A merry Xmas !!!

British Sherman 1942

 

M4A3E8, paint part II

Today i did some detail painting added the allied stars using the airbrush and templates.

M4A3E8, paint part I

Grey prier coat

The M4A3E8 got its primer coat, this was done using Vallejo surface primer and the airbrush.

Pre shading

Using Vallejo Air black and white colors i tried to shadow and highlight the different parts of the model creating different shades from black to white.

First basecoat

Next i applied a couple of layers Vallejo Air OD which was heavyly thinned to allow the preshading to show through.

 

M4A3E8, build part IV

Completed assembling the Sherman, everything kinda dropped into place and little work was needed, except for the turret which had, in my opinion, a little to much visible seems. I corrected this by dotting it with a putty/ glue mix and givenit a light sanding afterwards.

Because i don't know what the setting of this model i will be and if i want to use figures or not I made all the hatches workable so i can open or close them when needed. I drilled out the hinches and used copper wire to connect the hatches to them.

All the hinches worked with me except the drivers hatch, for this hatch i wrecked the hinch by drilling at the wrong point. I tried to fix this by painting 3D paint over it. 3D paint is perfect paint for giving some texture to parts.

At last i used green stuff to simulate welding beads where some parts, like the PE parts, where missing these beads.

M4A3E8, build part III

Completed assembling of the lower hull, added the bogies and started work on the T23 turret.

 

M4A3E8, build part II

Parts of one bogie

The next step of the build are the bogies, there are six of them and every bogie consists of 19 parts. I only lost one tiny part !

5 bogies done, one to go

When you correctly and carefull glue the bogie parts they are fully functional.

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Lower and upper hull

Glueing the lower and upper hull together, there is not a single gap between the parts, love the Tasca kits :). Tamiya masking tape is perfect to fixate parts while the glue sets.

 

M4A3E8, build part I

Building the T66 Tracks

Cleanup of 300 pieces plastic is a boring job, this is done first while the motivation is still there. The result is two tracks of 76 links.

Lower hull, drive sprockets, idler wheels and transmission housing

The lower hull and transmission housing is made of multiple arts that should be build in one session to ensure everything fits together and is straight.

Lower and upper hull dry fitted

The lower hull, transmission housing and upper hull are dry fitted to ensure everything fits and there are no gaps.

M4A3E8

A cleaned up bench was asking for a new project. This project will be the M4A3E8 Sherman from Tasca (#35-020) that i picked up from "der sockelshop" in Germany.

 

M4A1, Operation Husky, 99% done

This is the first model i made with a little base. In this case i tried to display a tank that has just entered the Sicily beach during operation Husky in 1943.

The model can use a little bit more weathering, hence the 99% :)

 

M4A1, operation Husky, weathering and base

Been busy applying different coats of AK-Interactive dust effects to give the sherman a dusty look. Since this will be a tank that just landed on the beach i choose to keep the dust wash light.

Using plaster bandage and paper-maché i started work on the base that should depict a piece of beach.

Added dune gras made from a old brush and covered the papier-maché with bird-sand (the stuff you buy at the pet store to cover the bottom of bird cages with). The sand is glued to the base using white glue.

 

I think it needs a last coat of sand before painting.

Placed the serman on the base to get an idea how the result would look like.

 

 

M4A1, operation Husky, almost there...

Almost there, she needs a bit more weathering like dust and fuel/oil stains and this one is done. I'm still thinking of making a little sandy beach vignette.

 

M4A1, operation husky, painting IV

Added some dust washes on the running Gear, painted the tracks (still need to find a way to proper prime vinyl tracks because the paint is chipping) and painted/ weathered the jerrycans.

Repainted the deep wading waterproofing canvasses in a lighter shade because They came out a bit to dark after washes.

M4A1, operation Husky, painting III

Added the bogies to the hull and sprayed the whole thing in a glossy coat so the sherman is ready for washes and weathering.

 

M4A1, operation Husky, painting II

Continued painting the sherman. I did some details like the headlights and pioneer tools. I also tried to paint the canvas covers used for waterproofing.

I used painted the stars and company markings using the airbrush and masks while the tank name "HOBO" and the bumper codes are done using the fine Archer dry transfers.

 

 

M4A1, operation Husky, painting I

The sherman got it's base olive drab color with the camo pattern, the cammo color came out a bit to orange which i hope will tone down a bit after weathering.

