Dragon 9037

[Beverly Zielonko]

Havingrecently purchased this kit at a very reasonable price i was chuffed to get it started. However..... it has some serious skeletons and after trying to find reviews/builds on tinterweb I came up a blank. So fear not! I will fill that gap with a build review of my own!

What little info I could find on the kit didn't fill me with pleasure, the general opinion being poor fit, lacking accuracy, terrible instructions and weirdly pot luck on which sprues you got in the kit based on a couple of reboxings and updates. however i've seen some pictures of the finished kit by others and with effort and modelling panache it can be made into a lovely looking kit. So thats my aim for this one, something that looks like a Firefly and is nicely modelled, painted and weathered. So rivet counters and accuracy lawyers beware this one isnt for you! I couldnt give a monkeys about how high that turret bustle is or if that radio box is the right shape etc

Any way, I've started the build and I can confirm it's a pig! more on that later. My plan is to build her buttoned up with the turret traversed slightly to one side as if taking aim. I will also be adding stowage, gubbins, flotasam and jetsam etc to her in order to hide some pretty awful casting texture and then to mount her on a nice base. In terms of aftermarket I intend to use a bit of PE and a new barrell from RB productions then we'll see where we go from there.

Majority of the grumbles with this one are the wheels and suspension bogies. Basically a common theme seems to be that the bogies are missing the three bolts found at the bottom between the wheels and that the wheels them selves have no rear detail and are missing the inserts at the back to make them look complete. Not so in my case! It seems lady luck is on my side so far as i have some updated sprues!

One of the criticisms aimed at the kit is the over done cast texture of the hybrid hull and transmission housing. It looks like dragon referenced a hulk that had sat rusting for 70 years. See images...

As you can see it's really over the top so with reckless abandon I sought to rectify this by washing the entire area with Plastic Weld which acts in much the same way as extra thin plastic cement and this pretty much melted a lot of it away leaving a much more acceptable (not perfect) representation of cast metal as can be seen below.

Then it was on to the VVS suspension. there were a lot of parts involved here but overall not much clean up and ejector pin marks were mostly in areas that wont be seen. Each bogie consists of 10 pieces which are then mounted onto the lower hull. the only thing to watch out for was the idler mounting/ axles, the fit was atrocious it was almost as if they were the wrong parts and a lot of sanding and fettling was needed to get them to fit, I'm yet to find out if this has an effect on the track fit but we shall see.

The plate that covers the mesh screen rear of the turret sits too high, or the turret sits too low, either way this block traverse of the turret. not a big deal for me as ill be posing the gun offset but for those that want it eyes front as it were you're going to need to do some creative sanding or leave the cover off the grill.

Etch is from ET models and I have to say I'm really impressed. you get a lot for your money including a nice tow cable which i'd love to use but unfortunately this old kit doesn't come with the towing eyes!

Next up is the resin stowage from Value Gear which is easily the best resin I've ever seen. Absolutely no clean up, no casting blocks, sink holes or poor castings just 100% flawless crisp detailing. See for yourselves....

So to start off after looking at some photos and doing a fair amount of reading I decided to add the cheek applique armour based on the fact the turret in the kit doesn't have the cast in piece found on some fireflies.

I also at this point added the front fenders and test fitted the hull. Sad to say the fit in this area is also naff. There's a huge gap between the transmission housing and the hull join and all around underneath there are various steps and gaps dotted around. I'll tackle these at a later date with filler etc but the front will be mostly hidden behind stowage and spare track links so I reckon I'll get away without having to tidy it up too much.

lastly I tackled the rear of the tank, adding the exhausts and filters. One thing I could see coming due to the lack of parts in this area was the fact that there was a huge void looking up into the inside of the hull where there should be a mesh screen and deflector. The kit would just have the exhaust tips protruding from the hole. Even though you're not likely to see this due to the lip of the rear hull and the storage box on the back I decided it wasn't good enough and detailed it up a bit using some mesh I had spare from Tamiya's Cromwell. I just measured it up and cut it to shape. I'll make a frame for it to complete the look but this is it for now....

At least with these Dragon Shermans you get about half another kit in spare parts. On that score, I have several spare transmission castings if you want to swap out yours? I might even have a spare of the bolt-plate that joins it to the hull- it is very easy to get it in the wrong place in the Dragon kit so it doesn't surprise me at all that you ended up with a gap there!

I'd love to take a replacement off you mate but to be honest my chosen glue is plastic weld which really does what it says on the tin so I'd need to do some pretty drastic clean up if I were to hack the diff off at this stage! lol

Anyway I've been slowly cracking on and have made a fair amount of progress. All that's really left to do is add the various tools, bend and fit the light guards and a few other bits of etch here and there and of course the tracks.

The rear idlers were ridiculous! They just don't locate at all. The holes in the wheel are far too big and the axels are far too thin. Not only that there is a locating peg on the end of each axel which had to be chopped off as it didn't locate into anything and if left on would have misaligned the idlers outwards by about 2mm so the track fit would have been diabolical.

