...

Interesting as a kit display, but not a real good diorama...