WWG Channel 5 News Van

This is a kitbash of the van design that I showed you last time and it's an absolute cracker! The kitbash was designed by Bob Cooper and is part of the Emergency Response package, which also contains an ambulance and two police interceptors. I'll be reviewing the ambulance and police interceptors at a later date.

I love how the number plates have been personalised to read "5NEWS." The one thing that makes this van stand out from the ones I reviewed last time is the inclusion of the satellite uplink dish. After I'd cut out the dish from my normal printer paper, I glued the front to the back without reinforcing it, which goes against the grain from my normal procedure. Because of its curved shape, there was no way that I could reinforce it with mounting card. Not that I'd want to anyway. The dish itself should be thin, so I figured a double layer of 130gm photo paper should suffice. And it has!

However, the support for the dish has been reinforced with mounting card. You can see this clearly from the photo below, which shows just how thick the support structure is. You can also see how I have "edged" (i.e. colouring the white edges of the card) with acrylic paint. I use acrylics for two reasons. First, I can perfectly match the edging to its surrounding colour and secondly, acrylics stiffen the card better than felt tip pens.

As with the normal vans, I cut the spare tyre out from the back of the van and turned it into a 3-D structure by gluing three pieces of mounting card together that had been cut to shape.

What I love about this kitbash is that, first of all, it answered my plea to see a van with a company logo painted on its sides (and front), and secondly, Bob has gone the extra mile by including the satellite dish. It is that inclusion that turns this from being a good model into a great model. A news van is a great addition to any game. Whether you are playing a zombie apocalypse, superhero campaign or anything else set in the modern/near future era, the press will always be nosing around... whether you want them to or not!