With the Daimler Dingo, the Humber Scout Car was one of the most popular reconnaissance vehicles of WWII. It’s not exactly a nice looking vehicle but after a while it kind of grows on you.

When it started to take shape I looked at it with different eyes. I can almost say I like it…

The Kit

Price
Accuracy/Detail
Build
Extras
Instructions

Unless a kit is an absolute "dog", some care and dry fitting cure most of the issues I found in many of these less good kits.

The kit comes with a nice choice of decals but most of the versions saw service after the war of just at the end. However, there is one that suits me perfectly. It was used in Italy in 1944 and has a very nice camouflage scheme. This kit needs some painting variations in order to make it a little more interesting. I guess that a plain bronze green car would turn this into a green "box" with wheels.

The instructions are not bad, although the sequence of drawings is strange. The decal placement drawings are quite bad, but after reading through the instructions 4 or 5 times I kind of understood what they meant.

Building

It’s very straightforward. Dry fit is in order and some plastic shaving is needed for perfect fit, but I built the basic chassis and suspension in a couple of hours. I used Tamiya thin liquid glue on all the build and just some putty to make sink marks disappear on the inside cabin floor.

It’s one of those kits that can be completed very fast with excellent results.

As you can see, from where I am to the final stages it’s a just a matter of a few hours. I decided to detail the interior (bot not to a huge extent) mainly because the kit comes with a very detailed set of parts for it. I’m not going to dive into the super detailing with cables from point A to B and all that stuff, but I’m going to weather it and paint it.

Of course, none of that work will be visible in the end so I have to take some pictures of it. That s the problem with super detailed interiors. Either you have a way to show them or it’s just a plain waste of time. I just use that work to train my weathering and painting skills.

Painting

After the interior painting session there was little left to do on the interior. The phase I like the most was about to start. But before I had to solve a little problem. Create weld lines between the top and the bottom of the chassis. There is a ridge on the original Humber (reproduced on the kit) but there are also weld lines on between those surfaces.

I could have done the traditional stretched sprue with glue but I decided to try the Archer weld lines decals. Ther behave like a normal decal (almost) and have to be applied before the paint. To make it stick to the surface I use gloss varnish because I remove all the decal film I can and the decal has no way to adhere.

A coat of Vallejo 70821 with some highlighting for the base and then 2 long hours creating the hard edge camo with masking tape. A spray of 70995 Grey and that was it. However I made an error on one of the sides and created a negative of the camo. Touching, retouching and finally after a while I could remove all that tape again and go on to the next phase.

I normally apply filters at this stage because they behave very well over matt colors and I used Grey for white suefaces to break down the very dark grey and also some grey for yeallow surfaces to create different color tones around the vehicle. This will be ehanced by mapping and some streaks with oils.

The paint was sealed with a coat of gloss varnish in preparation for the decals and for all the phases that will happen after – Streaks, pigments and pin washes.

Decals

The instructions on this kit are not at the same level as the kit itself. They are vague and need a lot of attention, and especially the decal placement and painting drawings are particularly poor.

There are not many decals to apply, and they are very good and respond well to Microsol and Microset. They are printed by Cartograf with excellent opacity and colors. The only thing that needed attention was the placement on declas on the rear water/fuel cans. They were cut in half after placement on the cans, and profusely brushed with Microsol. The decals conformed to the cans perfectly.

After decal placement another gloss coat over them to oprotect for the following phases and ready for weathering and detail painting.

Washes and detail painting

It’s very frequent to see chipped Axis vehicles but much less frequent to find British chipped and weathered vehicles. I used some logic onthis one.

1. The dark camouflage color was painted over the light color
2. Under the light color there is primer and metal

So I created some scratches of Dark Mud over the Blue Grey camouflage in places where the wear would happen. Some of them even show metal.

The same approach for the ligther color, bit this time creating chips with an even lighter color with some metal spots in the middle.

This is a process I repeat at the end is I need to balance the final model a bit. The idea is to look after the first session of chipping because when I look aftar a few days I can see errors I missed the first time.

And of course, photography is crucial to spot the errors or omissions on the model.

Pigments

The underside of this model will be profusely coated with pigments. I use a mix of Europe Dust, Russian Earth, Ashes and CMK pigments (Sandy Dust, Light Dust)

I normally apply them separate and one over the other untill I get the color I want. I then blend them with Mineral White spirits, altough in some places where I need a color contrats I just drop some solvent over them without blending.

Since this is a Italy invasion (september 43) I’m going to depict a dusty vehicle and not a muddy one. It does not rain that much in Souther Italy at the end of the Summer. At least not enough for mud.

The figure

The kit included figure with a Hornet head. The headphone wires were made with stretched sprue

This kit comes with a resin figure. It has a very adequate pose and fairly good sculpture and I decided to use it on the model. However, when browsing on my "stock" I started to compare the Hornet heads with the one on the figure. The decision was – Head transplant. You can judge the result, but I believe that the figure ended up a very decent one. It was painted entirely with Vallejo acrylics and I just removed a couple of seam lines and made the headphones wire with stretched sprue.

History

Although at the outbreak of the World War II the British Army already had the excellent Daimler Dingo, the need for scout cars could not be met by Daimler alone, so other companies were required to produce similar vehicles. One of these companies was Rootes group, which in 1942 built a vehicle similar to the Dingo in layout.

To comply with the government contract to keep the weight down, the Daimler "Dingo" was open top, whereas the Humber had an unarmoured floor.

The vehicle carried a crew of two, with an emergency seat for a third member. It was equipped with a No. 19 radio set. The armament consisted of one Bren light machine gun with a 100-round drum. A second Bren could be added if necessary. This was mounted on a Parrish-Lakeman mounting above the roof, and could be operated from inside the vehicle using a system looking similar to bicycle handlebars, where the "brake" levers fired the triggers of the bren/s.

Production of the vehicles continued until 1945. At least 4,298 were ordered and at least 4,102 delivered, 1,698 of them Mk I. They were used by British armoured units (e.g. the 11th Armoured Division and the Guards Armoured Division) for scouting and liaison and were generally considered less capable and reliable than the Dingo. A number of vehicles were given to the Polish II Corps and the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade. After the war, the vehicle was used by some European armies. Belgian police continued to use the car until 1958.

Source (Wikipedia)

Pictures

The interior that's going to be invisible

The hard edge camo was made with the use of Tamiya paper tape

Vallejo colors all the way.

The kit included figure with a Hornet head. The headphone wires were made with stretched sprue