INB4 the comments - I am aware the weathering wont be to everyone’s taste, but it’s what I like.
The Flyhawk Dauntless is a fine kit. It is incredibly detailed for this scale, but is let down in some build aspects - most notably the Dive Brakes. The mechanism for them to be open is not designed with any logical thought. There is no slots to slide it in to - you just have to balance it on one edge and hope the glue sets quick enough to not go anywhere. The in-box canopy masks are much appreciated, however they could have a bit more adhesive.
The propeller was motorised using a 4mm x 8mm motor from AliExpress. It was luck that how the kit goes together basically gave me the seating for the motor - I just had to drill out the front for the movement to go through.
The figures are the Legend Productions WW2 US Navy Pilot & Rear Gunner set. Unfortunately, they do fall a bit short when it comes to fit - there’s a lot of trimming, swearing and forcing into place. The Rear Gunner is the main issue. He’s a lot softer in detail than the pilot, his arms hit the gun ring (which needs to be trimmed), and you have to perform amputations on both of his feet if you want him to fit.
The IJN Shōhō is from Cults3D, and was scaled down and printed on my Anycubic Photon Mono 4. It ended up at approximately 1:2200 scale, measuring just over 9cm long. This is one of the most intense prints I’ve attempted, and I am glad I was able to get the tiny details printed at this size, particularly the turrets, at the first time of asking! I do really need to work on waves though. Perhaps I’ll do another water build at some point.
I really like the forced perspective on this, and attention to detail– the crew figures look great, the primer showing through the chipping in places is a nice touch, and the sea base looks really good to me. 3D-printing has really revolutionized our hobby – how cool to be able to download a ship model and print it at any scale.
Beautifully-done aircraft with an amazing presentation! I love that you’ve taken the time and effort to motorise the propellor, and thus mitigate one of the biggest immersion-killers for flying displays of propellor-driven aircraft
The fact that you mentioned forced perspective in the headline is actually what got me to click on the thread. I was quite curious how you might even do something like that, and your solution is really creative.
You started out by saying that forced perspective isn’t going to be everybody’s cup of tea, and I’m sure you’re right. But I don’t think you need to lower our expectations before showing us something this well done.
It’s obvious that a lot of thought went into figuring out how to tell the story with an aircraft and a ship in two radically different scales. The forced perspective really makes the whole presentation interesting.
I’ve always built my aircraft wheels-down, sitting on the tarmac. Lately, though, I’ve been thinking more about ways to display aircraft in flight, and this gives me another completely different way of thinking about how that could be done. Seeing something like this really gets me thinking about the possibilities.
Great photography to really show off the full experience!
Perfectly done display showing just how effective a forced perspective like this can be. There is a wonderful feeling of speed to the aircraft in the way you have posed it- just a brilliant piece of work!
