Hedges, House and Her Majesty's Secret Service

Hobby Lobby sometimes has some interesting terrain items,

This is a collection of hedges and bushes, in HO scale.

I got this little house at the dollar store.  It needed a little repainting but turned out okay.

Not bad for a couple bucks, note the upstairs window and window box are not painted at all!

The ends of these little buildings often don't get painted.

But I use the cheapest dollar store paints on them and they are economical and durable.

They work fine for background buildings.

They are seasonal and seldom do they have the same ones two years in a row.

Mr. Bond approaches a country home.

No one is home so he returns to his DB5.
 

Ice Water Enclosure

Seal as aero-san arrives.

Aero-san in the north pole as polar bear greets him.

The Penguin and a penguin.

With the Penguin-Mobile.

Mr. Freeze and his Freeze-Mobile.

This bit of terrain has many possible uses.
 

Parade Poster

The Soviet Union liked propaganda posters.  I got this one off the Internet someplace.

Notice how the men often look like Stalin?  Probably coincidence.

Print the poster and use either spray glue or a glue stick and past it to a bit of fiber board.

Or cardboard, or thin wood, or plastic, or cereal boxes, or foam core board.  I used a bit of foam core board as a prop to hold up the poster.  Add tanks and a few civilians and you have an instant parade.
 

Sherman Tanks and Building

Years ago I got a bunch of model building bits from Brookhurst Hobbies in Garden Grove, CA.  They had been broken up in shipping and so they gave me a great deal.  I have been gluing them back together and this one had such a bad base I glued them to a new plastic base.

I am making good use of the Rust-Oleum 2x flat primer.

Getting the tanks and the buildings primered.

These are my HO scale part Roco and part Heiser Models.

The USA made nearly 50,000 Shermans in World War Two.

So I have rather a lot of them in my collection.

I do need more late war Shermans.

But my early WWI and mid-war collection is pretty good.

They fit nicely with the building.

Washington, D.C.

Whenever I visit tourist sites, I always look for hobby items.

A 3D puzzle is a good way to get plans for a building.

Then you can enlarge or reduce copy the parts to make a larger or smaller building.

I was disappointed that the buildings were made in China.

This 3D model of the Lincoln Memorial is very nice.

 Again, made in Communist China.

 The Lincoln Memorial is a classic building, it's worth building Washington, D.C. in miniature just for this.

Mr. Lincoln

 The Lincoln Memorial has this statue inside.

 This is  a very accurate presentation of that statue.

The real statue is marble in white.
  

The statue works well with 1/72nd scale figures.

Jefferson

Inside the Jefferson Memorial is this statue.

I got a copy of this so when I build my Washington, I can use this for it.

This metal model is nicely detailed.

It's just the right size for 1/72nd scale figures.

Monument

The equipment on these troops is not even close to USMC troops from WWII.

None of the men were wearing a bandoleer of ammo around the shoulder.

In the real monument the weapons and gear were exactly as in the photo.

I think the worst part is the helmets, they sit high up on their heads.

Still, when placed with 1/72nd scale figures, the effect is pretty good.