Useful reading

When I was on holiday in Japan during November I went into the model shop near the hotel: Orion Models. It's a traditional local model shop with a mix of new and very old kits... and being Japanese, there's a cafe included in the place.
The reason I mention this shop is because on one of my visits there I picked up a 'mook' (Magazine-bOOK) which is about building dioramas for cars... specifically 1/32 Japanese cars!  Lucky me.

It also has articles on settings for Tomica minicars and Dinky scale cars... so all round very interesting.  There  are step-by-step guides which are useful, even if they are in monochrome.  The book dates from 2008, so one would expect full colour.  Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.

On one page there is an advert for a related book, a special all about car dioramas, Showa Era dioramas at that!  I felt frustrated since here was a book which could provide me with so much inspiration, yet the chance of getting a copy was pretty slim.

Then one day I was looking at Hobby Link Japan's website... and there it was!  I made sure it was under HMRC's tax threshold and ordered it.  It arrived a couple of week's later (in a box, believe it or not) and I pounced on it.  Full colour throughout, good clear photos and masses of inspiration!

While leafing through the book one thing struck me as a little annoying: the figures in the dioramas are painted in a very rough manner.  All of the care and attention paid to the cars and structures, and the realistic groundwork seems to be for nothing when the figures are so sloppy.
I have a military modelling background where diorama figures are painted with same care and attention that the rest of the diorama is treated with, so I just find it odd to see work like this.  I think a majority of the figures are either kitbashed or scratchbuilt, as Japanese civilians in this scale are almost unheard of.  Only Aurora models produce 1/32 figures, and they are of modern Japanese schoolgirls and women.

Anyway, really happy to have these book in my armoury.  2013 will hopefully be the year of my first Showa diorama.

To my readers and visitors please have a very Merry Christmas, wherever you are, and a Happy New Year!