Not a fan of the bucket in this one, it's massive! don't think I'll include it. It's from the Tamiya jerry can set and is supposed to be 1/35th but looks huge in comparison to crew in the same scale. I know RB models do some nice ones so maybe I'll opt for one of them.

Lots of stowage on the front to hide the massive albeit filled gap between the transmission casing and the hull. The plank is a cut down coffee stirrer from McDonalds which I dropped in a muddy puddle to give it that battered grubby look. Complete waste of time as it'll be painted over fairly soon! but at least I know in future the technique looks authentic.

Yeah twice in 3 weeks! It's not even close, 3.5 hour drive but when you've been once and seeing as your ticket becomes an annual pass it's rude not to make the most of it! Add on to that my younger brothers a tanker based on Bovington camp with the house hold cavalry then it becomes an even more worth while trip.

Where do you buy Joanne/JF fabrics? Is it only to the trade? I love the idea of the Roxbury print for a throw pillow (I too have some fabulous dragons in my den and need some coordinating pillows ? ). Thanks for any help!

King Darkstalker was a male, animus, thrice-moonborn NightWing - IceWing hybrid, and the son of Foeslayer and Prince Arctic. He was said to have been described as the largest dragon the world had ever seen when he was freed in Escaping Peril, his wingspan being as wide as the mountain they were on. However, in Talons of Power, he was described as "three times bigger than a full grown dragon". In Talons of Power, Darkstalker became king of the NightWings, promising that if they joined him he could grant them any power that they could imagine, (except for animus power.) In Darkness of Dragons, Kinkajou enchanted a strawberry to turn Darkstalker into a one year old dragonet (with no memories of his past self) using scraps from Darkstalker's scroll. He now lives as Peacemaker with his mother Foeslayer, (memories still intact) who's new name is Hope.

Darkstalker has been described as handsome and charming[1], with glittering black and silver scales[2], eyes as black as underground caverns, and long, twisting horns[3]. On the inside of his midnight-black wings[4], there is a seam of white IceWing scales where the membrane meets his side[5], described by Clearsight to be as cold as IceWing scales, the sole indicator that he's part IceWing. Additionally, he has a silver teardrop-shaped scale next to each eye[6], showcasing his powers of mind reading.

Two thousand years before the start of the second series (3012 A.S.), Darkstalker was the first known animus dragon to be hatched of the NightWing tribe, unlike his sister Whiteout. He was the son of Foeslayer the NightWing and Prince Arctic of the IceWings. Being born under three full moons gave him the power to not only read minds but to also be able to tell the future. One of his animus creations were three enchanted star sapphires that give their owner the ability to appear in others' dreams if the dragon was in a deep enough sleep talk to them. called dreamvisitors, One of the dreamvisitors was for his best friend Fathom, a SeaWing animus. The other was for his love Clearsight, who could see all possible futures, and the third was for himself. The dreamvisitors were meant to link the three dragons, no matter how far apart they were.

Darkstalker became too powerful and he began to frighten the other NightWings in his tribe. It was also rumored that he plotted to overthrow the current NightWing queen and seize the throne for himself, both of which were revealed to be true in his "Legends" book. Later, Darkstalker's hatred of his father became too much, so he killed his own father for casting a spell on his sister and attempting to take her to the Ice Kingdom. Darkstalker enchanted Prince Arctic to obey his every command and made his father disembowel himself, and that scared the NightWings into fleeing their city and to the volcanic island. After this, Clearsight and Prince Fathom soon agreed that Darkstalker had become too power-hungry. Clearsight then had Fathom enchant her bracelet (Darkstalker had given it to her to protect her thoughts from his mind-reading abilities) to put Darkstalker to sleep forever when he puts it on. It was the only time after the SeaWing Massacre and his oath to his sister, Queen Pearl, that Fathom used his animus power. Clearsight had placed it on Darkstalker herself, and in the instant, before he fell into sleep, Darkstalker saw how much she loved and feared him, and showed a hint of resentment for his misguided acts against her. The bracelet put Darkstalker to sleep for two thousand years until he woke up around six months before the time of Moon Rising due to the bracelet's destruction caused by the earthquakes at the end of The Brightest Night. It is unknown what exactly happened to Clearsight after Darkstalker was put to sleep, but she might have become an explorer and headed off to The Lost Continent. She also may have died laying next to Darkstalker's body as she thought of him as her best friend or maybe even his true love (Darkstalker thought so according to his 'Legends' book). After she slipped the enchanted bracelet onto Darkstalker's arm, she laid down next to the sleeping Darkstalker in the path of an avalanche she saw in the future. However, the latter is confirmed to be false because, as revealed in Darkstalker's Legends book, Clearsight blocked off the cave with rocks before flying off in search of The Lost Continent.

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