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AFV Club Husky VMMD with HMDS conversion / DIO part 1


karimb

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Hey gang....

Second post in the non-lsp works section....after finishing the F4U-1 i had been working on, i decided to take a stab at the qatar armor stash. Building armor again has been quite enjoyable...

I have this big diorama in my head and have been slowly buying all the kits, aftermarket and components to slowly bring the diorama to existence. The Husky is the first 'player' of the diorama to be completed to date, and it helps me in relatively sizing the composition size etc...

 

The Husky is quite an exotic subject and i had looked specifically for it a while ago. I found out that Panda and AFV were the two companies that produced the kit. After reading reviews i opted to buy the AFV offering. The Husky is a South African built vehicle that is modular and is primarily used for road and convoy clearance. It is marketed in the USA by a company called Critical Solutions International.

A quick youtube video if you guys are interested...

The kit itself is nothing to write home about, so i wonder how worse the panda version of it is...

The locator pins didnt match or fit (when they lined up with the locator holes!) so i had to sand most of them off, there are sinkmarks, ejector pinmarks and mould line almost on every single part of the kit and in hard to reach places... i often found myself wondering why did AFV place the ejector pinmarks  on the 'visible' side of parts instead of being on the hidden side... part fit is, meh! oh well, we're modelers aren't we. Another thing of note for anyone wanting or planning on building this kit, the decals are just rubbish so try to source some replacements elsewhere. i made the best of what i could and the rest that i couldn't source elsewhere, i just dumped and considered rubbed off during operational deployment... 

I don't mean to come across as nagging or expecting a shake and bake kit, but all the above is just to give a heads up to anyone planning on building one. With some TLC you end up with a very nice kit, the build of which despite all, i honestly thoroughly enjoyed.

Now for the additions, i used Legend Productions full set for the HMDS (horizontally mounted detection system), which looks really bada**, and weighs a ton lol. The HMDS is a kit in itself composed of pe parts for the framing and resin for the ground penetrating radar slabs and some of the frame parts. The HMDS alone took me almost three days of building so you need to plan ahead for the painting and assembly sequence. I also used the DEF.Model Husky Mk.III sagged wheel set which really is a huge improvement over the rubber kit tires, and add substantial weight and stability to the kit. 

Alot of scratch built details were added to the kit. The interior of the cab has had pe harnesses added from the spares box, i scratched the Duke 3 ECM antenna on the back of the cab, and added the majority of the wiring inside the cab and on the chassis as the vinyl wiring provided by AFV is very brittle and has alot of flash all around.

 

Paints are all acrylics from Tamiya, oils are abteilung and weathering products are from AK interactive and Ammo.

The 'Punisher' logo is a custom mask i have plotted using the silhouette cutter. Although not being 'factual', i wanted to depict a morale booster on the vehicle and i think it looks kicka**...

Well, there you go with installment number one of my diorama saga... soon enough i will follow up with part 2!

 

Karim

 

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And last one is just on a temporary makeshift base for the photo!

 

Edited by karimb
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Good work Karim. I'm with you on armor modeling, especially after all those modern vehicles like MRAP, MATV, Cougars, and Buffalos starting to appear in 1/35 scale. They are an attention grabber for me and I just had to have few in my collection. And this Husky is another one that I want to build soon. I remember when Joe (aka: HaloDude..??) build a Husky from scratch on ARC. It was so cool and I was jealous of his kit...because there was no model of it in the market that I could purchase. So, I'm glad we have one in IM now. I'm bit disappointed, but not much, about the issues you mentioned above. However, like you said, we are modelers and with a little spit, elbow grease, and what not we can build anything :)

 

I'm getting ready to start the Trumpeter 1/16 M-ATV with resin bits from shapeway, Live Resin, Blast models, and few verlinden items to enhance it's look. Then, I'll tackle their 1/16 MaxxPro. Only thing I have left is the radio sets but I might get lucky as there are few guys on armorama talking about designing one on shapeway in 1/16. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Otherwise, I'll scratch build one.

 

Anyway, great looking Husky and cannot wait to see other components of this diorama you are seeing ;)

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That's very well weathered.  What a strange vehicle.

 

Ron thanks for leaving a word. indeed it is strange...pretty much like all the weird looking vehicles they are using these days... take a look at the buffalo and the MRAP lol!

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Good work Karim. I'm with you on armor modeling, especially after all those modern vehicles like MRAP, MATV, Cougars, and Buffalos starting to appear in 1/35 scale. They are an attention grabber for me and I just had to have few in my collection. And this Husky is another one that I want to build soon. I remember when Joe (aka: HaloDude..??) build a Husky from scratch on ARC. It was so cool and I was jealous of his kit...because there was no model of it in the market that I could purchase. So, I'm glad we have one in IM now. I'm bit disappointed, but not much, about the issues you mentioned above. However, like you said, we are modelers and with a little spit, elbow grease, and what not we can build anything :)

 

I'm getting ready to start the Trumpeter 1/16 M-ATV with resin bits from shapeway, Live Resin, Blast models, and few verlinden items to enhance it's look. Then, I'll tackle their 1/16 MaxxPro. Only thing I have left is the radio sets but I might get lucky as there are few guys on armorama talking about designing one on shapeway in 1/16. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Otherwise, I'll scratch build one.

 

Anyway, great looking Husky and cannot wait to see other components of this diorama you are seeing ;)

 

Agree with you a hundred percent...i went and bought this exotic Flyer ASLV72 from blackdog and it also looks pretty cool as a vehicle. the kit is also very very nice and is all resin. 

I sure do remember Halodude and the epic Husky he built on ARC and i remember scratching my head and thinking what a strange thing it was, so we are very blessed now to have all those kits out in IM...AND have all this cool aftermarket to add to them like the HMDS...who would have thought that would have been possible only a few years back!

 

Trumpeter produces a 16th scale M-ATV? i didnt know that until you told me. Must be quite the imposing bit of hardware... you seem to have it well planned out with the am stuff. The Maxxpro should be much beefier at that scale... i am very curious about what your impressions are on those kits. let me know here or pm me your thoughts... quite interesting how the more we build the more we are moving into bigger scales lol!

Karim

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One amazing model my friend. Very well executed. I have a few armor kits in the stash so will have to finally take the plunge one day.

 

By the way do you know how to recognize a pice of armor was built by an aircraft modeller? All stains are made in the direction of driving...

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Guest Peterpools

Karim my Friend

I'm simply at a loss! Never would I have expected such a heavy duty earth mover from your bench. Absolutely brilliant work - the added details look right on the money and the weathering - you nailed it for sure. I've been in the in-ground swimming pool business for way loner then I care to remember and two things we know: how to do: move a lot of fill in a day and how to keep water sparkling clean. Your weathering as realistic as I've ever seen

Looking forward to Part 2 of the dio.

Keep "em coming

Peter

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