 

M4A1, operation Husky, build part I

I spend the last couple of days building the M4A1 tasca kit and scratch building the 5AITC wading trunk and jerrycan rack. Although i have a couple of Tasca kits in my stach this is the first kit i started building andi am realy impressed by the quality of the kit, everything fits and is super detailed. Even the .50 machine gun is a little build project.

I couln't find any real drawings for the 5AITC wading trunk so i had to use photographs and the template from the Zaloga modeling book to create one.

The turret is waiting for it's metal gun barel from RB Model that in the mail.

M4A1 early sherman operation Husky

On the Euro Scale Modeling 2012 event i bought a nice Tasca M4A1 direct vision kit (#35024) which will be my new project.

Inspired by the Sicily (operation husky) M4A1 early sherman in the 'Modelling the US Army M4 (75mm) Sherman Medium Tank' book by Steven J. Zaloga this will be sherman in yellow/od camo pattern with the 5AITC wading trunk.

 

M18, done

Today i declare the Academy M18 Hellcat kit done. There are plenty of things that can be improved or added but it's time for a new project.

Some pictures:

Although plenty of things went wrong such as visible decals, wrong location of the allied star on the front and vinyl tracks that would not hold paint during weathering i still like the overall look of the kit and i learned a lot.

Next step: cleaning and re- organizing my work bench for the next project.

M18, mud, mud and more mud

A quick update: added mud to the lower part of the hull and running gear.

For this i used the AK-Interactive earth/ mud washes mixed together with plaster and applied from light to dark.

 

M18, painting part IV

Added some dust washes and chipping to the hull using my favorite Vallejo paint color "cammo black/brown" and enamel based washes from AK-Interactive.

M18, painting part III

After a vacation and some other interests i picked up this project again and continued painting and detailing. Somehow this project isn't going as smooth as i like it to go and i need to keep telling myself to first finish this one before starting a new one.

Added the decals, although i used the same steps i always do with decals (glossy finish, set, sol and a glossy finish to seal the decals) you can see the decal outlines. Bummer !

The allied stars are sprayed on using a stencil and the airbrush.

Some detail painting on the turret, the gun mantle canvas can use some additional high-lighting.

The turret .50 cal gun. Sorry for the blurry picture, mobile phone cameras are not that good for detail shots.

 

M18, painting part II

After a week of absense i continued working on the M18. It already has its base color and now it is time to do some detail painting.

 

I painted the tools (still need more practice on painting wooden tools) and some turret details. At this moment the first coat of gloss varnish is drying. I am using "Pledge Extra Protection" for wood floor surfaces (Future, Parket Plus or whatever it's called in your country) as a gloss varnish.

 

M18 got its base color

After hours swearing, sanding and re-attaching those damned PE parts that seem to fall off every time i only look at the model i finaly got it airbrushed in the base color.

 

Instead of using the OD color surface primer i used the white one this time. The reason for this is i wanted to try a different shading technique. This technique basicly consist of creating a grey tinted version of your model first and then spray it with thin layers of your base color resulting in a beautyful shadowed model.

On paper (and with a german grey vehicle) this worked like a charm but on my OD verhicle and using Vallejo paint the base color came out to yellow so i ended up doing the basic pre-shading steps

The mantle cover still needs it base kakhi color.

 

Stowage, stowage, stowage

I am always short of stowage items to dress up my models. Shure, tarps and bedrolls can be made from putty but adding detail to them is a hell of a job. Offcourse there is a wide selction of companies selling stowage sets but those sets are mostly dedicated to a specific model and quite expensive.

I found a company called Value Gear that sells a collection of tarps, tents and crates for a nice price where i ordered a couple of sets.

After a couple of days my order was delivered by the mailman that, besides the ordered items, also contained some sample items from a new crates set that is going to be available later.

I am looking forward to try these items on my new models.

M18, Academy

After building M4 and M10 models for a while it's time for a new project, one without assembling sherman bogies !

Besides sherman tanks i am also interested  into allied tank destroyers. My new project, the Academy M18 hellcat kit, is such a tank destroyer. This will be my first build where i am using aftermarket details, a PE set from Eduard.

Some pictures:

M4A2, a model's second chance part V

I think i have overdone the mud part of weathering the running gear a bit.

I used a combination of airbrush/brush speckle technique's on applying a mixture of plaster and mud colors. The complete hull is airbrushed with a highly diluted mixture of ak-interactive dust effects.