Sahel Conflicts: Toytoa Technicals

Another set of vehicles that were part of the unpainted pile of shame.  I received these two Toyota techincals as part of Miska Miniatures North African Kickstarter back in 2022. I didn't (and still don't) have a 3D printer, so I opted for the physical copies rather than the STL files.

The physical prints had some issues. It appeared that the printing supports were not robust enough for the prints, so the vehicles sagged as they were created.  This caused stress cracks in both models. For the crew cab truck, it also caused the truck bed to noticeably bend and the roof rack to peel up in a few spots. The bent truck bed could be explained in game as a bent frame from rough use in the desert, but everything else looked unacceptable. I debated requesting new prints but decided I'd try my hand at repairs first. The roof rack was reassembled with superglue and clamps, and the cracks were filled with putty and sanded down. Luckily the end results were good enough for the table.

Painting the technicals was a bit tricky.  While the figures and machine guns were sperate pieces, all the gear was printed in place. This made it very hard to get the brushes into the tight spaces. To compensate, I used a liberal amount of dark wash in those areas to hide the bare areas. Weathering was done with a bit of drybrushing and the Mig pigments (a mix of brick dust and North African dust) applied with solvent.

Both figures were a bit fiddly to position in the trucks, but the Tuareg with the DShK machine gun was especially problematic. His left hand was printed as part of the truck bed rather than on the fighter, and I couldn’t get it to connect to his body properly when aligning him to hold the machine gun and sit flat on his seat. I have no idea why they chose this poor assembly option rather than having the hand attached to his arm, but the 2mm gap looked awful.  I ended up filling the gap with thick superglue. It looked wonky at eye level since the hand and arm connected at a strange angle, but fortunately it didn’t stand out when looking from above. 

The trucks were listed as being 1/56 scale and were very close in size to an old Footsore/SASM truck in my collection (I believe now out of production). The Empress technical (the least favorite modern vehicle I own) remained the squat oddball of my collection.

Despite the issues I had with the print quality, fit, and ease of painting, these Toyota technicals became my favorites out of the four I own. They had more detailing than the resin/metal models, and all the gear piled on them resulted in added character and a real life feel.  I look forward to having a chance to put them on the table.