¹⁄35

Tasca Sherman Firefly VC

Oils of various colours were dotted over the surface of the model, then streaked off with a large brush full of white spirit. Around fuel fillers darker streaks of oils, very dark Blues, Brown and Black were left running down the sides of the hull. The model was then put aside for about 48 hours to allow the oils to totally dry.

Next all the detail painting was completed, while experiments with stowage and crew figures began. The kit commander figure was retained but his head swapped for a helmeted tanker head from the spares box. A new commander figure, from Ultracast was also put use and a half figure from the same company poked his head from the loader’s hatch. I was struggling for inspiration, with the stowage, only having a knapsack from the spares box and a Resicast road wheel in place. Salvation came in the form of Legend’s huge stowage set, specifically designed for Fireflies. There are easily enough parts for two, or even more, vehicles and some parts could be used on any commonwealth Sherman type. The main parts used were a large, brilliantly sculpted, pile of stowage for the rear deck and a nice long bundle that was a perfect fit over the blanked off glacis MG position. Some ammo cans and a cloth were then stuck onto the top of the rear plate stowage bin. Painting up these pieces was really fun and brought them to life.

For another splash of colour I decided to paint up the cloth on the rear deck as a captured Nazi flag. I was careful to paint the flag so the swastika was hinted at but the full shape was not visible. Legend’s large block for the rear deck has depressions made by rope already sculpted in and they provide a piece of rope, in their set, to tie it in place. The only problem is that once I’d fitted it, it was obviously over scale and just didn’t look right and a smaller gauge piece of twine was used to replace it.

Another souvenir collected by the crew was a case of wine, wired down to the top of the turret bin. The case was filled with clear resin wine bottles from plus model, their sparkle beating any effect achievable with paint. With everything now in place a final layer of dust was applied, with Mig pigments of various earth shades, to pull all the different parts together. No build up of mud was applied to the tracks or lower hull as the Firefly would be splashing through a stream and I reckoned this would have given the bottom part of the ol’ girl a good wash off.