Hello. My name is Cliff Hutchings and I have been known in the world of internet modeling as an expert soft-skin (truck) and scratch-build modeller by the name of MrRoo for a number of years now. I have also had a number of Model articles published in an English Magazine. My specialty is WW2 Allied soft-skin vehicles with a special interest in the unique vehicles of the Australian Armed Forces of this period. I have been supported by my wife, Kathie, in this endeavour and together we have decided to develop this site to bring you closer into MrRoo's world of models where “TRUCKS ROOLE”. We will also use this site to bring you into our other interest which is the photography of Australian Native plants and animals that live alongside us here in Gympie, Queensland.

GMC Fuel Tanker

In 1989 while living on an army base in what was a WW2 US Army Hospital which was also the HQ for a Territorial Army Medical Unit, of which I was a minor member, I assembled & painted 2 1/35 scale models. One was the Italeri #205 GMC cargo truck the other a German panzer tank. When I say assembled I mean just that. The parts cut off the sprue glued together with tube glue and hand painted when fully assembled. No removal of mould seams or filling of sink marks or gaps between parts. At the age of 33 this was my first introduction to model making.

I had purchased 4 kits at that time but those were the only two I ‘assembled’. The other two, a Tamiya LRDG Chev and the Tamiya Horch were left sitting in the wardrobe along with a brand new Badger air brush that was purchased just before I left the Military. They sat stored until 1999 when my wife Kathie and I decided to shift to Queensland, Australia permanently. While sorting out our worldly goods and deciding what to dispose of and what to keep the models kits and airbrush were put in the ‘sell’ pile. But while packing the ‘keep’ stuff Kathie used the models as packaging to fill small gaps. So these too traveled to Australia with us.

In 2001 and living at Tansey in the South Burnett, Queensland (65 km away from the nearest shop), I was bored one night and decided that I would get the models out and have a play. A tube of glue was purchased on a grocery excursion and the Tamiya Horch kit opened……..and ‘assembled’! Paint I needed paint and since Tamiya Acrylic was the stuff I used the last time I assembled a kit I needed that brand again. Hmmm now living 65km from the nearest shop and probably 110km from the nearest toy shop this was a problem and you guessed it, I was not on the internet either! I found the Tamiya paint in the Toy Store in Gympie 110km to the east of Tansey and brought a supply of paint but more importantly got a model magazine from a Gympie newsagent at the same time. This magazine plus a lifelong interest (including ownership of a couple of real ones) changed my thinking about model making immensely and for the better. Another important decision was to get dial up internet at this time as well (broadband not being available in a country area) and this lead me to several online model sites in other parts of Australia and the world. So incredible was the reaction to all these goodies I saw on the net, like Photo Etch, resin conversion kits that I wanted to know as much as I could about model making.

Due to my long interest in trucks, especially WW2 Allied ones, I then built several OOB (out of box) models of trucks getting better with each one. Then I found a picture of an American Army GMC-CCKW 2.5ton 6X6 with a #7 wrecker set mounted on the back. I did not even know at the time what this wreckers set was so I researched using the internet and found enough information and some measurements of a real one to begin construction of my first major ‘kit bash’ plus my first use of Photo etch. With the completion of this model I also started to write feature articles for magazines with all of them been published in ‘Military Modelcraft International’ (www.guidelinepublications.co.uk). These plus more are reproduced in the model articles area.

As I have worked as a carpenter - finishing hand since leaving school and had also trained as a residential design draughtsman and Building inspector in New Zealand I had a good eye for detail and the stubbornness to do things over and over until I had then correct to my high standards. Plus the fact that most of my ‘chosen’ models were obscure trucks that no plastic kit manufacturer made lead to me developing a method of scaling off photos so I could build from scratch a lot of these vehicles.

As this site develops over the coming months I will be adding a "build" diary where you can follow the build progress of a model as I do it. Some sales sections will also be added. One will be for my finished models. I will put all my models up for sale at the end of the build once I am satisfied they are to my standards. Another interest of mine is photography. I love taking pictures of the local wildlife and plants. I intend to let you also enjoy mine and Kathie’s passion of taking photographs by selling limited edition prints of some of our work and in time also as calendars, cards etc.

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