You do know that virtually ever resin figure sold on Aliepress is a Chinese pirated re-cast/copy of someone else’s figure right? And buying these is supporting this illegal effort and definitely not supporting our hobby, but on the contrary is actually hurting it? The price should be a give away - I found these on Aliexpress and they are $27 for four 1/16 half figures!
The picture you posted is a set of figures produced by Sol Model and retails for $90:
Would you buy AHHQ’s Sherman at half the price if you knew it was a pirated copy?
I assume you mean items on Ebay and Amazon from China? If so, yes, that is the case as well, although there are a few reputable Chinese sellers on Ebay selling resin figures that are not re-casts.
@jfeenstra
Oh wow, that’s not okay. So where’s the incentive to produce new stuff if someone is just going to copy your work and then under sell your price? I can’t even imagine how I’d feel of I was the original sculptor, especially if he was trying to recoup upfront costs for producing his set.
I bought something on Amazon once that I later learned it was pirated. I wrote amazon to tell them that I didn’t care if I got a refund but I was returning the item on pure principle. They did offer an apology, sent me my refund and a link for the actual item, Ironically it was only a handful of dollars more. I told their customer service person that they should stop selling items that are pirated and he agreed. That experience left a sour taste in my mouth my Amazon purchases are way down since that happened.
I’m going to pay more attention to see who released what originally and then make sure I get something that hasn’t been pirated. There was also a set of tank riders announced on armorama about 1-2 months ago that appeared to be a direct copy of the original tank rider poses from dragon like ten years ago in 1/35. At least those weren’t a direct copy in terms of the actual figure size and molds but they still copied the poses down to the last detail which I found very troubling…
I just used glossy white paint, flat black for the telescopic sight and seats, olive drab for the ammo box, then I did some dry brushing on the breech block to give it a more metallic look, then it was just some black and white mixed to create the chipping. It’s the bad lighting that makes the paint look so strange. I no longer have a fancy set up for taking photos so I think it looks better in person…
After reading what the guys posted I think I’ll continue never having ordered from them…like you said, a lot of figures will be produced now that this kit is out and I’ll just wait until the classy hobby ones are available. Plus I’m sure Andy will stock some at some point…
I buy a lot of stuff on ebay. A few pointers I have learned about recasters. Usually all they have is the resin and nothing else. they do not have the box or package, instructions (or they are a really crappy copy), decals or PE (if they come with the real kit). Read the details of the listing and compare it to the real thing. If any of those items (or all of them) are not included, it’s likely a copy/fake.
Ken
If they maintain the same level of engineering and simplicity of design that they offer in this kit, then I believe it’s going to be an amazing kit.
The beauty of what Andy is doing with AHHQ is that his input as a modeler is clearly showing in the execution of these kits. I’m not saying it hasn’t been done before but unfortunately it is not common practice in the industry.
I think these AHHQ kits are going to be talked about and coveted by modelers for a long time…
My progress has been slow but a LOT of that is due to my inexperience in working with Takom plastic and 1/16 scale. Also I’m not just building mine OOTB so that adds extra time in planning and execution.
Tell you what, I haven’t built german in over 35 years but Andy’s tiger might be too tempting to pass up.
Thanks for the info, I made one purchase on ebay like 20 years ago and I never went back. My experience was so so but then I read and heard so much negative stuff, so I just never went back.
It’s probably the easiest thing you’ll do on yours. You just mask and paint the sub assemblies separately then I glued them together sprayed them with a clearcoat and when that was dry I weathered it a little and then sprayed it with a dullcoat…
Looking back I didn’t plan this thru as best as I should’ve, I needed the coaxial .30 cal to put on the turret like so many of these tanks had the two machine guns place forward for anti-personnel use. Now I’ll have to buy an AM .30 cal to place on the turret. Not all of these uparmoured shermans had them but a lot of them did.
I have it third on my to do list…watching your build for any snags…first time I will be building something bigger than 1/35…so looking forward to something different.
These little axles, now I’m not sure if the wheels are designed to spin independently on the ends of these or if the wheels are supposed to spin in unison thru the middle section of these axles. Even after careful cleanup, the fit on these is so incredibly tight both inside the wheel hubs and on the boggie arms that I almost broke parts trying to take them apart while dry fitting them. I sand everything but the plastic is soft and spinning them a few times cause the plastic to almost bond. This doesn’t affect me much because I won’t be moving the tracks on this at all and I might just glue everything, bogies and tracks into place so nothing moves.
This is probably a dumb thing to do but I decided to simply glue these axles in place to avoid losing them. You can see in the background behind my hand one already centered and glued in place. You have to center them so the ends of the axles stick out equally on both sides, honestly these are so snug I probably didn’t even need to glue them at all but did. Later when everything is painted I’ll just snap the wheels on and they won’t be needing any glue because there is zero chance of them ever coming loose the fit is super tight.
I won’t be dry fitting anymore of these wheels on I almost broke these things trying to take them apart took all the strength I have in my fingers.
To anyone who may be interested, I just found out that on Facebook, there is a group dedicated to building and detailing AHHQ’s M4A3E8…it was started by Andy himself.
I wish I could join but my wife and I don’t approve of social media, we don’t have any accounts anywhere. I participate on a couple of forums, one for baseball, here for tanks, and one for my collectible toys, that’s it…
Sorry no photo update on the Sherman, the bogies are built and the wheels have been scuffed up and filled etc…I’ll be painting those soon then I’ll post an update and move on to the hull.
BTW, I don’t know if this has been posted but Andy has a couple of resin stowage sets available for this Sherman tank. I put one on my Christmas list and look forward to getting that in a few weeks. I’ll go ahead and post some images and thoughts when I see that in hand.
The AHHQ Sherman has been a joy so far, my eyes especially are really enjoying working at this scale with just my reading glasses, I’ll worry about display space later, LOL
