This is the Bishop from Dragon which is now Marquette kit.I bought this a long time ago when Dragon was first coming out over here and finished it 5 years ago.So i figure that ya’ll might want to see it.Lot of the interior was sratch built to make it look right and the sight had to be reworked to look like the ones in real life.Digger
As you can see there is a Valintine in there to and that is a marqette kit too.Both were great kits to build.Both were the old Dragon molds too.
Looks nice Digger i have this kit and keep getting it out and then putting it back lol i will build it one of these days i did the valentine a while back and would like to do another in russian markings, glad to hear you didnt have any problems with it i remember the tracks and wheels being fiddly on the valentine but that was back in my early modeling days, again it looks great nice job.
Now THAT is cool. Kind of reminds me of a British KV-2. Looks like lots of fun to weather, and I love mickey mouse-ear camo schemes. Great work.
EDIT: ebay has some listed from Maquette, Dragon, RPM and VM. Anyone know where to find reviews or build ups of any of them? Or anyone know how the kits are? Sorry for hijacking the thread, but your Bishop’s given me some inspiration.
Couple of neat vehicles there, digger. That Bishop looks like a pill-box on tracks, keep em coming!
Ron I did have problem with the wheels on the bishop which helped me on the valitine.
Ian they are all the same kit or at least the dragon, maquette and vm ones are ive never seen one in a rpm box so i cant say for sure buy my cash is them being the same kit.
Digger,
You managed to turn one ugly tank (Bishop) to a great looking tank!
They are all the same kit. VM or Alan was the original manufacturer. It was reboxed by Dragon along with some crewmen. Then the molds were passed on to RPM and Maquette. There are several reviews of them at older modeling websites. The kit has been around for a while now. It uses the same hull as the Valentine, so if you look for reviews or PE for the Valentine, you will have something similar to what you need.
It is really refreshing to see some alied armor every once in a while. The pics are a bit out of focus, but looks like you did a fine job out of those oldies.
Alanger has just issued the Valentine X/XI so perhaps the Bishop will follow suit. The Valentine looks pretty good in the box.
Cool–thanks for the help guys. I like the interior work you did on that turret too, I’ll definately use it as a reference if I get around to picking a Bishop up.
O.T., but when are one of the big players going to come out with a new Valentine using their own molds? Dragon? Nah. Tamiya? Perhaps. They did release a Crusader in 1/48 and hopefully will do a 1/35 version like their Hetzer and StuG III B.
Digger nice to see your work again. Amazing how you can take inferior kits and make them look mainstream. You do seem to keep the Allied guys happy. LOL
I’m still pretty suprised nobody has done a new churchill?!?! I’ve got Tamiya’s oldy that I’m going to start sometime this/next week, depending on when I get sick of scratchbuilding work on my Buffel. Something about British armor is just too cool to me. The way Bronco has been heading lately, I wouldn’t be too suprised if they were the first to jump on the churchill.
just so ya’ll all know,the bishop was one of the first s.p.'s to come on line.the bishop was a modified valintine that they just put together.the driver was seperated from the gun with a small opening so orders could be yell to the driver.the gunner was the only one to have a seat due to the sight and all the rest just sat on what ever.the commander had a padded bar which he took on and off so he could stand thur the hatch.they also had to look for sloped imbankment to help elevate the gun for better firing.basicly this was a spur of the moment type of s.p.and servered in italy up to 1942 were at the end of the year they were replaced with the new archers.
in this tank as you can see there was a lot of scratch building to the floor for the gun.in the kit it is left hanging.i did a search on the web to find what i needed to recreate the interior.so if ya’ll what to do this it will be a fun kit to do.also will help you in scratch building too.Digger
Digger those are some awesome looking tanks. I think dragon should be making new premium or smart kits of these! I like the look of those “pillbox” tanks, I was thinking of building a KV2 soon but now that ive seen this I might search ebay for one.
*Ian Im looking forward to that churchill, Ive always wanted to build one of those but havent got around to buying it yet.