Hi all

Been actively modelling (as an adult) for a couple of years, although most of my output has occurred in the last twelve months, since I moved to a house that actually has room for a work desk and shelves to display my efforts!  My primary interest is in armour modelling, but I also dabble in science fiction themes and maybe even the occasional aircraft.  For vehicles I am "scale neutral" but for various reasons I have been concentrating on 1/72-1/76 scale kits; I expect this to widen out to include other scales in the not-too-distant future.

I hope you like what you see here.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

My first kit as an adult, the Fujimi (ex-Nitto) Panzer IB.  Not a bad little kit, but suffers from some inaccuracies (most of which I did little to fix in this build).  The kit also comes with a motorcycle with sidecar and a kubelwagon, but you won't see any pictures of the latter because I couldn't get the flipping thing to build right.  It now lives in my spare parts container.



More pictures can be seen here.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

Next came the other Fujimi Panzer IB kit, which in terms of overall accuracy is by far the best kit of this vehicle in braille-scale.  The kit also comes with a PaK 40, which is pretty bizarre, since they would almost never have been seen together at the same time.

Decals are from Bison's 1/72 "Negrillo" sheet.



More pictures can be seen here.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

This is the Fujimi PanzerJaeger IB kit, and is quite an excellent kit overall, including an interior (which puts it about three million miles ahead of the ESCI kit -- but that's a story for another day).  Note that the kit includes the "tropical" modifications (covered air vents etc.) and thus would need to be modified to depict a vehicle used in Europe (France 1940 etc.).  Like its predecessor, this kit also includes a PaK 40, and it's no less bizarre here than there.  I guess Fujimi felt that they needed to fill up the box somehow ...!

This build featured my first attempt at scratch-building -- the jerry-can rack -- not very complex but I felt I had made a major achievement.  I also purchased some photo-etched mesh to make the "shell-catcher" on the rear deck -- the plastic part that came with the kit is unfortunately pretty hopeless.  You may notice that I had a little accident with the tracks -- unfortunate, especially since the Fujimi vinyl tracks are normally quite decent.



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

Next came a pair of T-34-76s in 1/76 scale.  It was going to be three, but my Airfix T-34 kit was an old 1960's "bagged" example, and the tracks had degraded and melted large chunks of the hull, making the kit impossible to complete.  I did get a large number of useful spare parts from it, though.

This one is the Matchbox kit, as can be immediately detected by the presence of the diorama base.  The kit itself is easy to build but has severe accuracy issues, fortunately mostly correctable.  IMO the gun and mantlet is deficient, and I rebuilt and reshaped it.  My kit had no tracks (they had disintegrated into powder!) so I stole the tracks from the Fujimi kit.  They're not great, but I've seen worse.  The wheels on the MB kit are rubbish, and have been replaced with the "spare" set from the Fujimi kit.  A lot of unnecessary/inappropriate equipment was removed or omitted from the vehicle's hull.  Decals are from a Dragon 1/72 T-34 kit.



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

_________________
Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

And here's the second T-34-76, the Fujimi kit.  This is generally an excellent kit, but I made a number of modifications, again to the gun and mantlet; I also removed a number of unwanted hull fittings.  I added a bedroll and tow-cable loops from a Dragon T-34 kit , which also contributed the decals and tracks (the kit's tracks having been donated to the Matchbox kit).  The tracks are a bit "loose", I should have removed another couple of links.



More pictures can be seen here.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

Something new for me was this all-resin kit from Cromwell.  Excellent detail, but not so excellent that some minor improvements could not be made.

The more observant amongst you may have noticed a certain uniformity of theme to my builds.  What can I say, I like the Panzer I.  You'll be seeing a lot more of them in this portfolio!  (T-34s too.)



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

Whoops, this one is out of order -- it was completed earlier (April 2009) than the last couple.  It is a change of scale (1/48) and was built as a trophy for a wargaming tournament held every year here in Melbourne.  The kit is half the Tamiya Firefly IC, with resin hull and track replacements from Fighting48th! to turn it into a Firefly VC.  The kit wheels are resin replacements from Adelbertus and the barrel is an aluminium replacement also (Armorscale I think).  Decals are from Bison and depict a New Zealand vehicle in Italy in 1945.

Since I didn't win the tournament I didn't get to keep the model and I only have a couple of photos of it.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

And this is the trophy I built for the tournament the next year (April 2010).  It is 1/48 scale again, the Tamiya Universal Carrier Mk.II, scratch-converted to a Mk.I.  Hauler PE, resin replacement suspension from Gaso.line, and resin stowage from Black Dog was also made use of.  Decals were from the same Bison sheet that I used the year before and depict a NZ vehicle in Libya.  I probably put more effort into this kit than anything else I have built to date and it was quite satisfying for it to come out as well as it did!

Again I didn't get to bring the kit home but at least this time I took lots of photos.



