DA VINCI!!

Leonardo da Vinci is most well known for his paintings, but he was an inventor and engineer among other things. Some people credit him with the invention of flying machines and the tank, but both claims seem like a stretch to me, since he did nothing beyond make designs for these machines. If anything, these designs should be considered the first paper panzer and Luft' 86 projects.

The da Vinci armored car is still popular to this day, with a modern reconstruction displayed at the Burning Man festival, and an appearance in the Assassin's Creed video game.

RetrokiT offers a 1/72 scale version of da Vinci Tank (RetroSF RSF016) in resin.

It comes in 16 pieces on 7 blocks, and includes a decal sheet bearing three fleurs-de-li.

The resin is good quality, but the huge casting blocks on the upper and lower hull made clean-up difficult, and resulted in damage to the edges of the hull pieces that required repair.

I'm not sure why the kit came with the fleur-de-li decals since the armored car was designed while da Vinci was under the patronage of the Duke of Milan, but I guess they could be used if someone wanted to model a French beutepanzer.

The RetrokiT model differs from the original sketch in that it has six cannon which protrude through the upper hull. The sketch on the other hand, shows a vehicle with a multitude of cannon that protrude from the lower hull.

I was undecided about how to paint the tank, but decided to go with a natural wood color.

However, after painting the Milanese Bissa heraldry on the front, the model just didn't seem to look right. Now I can't decide whether to paint the hull in different colors, strip the heraldry. or just leave it as is...

Anyway, to go with the armored car, I purchased the Leonardo da Vinci mounted and on foot set (HOT102) from 15mm.co.uk.

The bearded 15mm figure looks like a dwarf compared to George (the mounted da Vinci even more so, due to having shorter arms).

I embiggened the figure by widening and lengthening the body. The arms were also lengthened, but the head and feet I left alone.

After this first layer of Kneadatite hardens, I'll finish up the arms and refine the sculpt with some details.