I picked up Gecko Model’s 1/35 British landing craft assault (LCA) this past January while I was in Japan and my initial impression was quite good. Surface detail is quite crisp and the build seemed straightforward. I chose to build think kit as part of a D-Day 80th groupbuild I am participating in and I really wanted to step away from traditional armour/aircraft subjects and try my hand at a really unique and somewhat forgotten vehicle. This is my first “naval” subject if you can call it that, seeing as it has very few similarities (in terms of build strategy) with 1/350 and 1/700 warships. I’m aiming to have this project complete by June 6th so there’s quite a bit of work to be done.
Construction started with the wood floorboards and the interior spaces of the vehicle. I decided to completely finish the interior before moving on to more advanced stages of construction due to the fact that conducting and fine detail work after the deck was attached to the hull would be nearly impossible. Finding usable sources was a bit tricky and the painting and weathering of the interior was largely left up to my interpretation of the subject. I kept things simple due to the fact that I didn’t want this build to spiral into a super-detailed project. I opted to not add woodgrain texture but still added some variation to the wood paneling colour. I also decided to include worn paint on the floorboards. I didn’t have a reference photo to support this but chose to do so in order to add some visual interest. It’s plausible that the floorboards could have been painted over to protect them and I like the end result.
The interior work was tedious but not especially challenging. I did have some slight issues ensuring that the floor was completely set on the bottom and I also found that in one specific area the deck was not completely flat with the sides of the hull. These were just minor issues however and I had the deck glued on in short order.
In terms of the construction phase of this build that was pretty much it! The kit was extremely straightforward in its construction and only took about a week or two to get it to a stage ready for paint. I did chose to add some detail here however and I added a rough cast texture on the included anchor:
Thanks for looking! In my next post I’ll be going into detail on the painting and dealing process for this D-Day transport!
Nomad Models 