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

Another Resin kit, this one a Panzer IA from Cromwell.  A nice little kit, but bizarrely the hatch is molded open, forcing you to fill the space with something!  I used a figure (or half a figure to be more accurately) left over from one of the Fujimi Panzer I kits.

Decals were from Aleran.  I had fun painting this fella and then had a disaster with my spray varnish, which crystallised due to the cold weather.  I cleaned it up as best as I could but it didn't recover completely (although it looks worse in the photos than it does in real life).



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

_________________
Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

And now for a real change in scale and subject!  This is the Polar Lights 1/1000 Enterprise, generally considered to be an excellent kit.  (Nowadays it is available from Round2.)  Well, I had an unbelievable amount of grief building it.  It almost went into the bin on more than one occasion.  Nothing sat right, massive filler needed, parts kept breaking off, the decals disintegrated ... very frustrating.  But apparently it's just me, as many people have built this kit with no issues at all.  Oh well, I have another one in the stash, I guess I'll find out eventually if I'm any luckier the second time around!

Regardless, I think it came out OK.  There are parts where you don't want to look too closely though ....



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

_________________
Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

Back to Russia, and my first 1/72 vehicle kit.  This is the ESCI T-34 Model 1942, and a fine kit it is (especially for its age).  Still, it has plenty of room for improvements.  All of the wheels were replaced with resin ones from Al.By.  The tracks are PE from Ace.  The gun barrel is a brass one from Model Point.  The turret hatch is from a Dragon kit.  I did a lot of scratch-building work on the gun mantlet, and the handles are from wire.  There is no interior, so I blanked off the turret interior and the back of the hull.  There is the same figure from another ESCI T-34 kit doing service as the driver, only visible though the front hatch of course.  Decals from an Eastern Express T-34 kit.  (I have a lot of T-34 kits in the stash.)

The only major trauma on this build is that the track lengths were too short.  I was able to fill the gap with plastic tracks from the kit.  No build is perfect!



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

_________________
Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

A small change in pace with a very small kit of a very small vehicle -- another resin kit from Cromwell, the Russian T-37A amphibious tank.  Very easy to build -- although I did need to scratch replacement details under the hull -- and even easier to paint, I chose a captured Finnish vehicle as the blue and white stripes were a nice relief from overall green.  No decals required.



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

_________________
Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

Back to the Panzer I, this time the ESCI 1/72 example.  This kit has a very good reputation, but IMO it deserves none of it.  There are some serious accuracy issues with the hull shapes.  It features "tropical" hull shapes, but has none of the other wartime attributes -- no Notek light etc., and does not even have a full complement of pioneer tools, normally rather prominently displayed on the upper hull.  Other aspects of the kit are very simplified.  Some simplification in a kit this small is not unexpected, but Fujimi avoided 90% of this kit's problems, and in a slightly smaller scale to boot.  All those complaints aside, it was satisfying (from a modelling perspective) to get the kit looking as good as it does.  I've got two more of these in the stash, and I'm not really looking forward to building them.



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

_________________
Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

It doesn't get much simpler than this.  Another Cromwell resin kit, or actually a pair of them, two Model 1940 T-34s that each feature only two parts (hull and turret).  The only difference between them is the turret -- this one is the cast turret.  The only modification required was to relocate the front headlamps a little further up the front glacis plate.  A lot of clean-up was required in the suspension though, and underneath there is no detail at all.  (Not really a problem as you can't see it, of course.)  The bits you can see are excellent, though, with the exception of the tracks which are disappointingly flat and featureless.

Painting was pretty simple!  I was going to use home-printed decals replicating a scheme provided in the UM Model 1940 kit (the actual decals from that kit are too large!) but there was something wrong with them and after two failed attempts I decided the no-decals approach would work fine.  :?



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

_________________
Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

And the brother to the previous vehicle, this one is the welded turret version.  All of the previous comments apply here, although obviously the paint job was a bit more interesting!  No decals were required.



More pictures, including "in progress" shots, can be seen here.

_________________
Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

Ayup BWP...

Nice builds mate. Got any Airfix ones ?

Watch this space.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio

Nice models, Bruce.

I had been thinking that I knew your name from somewhere but couldn't quite place it. Then I saw the two ASL trophies and it clicked - You're a fellow ASLer!

Second place at ANZACON this year I see - Well done, but not quite enough to keep your model. That's a shame, but there's always next year!  :)

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Carl's personal rules of model making:
1. Relax and have fun.
2. Stop making up silly rules that lead to Rule 1 being broken.

Chers, Carl.  Always good to find another Squad Leader lurking about the place.

I came so close to 1st place -- I only lost to Jamie Westlake by some outrageous dice-rolling on his part in the last CC of our game!  Oh well, Cé la guerre.

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Bruce Probst
Melbourne, Australia
"I want to decide who lives and who dies."
My Model Portfolio