20mm Modern Landrover WMIK

Since there's been some interest in my 20mm UK modern vehicles, I'll show you how I did it as a semi-tutorial. You may need to fill in some of the blanks in between steps. This technique can really be used to convert any of your favorite die-cast vehicles into a usable military vehicle.

 

The Second is the Modern UK Landrover WMIK. I got tired of trying to find one online and in stock, so I decided to make some myself. (Of course, having more time than money on hand helps as well.)

 

Materials: Matchbox vehicle, appropriate paint, white glue, super glue or plastic's glue, paper towel (Bounty, etc..), plasticard or styrene sheet, balsa wood, x-acto knife, and a dremel with cutoff wheel.

Step 1:

The vehicle build begins with a Matchbox Landrover 4x4 off-road vehicle. (There are several colors to choose from, but it doesn't really matter since it will be painted.)

 

Step 2:

Disassemble the vehicle cutting around the rivets on the bottom of the vehicle. This makes it soooo much easier and cleaner to work on and paint.  I built 4 of these, with two different versions.  On 2 of them, I removed the wheel from the hood assembly and filled in the round hole with a piece of plasticard.  On the black plastic roll cage assembly, I removed some of the 'baggage' to be re-used later. 

Step 3:

Details are added.

Left Vehicle: 

(A) Plasticard is used to cover the hole in the front hood.

(B) A rolled up piece of tissue is glued in place at the rear of the front hood.  A piece of 'baggage' is glued in front of it, to semi-hide the plasticard repair.

(C) Another, longer rolled up piece of tissue is glued on the roll cage behind the driver. 

(D) Additional tissue is cut to fit the rear gunner station, then coated in watered-down white glue and glued in place. I tried to keep the netting to a minimum so as not to interfere with crew members when I add them.

(E) The cut off tire is re-glued to the left side of the vehicle. 

 

Right Vehicle:

(A) A piece of 'baggage' is glued to the right of the spare tire on the hood.

(B) A longer rolled up piece of tissue is glued on the roll cage behind the driver.

(c) Additional tissue is cut to fit the rear gunner station, then coated in watered-down white glue and glued in place.

(D) Other 'baggage' could be glued to the sides of the vehicle.  I made some additional ones cut and shaped out of balsa wood.   These included extra ammo boxes and gasoline cans.   

Step 4:

Here, the left and right vehicles are reversed, but they have been given their coat of paint.  The body was sprayed with a sand color and the base black.

 

Step 5:

The last step is to glue the final assemblies together.

 

Step 6:

I still have to finish stenciling and weathering the vehicle, but that is coming shortly. I also ordered some UK WMIK crews w/guns from Liberation miniatures which haven't been fitted to the vehicles yet or painted.

 

Here's a couple of pictures showing what I was building from: