Russia
Russian cheerleaders
I’m not so sure about the excessive use of knee length socks, but otherwise just unwrap a few of these and send them to my room.
“Make love with a cheerleader” is in my list of a hundred things to do, after all.
The future of a Soviet past
It would be neat to do a story where the Cold War spawned some of the madder things predicted and use resurgent Communists as the enemy for a change rather than the good old Nazis. So these illustrations from Communist pulp magazines make for neat reference.
Baikonur and St. Petersburg
English Russia keeps delivering the goods with cool photo collections. The Baikonur space launch facilities in Kazakhstan, as photographed by a visitor and the darker side of St. Petersburg.
Technorati tag: Scale Models
Mini Moscow
Moscow Town Hall holds architectural models of the city which look impressive in this set of photos.
Technorati tag: Scale Models
Alternate Soviet navy
English Russia has photos of planned Soviet helicopter and aircraft carriers that never made it beyond the planning- and display model- stage.
Technorati tag: Scale Models
Soyuz on the train
io9 has pictures of a Soyuz rocket being hauled across the desert to its launch site by a diesel train. It might be hard to scale match a model of the rocket (or even find one, I couldn’t get a match for “Soyuz” at Hannants) and a Russian train, but think of the diorama possibilities.
Technorati tag: Scale Models
Russian soldiers in Chechnya
This photoset from English Russia shows Russian troops in less hectic moments during the Chechen conflict.
Technorati tag: Scale Models
St. Petersburg reconstruction
The anniversary of the siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) was recently celebrated with a huge reconstruction of the battle featuring authentic uniforms and tanks.
Wikipedia history of St. Petersburg/Leningrad
Technorati tag: Scale Models
GAZ 51 hot rod
Oh those crazy Russians. The GAZ 51 was a Russian workhorse during teh Second World War. Now one of them is being turned into a custom pickup.
Model Wheels do a GAZ 51 in 1:72nd, if you want to emulate the project.
Technorati tag: Scale Models
Russian tank museum
English Russia has photos from a tank museum near Moscow. Started in 1931, the collection now numbers near 300 vehicles.
Technorati tag: Scale Models, Russia
Russian photo reference
English Russia remains a great source of photographs for reference and inspiration.
World War 2 Photos by Dmitri Bal’termants
Military Aircraft Show in Monino. Moscow
Abandoned Trains of the Soviet Era
Technorati tag: Scale Models, Russia
Street surfing in Russia
Russia’s been having a summer of heavy rain as well, flooding a number of cities. Ingenious lunatics have just used the flooded streets as an excuse to create a new sport- Street surfing.
A tank from a lake
Tanks from the Second World War are still being pulled out of the lakes around St. Petersburg. If I remember my history correctly, the city was resupplied across the frozen lakes during the winter phases of the siege and at times the ice broke. The site refers to it as a “BT” tank. You can get BT5 or BT7 tanks in 1:35th scale from Zvezda, or BT5, BT7 or BT2 from Unimodel in 1:72nd. A salvage operation like this would make for an interesting diorama.
Technorati tag: Scale Models, Russia, Reference
Bizarre Russian tanks
Strange Russian tank designs on English Russia.
Technorati tag: Scale Models, Tank, Russia