Tamiya Ford GPA Amphibian 1/4ton 4x4 truck build

I purchased the Tamiya Ford GPA Amphibian kit from Yodobashi in September 2020. It was a new challenge for me, as I had not created a diorama containing sand and water before. In fact, I finished it (not completely) a year later, at the end of 2021, under rather exceptional circumstances.

As you can see, for a 1/35th scale kit, it was really cheap. Only 1450 yen. The painting of the box cover was really good. I would like to give my artistic skills a new chance and create an oil painting like that one in the near future.

I assembled all the parts as explained in the kit manual. The manual gives you some options. For example, you can lower the front windows as I did in the photo above. I added some objects to the back of the truck to make it more realistic.

After assembling the kit, I applied a coat of Tamiya surface primer. I think that usually the primer is not really essential if a lacquer base color is applied instead. However, it is necessary when you have metallic parts. In my view, the main value of the primer is to make defects more visible and provide a better surface to apply subsequent layers of paint.

Next, I applied the base color using Tamiya's olive green acrylic color. Once applied, with the help of the airbrush and a business card, I applied some subtle color gradations to the main panels of the vehicle.

Then, I painted the objects and figures using Turner Acryl Gouache. This paint is very cheap in Japan and I was given many tubes as gifts in the past. Once everything was painted, I applied a coat of lacquer varnish (Mr. Super clear gloss). After that, I glued all the decals and added another coat of lacquer varnish.

As for the diorama, I bought salmon pink soft clay from Daiso to represent the sand (mixed with white soft clay) and a small box to contain the Tamiya clear epoxy resin. Finally, I added some objects and fallen leaves that I made with a leaf punch from Green Stuff.

And these are the results from the back and right side of the diorama. I think the diorama has the appropriate amount of details and the compositions is good. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to complete it because I had to return to Spain.