Here's another of my all action dios. The Academy kit seems like a pretty good one to me (apart from poor instructions and dodgy decals) - a welcome break from the simplicity of Hobbyboss Easy Builds that I've been indulging in lately. As with everything here, finish is with Tamiya acrylics with artist acrylic washes and drybrushing.

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Interestingly, all the military items are supposedly simplified kits for wargaming but I think they're great kits in their own respective rights. The Lend-Lease truck is from Pegasus with the only drawbacks being a lack of window transparencies and decals. The Su-85 is from S Model and has no drawbacks at all to my mind ("simplified" includes photo-etch!). The figures are one of Zvezda's infantry collections: only five figures but in hard plastic and beautifully detailed. The little a/t gun at the front is one of Dragon's newer items which came in a halftrack kit and is most definitely not simplified and consequently a pain to put together.

The base is an old wooden presentation box which is the kind of thing I often find in trash bins here in China (the Chinese love presentation boxes of anything). Groundwork is white glue-soaked tissue paper with real dirt and twigs. Smoke is cotton wool.

Greg Kerry