Here are in-progress shots of my OIF Tamiya M113A3. I originally posted a few of these in the scratchbuilding forum, but thought I might as well set up an in-progress thread here in the Armor forum. The first shot shows the side stowage racks that I scratchbuilt.




These next two shots show the model with the racks installed and the base coat of MM Sand applied.





I wanted to depict a generic vehicle from TF 1-64 during the initial invasion in 2003, so I had to cobble together markings from a variety of decal sets--I used Archer dry transfers from two different sets for the "50" numerals and the TF 1-64 markings, while the rest of the markings are from Tamiya's decal sheets.

Here are the latest pics of the model with markings, washes, and dullcoat applied, most detail painting finished, and AFV indy-link tracks painted, washed, and installed.








Next up will be final assembly (installing the M2, antennas, and vision blocks), final detail painting, adding stowage, and final weathering. I'll post pictures of my progress (which unfortunately may be slow because work is keeping me really busy). I think for this build I may go ahead and buy MIG pigments to try my hand at them. We'll see.

Comments are welcome!

Lucas:

Are you sure the rack is long enough? My photos seem to show them the length of the sides, even peaking just a bit over the top angle of the front.

Also, note that it is difficult to call the Tamiya kit either an A3 or an A2. It has mixes of both variants. Vodnik did a nice review of the Tamiya kit some time ago.

Bob

You are definatly back in the hobby Lucas. The track looks good to me. Will be fun to see it finished.

Erik

Thanks for the comments, Bob. The racks are indeed too short. I started the racks when I only had a couple of blurry pictures of them from bad angles, and by the time I bought your book I had already painted the model. Laziness took over, and I left them as is. I figure since these were made to order in Kuwait (and I've seen a couple of variations that had supports extending to the top of roof) these MAY have existed... on a single bucket... somewhere...

Thanks for pointing out Vodnik's article. I wish I'd seen it earlier! Oh well. I can always call mine an M113A1/2/3 to get around the inaccuracies... Now I know why I couldn't get the indy tracks to drape properly over the first two roadwheels!

Thanks for the compliment, Erik!

Both good looking tracks.

Even if it has the rack too short, the whole build looks great. My bet it´s that for the next one the build of the racks will be better, only experience helps in this case.

Congrats

PS: Still too clean for me

Thanks, Jeff and Klaus.

Gary--I guess that's what happens when you try to use a picture of a fully-loaded track with the markings partially obscured. I thought I saw a chevron under a pack in the photo, but wasn't sure. Ugh.

Here are pictures of my progress so far. I decided to keep the chevrons despite their being inaccurate (I had already started weathering when I learned of this mistake). I've weathered it with Tamiya Buff and MIG pigments (my first use of them). I'm not incredibly happy with the way the weathering came out, but I'm not sure how to make it better. Suggestions are most welcome.

I need to paint the antenna bases, weather them (minor oversight... ), attach the antennas, and then attach some additional stowage to the outside of the racks. Once that's done, this baby will be put to bed and entered into the OIF campaign!

If your having trouble with the saturation of your pigments you can darken them or add bit of turpentine to some pigments and that makes almost like a paste which you can really slop on it, though I usually give it a light scrub so it won't rub off on my fingers. Desert dust is pretty light though so you can't make it like Russian mud but hopefully that helps you get some ideas of what to do.

By the way your one of the best "clean" builders I've ever seen it's like you make those demo models from Tamiya it's quite impressive for me at least. My clean builds look more toy than model at least for me.

very clean work..i like clean work..!

even the weathering it's clean too. ..i like them.

Inspires me to try a clean build. Mine are always so dirty.

Very clean work. Actually too clean but darn perfect

Nice job Lucas.

You know I like clean builds also.

About time to rack this up and get on with another one.

Sweet job.

Only thing I can say is I would of painted the track pads Nato black and rusted the metal side.

But then again that is just me.

two thumbs up

Very nice work, what colors do you use for the looking views?
Yufkey

snap

i have also been working on a couple of M113a3 for an on going project.

I couldn't really believe all the extra work involved to build one from the Tamiya kit

I look forward to seeing yours progress

cheers
Keith Forsyth

Thanks, guys!

Yufkey--I use reflective mylar from confetti for the periscopes. You can find a thread on how I do it here.

Keith--your A3 looks a lot better than mine (mine is the Tamiya kit pretty much straight out of the box, while the PE on yours really makes it pop!).

Well Lucas you just answered the question I posted in the OIF campaign thread about the vision blocks. That M1 you also built is terrific. Might have to go and buy that new Dragon SEP after I finish my current M1. I will have try that same technique for the vision blocks with my M1 and Stryker. So I have to ask what's next?

Hey Lucas ,
Great looking APC, love the look, paint and weathering. I enjoy the vehicles vision blocks and the tip you passed on. I wrote it down in my tip book for future reference. I think it’ll look great on a small base/ diorama setting with a few figures.

Joe

Matt--my next project is Trumpeter's EE-T2 Osorio. I'm building it OOB to get some practice working with poorly-fitting kits (as kits go, this one is not horrendous but it definitely has fit issues and big gaps). I still haven't decided in what scheme to paint the Osorio, but I might try my hand at one of the cammo schemes in recent pictures.

Joe--Thanks! I'm not planning on putting it in a dio anytime soon (for space reasons), but that is ultimately my goal (once I get a larger space to display my models).

Well, I finally got around to taking better pictures yesterday, so here are the final pics of my OIF bucket.














Hope you guys like the final product--let me know what you think, good or bad. I'm calling it a build, although at a later date I plan to finish the Tamiya TC figure to fill the open hatch. My Osorio is now ready for painting, so it's time to turn to that project.

Very impressive. Even close up. And those digital cameras aren't very forgiving. Be sure to show us the figure when he's done.

Very nice all around...job well done. Yeah a figure or two would make it stand out more.

Joe

Looks pretty good. Good job on the paint and weathering. The racks came out great. Couple minor things though. The rear lights are wrong. Only the left side upper oval is red. The other side and both bottoms are just black slits. It should look like this (different vehicle with same light set-up):


Also, you may want to turn the duffle bags around. They are attached to the racks using the shoulder straps that are pointing out on yours.

Lastly, there should be a black line down the middle of the .50 cal rounds in the ammo box. This represents the links that hold the rounds together. Like this:


The vision blocks came out great too. Good job on it. A few minor corrections and it will be great.

Thanks guys! Gino--I'll repaint the tail lights and add the black strip to the ammo. I think I'll use a very thin strip of Tamiya masking tape painted black for the ammo links--that should look better than just paint, I think.

I'm afraid the duffel bags will have to remain the way they are--I tried to fill the hollow back left by Tamiya, but my sculpting efforts looked like.. well, crap, so now the bags are very firmly secured to the racks.