As most of us know Maquette kits are not the best or easiest to build by any means but sometimes they are the only option for certain vehicles in plastic so we have to take our chances.
First up the boxart,
Whats in the box? as you can see not much at all
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The parts themselves are actually fairly well molded and with little or no flash which is suprising, the tracks and running gear are very crisp considering so i was a little suprised and felt a slight feeling of optimism at this point.
I began by constructing the main tub and upper hull and my optimism soon faded, quickly it bacame apparent that there was no way these parts were ever meant to go together so i fit them the best i could and hoped putty would do the rest.
The rest of the build went quite well in comparison with a few sink holes to contend with and of course the gaps in the upper hull but i was actually enjoying myself at this point, the wheels and tracks went together well and in my opinion look very good when on, i had to scratch build a couple of small items to replace bad moldings also a mesh screen for the rear vent but nothing major, i also drilled out the lights and used clear apoxy for lenses when everything else was done.
With the build finished quite quickly after all there really wasnt that much of it nor was they very much of the actual real life vehicle it was time to get on with the painting, the kit did not supply any markings at all so it was in the spares box i went looking, i had already decided what vehicle i was going for and luckily enough i had just the thing.
The vehicle i decided on (below) Presumably belonged to 172nd Separate Recon Battalion/142nd Rifle Division. The turret features pre-war tactical designations: an interrupted white stripe and a continuous red stripe, which denotes that the vehicle belongs to the 2nd company/1st battalion in a regiment. Northern Front. July 1941.
I painted my model with MM acrylic "dark green" and weathered it with oils i decided to keep this one fairly clean looking for two reasons the first being it was an amphibious vehicle so i wanted it to appear like it had been in water recently and the second reason was the size of the model, this is roughly the size of a regular tank in 1/72 scale and too much weathering might look out of scale or at least to me.
Finally here is a couple with a figure i have been practicing on to show just how small this vehicle is.
Well thats thats, another build done and on the shelf and i am pleased with the outcome these kind of kits are always fun for me because theres never anything to lose with them except a little time and sometimes a nice looking model is there to be gained, Thanks for looking and as always feel free to comment in any way.
Ron.
