As promised, here is the dio of the UH-1H Dust-Off I have been working on for a customer. The helo is the Panda 1/35th kit with corrections made to make it a pretty accurate H model. The interior was upgraded using the Cobra Company UH-1 Upgrade set. Figures are modified Dragon Vietnam Helo crew. The surprise that I had mentioned before is the suspended flight medic on the hoist and jungle penetrator. Most of the interior parts are scratch or converted from other kits such as the crew chief seats, litters, hoist, jungle penetrator, etc. The tress are made from a wire skeleton, covered in masking tape and sealed with white glue. The branches are dried branches from a Creosote bush that grows here in the desert. The leaves are perfect for large, jungly 1/35 leaves. I dried them, sealed them with Urethane, then sprayed them green so they won't turn brown. It was challenging and fun, I love how it looks. Thanks to Jan and Scott Lodder for their aticles on making trees and jungle foliage. They are great tutorials.

These are the two pics that inspired it:





Without further adu, here it is.









More pics here.

All comments welcome as usual.

Excellent job as allways, Gino. I guess the tree also work as a support for the Heli? How did you do that?

Erik

Awesome scene. Too bad you have to give it away to a client.

Great work and very moving. A brilliant piece all the way around. A job well done. As a medic myself I can appreciate this on a different level. Thanks for representing the hero's of days past. This is the best medical type diorama I have ever seen. Amazing.

Nice job, Gino! Definitely a lot of drama and immediacy and urgency conveyed --- looks like somebody snapped a picture right in the middle of the action.

Great conversion to the Dust Off Huey... I particularly like the jungle penetrator as well as all of the other small details you added to the bird...

What did you make the portion of the penetrator that the Crew Chief is riding from...? That "saddle" is a pretty odd shape...

Will definitely have to pick up some of the creosote brush on my next trip out to 29 Palms or Joshua Tree...

Keep up the great work, Gino...

Aloha,

Johnny B.

Very well done Gino.

Chuck

Thanks guys. Glad you like it. This piece has a special meaning and was a pleasure to build.

Erik, yes, the tree is holding up the helo. I did it by making the tree around a piece of copper tubing that the helo slides onto. In the second pic, you can kind of see the tubing going into the bottom of the fuselage. It is hidden pretty well though.

Johnny, the Jungle Penetrator is from the Academy MH-60G kit. I just built it with the "seat bars" extended, as opposed to folded as in the instructions.

Thanks again.

Good job Gino

Great composition and sense of action to the scene



Ian

Looks really good Gino....

Great dio indeed! The tree looks very nice and the chopper is awesome (makes me wanna do my own MRC hog that's collecting dust for years now )

Congratulations on this one!

kind regards
Mark

Hi Gino!

Great diorama! Very dramatic! I like it Thanks for sharing the pictures... do you have more of those detail shots?

Jean-Luc

WOW!! That helo is impressive! I really like the way the groundwork and the tree turned out. The leafs/branches are very well done. The medic on the hoist really adds to the sense of action in the scene. Very well done! I am sure your client will be pleased.

Again, thanks for all the comments guys. Glad you all like it. The client is very happy with it too.

Jean-Luc, check out the More pics here link at the bottom of my original post for more pics.

Sweet work as usual, Gino! Good camo on the mounting. I think it looks great! That client is a lucky man, sir, a lucky man!



Cuhail

‘’Whoop there it is”
Whoa Gino, nicely done and well built. I love to see dios that tell a story and that has action, you captured both. I think this is a personal best

Joe

A very well composed dynamic scene Gino. An action scene brought to life. Lucky client.
BTW I see the plants turned out well.

Hi Gino!

Thanks! I missed this one...

Jean-Luc

Dear Gino
nice piece of work
can you tell me more about the ground, it look like jungle very neat
cheers
seb

Looks great! Very nicely done.
Leon

That looks outstanding

Thanks for the further comments. Glad everyone likes it.

Seb, the groundwork is pertty simple. I first painted the base where the groundwork would go a dark brown. Then I cover the area with a thick coat of white glue. I sprinkled on a layer of potting soil. It has the white "rocks" already in it (helps with water filtering or something, so says the wife). It also has small pieces of wood, bark, and other organic matter tha comes out looking great. Once the first layer is dry, I wet it all down with a heavy coat of pump hairspray and lightly put down another layer in any spots that looked too thin. Lastly, I sprinkled leaves and twigs from the tree branches over it and soaked them in with more hairspray.

Beachbum, yup, plants turned out great. Thanks for the tips.

Great looking dio, Gino!
I went trough all the pics and must say the concept as well as the execution are outstanding.

The tree working as a support is not bad at all and I love how the leaves look; and that medic hoisting down gives it such an action look it almost made me cough for the rotor wash.

Probably one of your best dios so far.

Awesome, can you do a tutorial of your own? Thanks for the excellent advice on how to get my dios to look that good, pay you to make them!

Dear Gino
Thanks for the comments i like so much the organic look of the ground work look like it is still alive
cheers
seb