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Rejoice British AFV modelers! Chris “Toadman” Hughes continues his series of walkarounds with this volume, his 14th, dedicated to the A34 Comet. This is great news as references for Bronco’s kit release are not so easy to find.
If you are using a Windows platform, the CD should start by itself to take you on a journey of the armored vehicles. If using a MAC, there is an insert which explains how to use the CD. Not having a Mac handy, I was unable to test how this Photo CD worked on Apple’s platform.
I prefer to look at the images in a graphics program so as to be able to manipulate them. For this, I right click on the CD drive and click on Explore. This opens a folder where I can then right click on a file, ‘open with’, and choose the graphics program. Using a graphics program will let me zoom in, change the gamma or increase the brightness of an image.
Now, let’s get back to this CD. Inside there are 261 photos with one GIF file used as a background. The photo quality is excellent with a good resolution at 300dpi and a nice size of 1504 by 1000 pixels. This translates into clear images when printed. The pictures on this CD were taken at the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation (MVTF) also known as Jacques Littlefield’s collection.
The autoplay feature has the user come to a start page which then leads to a table of contents. Here, one can find a quick history on the vehicle, reference sources, acknowledgements, and mission statement. This CD was created with the modeler in mind…and it shows.
The vehicle is divided into turret exterior (74 photos), hull exterior (104 photos), suspension (19 photos), turret interior (37 photos), and hull interior (25 photos). Upon choosing the one of the five areas of the tank one wishes to ‘walk around’, a new table of contents appears for each section of the Comet. These sections then list all the pages dedicated to the chosen section as well as the previous or following sections table of contents. Each HTML page has simple but interesting captions which point out details as well as a navigation which allows one to go to the next page, the previous page, the sections table of contents, or the main table of contents. Certainly a well thought out plan.
Having the Bronco kit, it was informative to see how little work awaits me to correct details which can be clearly seen on this CD. Of course, it will be invaluable when the future aftermarket interior is released! There is a missing word, probably indebted, which refer to Peter Brown in the text. This is no way makes me think less of this CD as its primary goal is the photos and these are delivered to my full satisfaction.
Update: Less than a day after this review is published, Chris Hughes notified me that the text error has been corrected. Talk about customer service and attention to detail. It is good to know he reads his product's reviews as well.
All exterior details and most interior details are covered. One should never forget that these are restorations and, as accurate as MVTF usually is, compare the photos to period photos to ensure authenticity.
Due to a recent post on Track-Link about degenerating CD-Rs, I would recommend to the modeler to copy the CD into a folder on their PC’s hard drive and be careful to label it clearly to avoid inadvertently sharing the images. These Photo CDs are very affordable and those wishing the images should buy their own to encourage Chris Hughes to continue.
This CD-Rom is one of many references which I am really happy to have acquired. At the asking price, it is certainly a bargain when one considers that the average ten dollar book only gives about a 125 photos at most. I highly recommend the Toadman Walkarounds for any modeler whether on a budget or not! Get your copy by visiting: http://www.toadmanstankpictures.com/
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