Here I have some progress, but one step forward, one step back

The chassis of my Alligator been painted and faded as seen on some pics earlier. Now I have it weathered with dry mud (made of plaster and some pigments). Fortunately I found a picture of the driver's visor armor plate and reworked the original plastic piece.

But here comes the 'black soup': the turret is still unpainted, the first painting attempt failed. I had the turret painted and and faded, but the white star stencil was faulty and later had to remove all the paint layers applied

Next time if I have a couple of hours, will repaint the turret and do the wet mud on the chassis.

Sounds good Andor. I have been in a similar situation. My original coats of paint did not hold to the primer correctly. Just by touching it it peeled off... I figured out that the primer sucked. A build I have been doing simaltaniously had similar problems, even though I used a different company. Oh, the humanity. Well, good luck with your turret. Thanks for the reply.

-Mike

I finally made some progress on my entry for the GB. I've been working on the Tamiya Ho Ni -1 SPG

First pic - the main components. The wheels have been prepared, and the upper hull has its coat of Tamiya Flat Earth. Interior is Tamiya khaki, with chipping added using Vallejo Cadmium Red/Black. I wanted to show a well used vehicle,,,



The interior


And an overall shot...



Tomorrow I'll get the Friul tracks together, and start prepping for the camo colours.

Grant

Nice one Grant. You said you'd be taking some pictures and I'm glad you did. She looks great.

-Matt

Some process during the Easter holiday weekend:
Rear section with dried mud and split fuel. Also the new painted turret with hand painted ID (H-3):

Front section with sand bags as extra armor and dried mud patches:


Next steps: finalize sand bags (this is the third layer of paint and I'm still not satisfied with bag color...), proceed with weathering (wet mud on hull and tracks), finish assembly (antenna, driver vision port cover and some others)

Looks great, Andor The dusty weathering looks great. The sandbags look fine, but maybe a little more texture to the fabric could improve them even further.

Looking forward to see this one finished.

Greetings all

Heres my entry for the campaign/operation. She's the vintage Monogram M3 Lee Medium kit built straight from the box. Representing a tank from the battle of Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands which was the last combat use of the Lee by the USA. I painted her with a base of dark olive and did light-faded camo stripes of lighter olive which you could hardly notice in the pics. The markings used by the tanks in the invasion only had the regulation turret stars plus a white number on both sides representing what I believe was the landing vessel it was in (not really sure about that)

The only thing I added on this model was the covered spare track box in the front hull and a scratchbuilt counterweight clamp on the tip of the 75mm main gun. The tanks used in Makin had chevron V type track pads, but I just couldnt find one to fit this old 1/32 scale kit so I just used the inaccurate tracks that came with it

It truly was a fun build and an overall fun campaign for me, hope everyone else is enjoying the work on their kits

(pics loaded next thread, sorry about that)

Third times a charm?

Great looking M3 you got there! Congrats on a great finish. Everything else is looking amazing as well. Andor great progress!

-Mike C

Some process during the Easter holiday weekend:








I'm going to cover the roof of the bunker with palm leaves

Looks apsolutely great. I love the ground work so far! Keep us posted!

-Mike

G'day Tomek,

You've made great progress. Good to see the base chockablock with vegetation. You've got lots of grass, palms, broad-leaved plants and ferns. So far, your scene looks more like an open grassland, so if you want to make it more 'Jungle like' I would recommend adding some small-leaved vegetation such as some large bushes. This will give the scene a denser feel which you may be hoping for. It will also increase the height aspect, especially if positioned towards the back of the diorama.

But if a grassland look is what you are hoping for, then you have got it spot on, since I believe Okinawa had a few grasslands.


Chas

Tomak, great diorama. The ground work looks great. Nice variation in the vegetation.

Looking forward to see the finished diorama with figures etc.

Yes, I'd love to see your figure progress too!

I also love the Japanese sign and the embedded sandbags, very realistic.

Chas

I’m very happy that you like it guys.

Chas, I think it is a good idea to add bigger plants to my dio.
To finish figures I need airbrush compressor that I’m going to buy next week.

How are your projects progressing?

Yesterday I had some free time to watch "Letters from Iwo Jima" (Black sand and red sun) movie. This gave me some inspiration for the Alligator build. Decided to make a small dio base with rocky ground and dry vegetation on it.
Some progress on the dio base (The wooden base was cut and milled couple of weeks earlier):

The dio's outer geometry is: 18cm x 30cm (approx 7" x11,8 ")
The ground base is PS foam (used widely for insulation) with small stones glued to the surface.
Closer look of the slope:

The bushes are from dried roots of a tree in our garden...
Need to be colored and add more vegetation (small and high grass) and tons of wet mud.

Very cool base, Andor. Good use of different height levels and nice ground work. It will look very realistic finished with your Alligator.

Looking forward to see more

Andor, nice compositon. Are you going to use any figures?

Tomek, currently I still not decided to use figures. A standing marine / tanker would bring more life to the dio (as usually described).
Maybe a standing soldier from DML Marines set, or a single Verlinden tanker would be my choice. Have to look around in my boxes.

Jesper: Thanks for the comments.

Looking great Andor. I agree that a figure would add a little something else to it. So far it is turning out amazing though. Good luck!

-Mike

Well here is my contribution to the Campaign. It is Fine Molds Type III Ho-ni Finished to represent one stationed on the Main land in the final days of the war. The Kit went together well and was finished with Gunze sangyo paints. The kit supplied barrel was replaced with a after one from Fine Molds. Thanks and I look forward to comments.

Nice looking Ho Ni III.

Which Gunze paints were used?

Nice entry in the campaign, Larry. You did a really good job on the camouflage. Did you airbrush it freehand?
Your tracks are too rusty red for my taste, but that is just a small nick pick.

Thanks for sharing