I'm such a fan of the SandStalker designs and I've been wanting to scratch build one for years. I couldn't decide if my first crack at one in 1/35 would be a canon build to match Kow's 222/232 scratchbuilds, or something in that vein. I had a Dragon 250/9 and the tedious looking individual track links were enough to convince me this kit was never going to be build OOB.
There was a lot of scratchbuilding and kit-bashing with this build yet it went together easy enough. The basic hull shape went together quickly and since I wasn't following a build or reference photos, I could add just enough details to make it interesting with out getting bogged down or bored.
Below is the build diary for the 250/9
I used a 1/76 Nutcraker as a bottom template and changed the shape to match the sides of the 250/9. This was glued to the bottom of the 250. Pieces of 3/4" thick urethane foam were glued to the hull and the bottom. This was quickly sanded to shape. I made a fixture to help roll out consistent sheets of epoxy putty. The rails are .06" styrene strips glued to another sheet of styrene. This was dusted with baby powder and I kept dusting throughout the rolling process. The sheets were cleaned up and draped over the foam and cut to shape.
Sanding was a minimum since the basic shape was already established. Bottom flaring was an offset of the hull bottom. A piece of round styrene tube was rolled into the epoxy to for a consistent radius.
After the hull was sanded to shape, the details fell into place.
More details falling into more places.
So I modulated all over it. Just a little. The rest will get picked out by hand with Vallejo. I wasn't trying to get all super crazy with the technique by masking and accenting each panel but just enough to break up the surfaces and add variety. The muffler was chipped via the HS method. I really did not feel like applying the HS technique over the whole model this time. Although I have in mind some HS experiments with darker and lighter shades of the base green, but those are for later.
The side stowage box is made from a sheet of pewter foil cut with the aid of a template created in Illustrator.
Hairspray and Modulation.
I masked off and used the HS technique to give a little variety to many of the panels with thin Tamiya Sky. I accented misc. details with Vallejo acrylics. Minimal decals were applied and everything was given a coat of Polly Scale Satin before weathering. The last image is a size comparison with the Nutcracker.
Weathering. I applied a few filters to tone down the contrast. A couple of dark washes were used to accent the panel lines. I then tried something new using AK Nato Rainmarks and Dust to add the settled dust. It did a good job of adding a matt dusty look. I then reinforced the dust with MIG pigments.
I swiped a nearly finished base I was going to use for another build and sprayed it up with a sandy/gray color. I added a few clumps of grass and a couple of root clumps. Bam!
