hello everybody... its been sometime since Ive been able to get any modeling done, but, its coming along. My latest being Dragons AIM kit. Im using Eduards p/e set, Verlinden stowage, and Verlinden figures ..along with various scratch made items. So far, shes ready to paint! so before I get to it, I thought Id get any opinions or suggestions or questions on it..Its my first Abrams, which, I have very little reference on, and mostly from Prime Portal, thanks those guys for the great reference pics!..

Wow! Very impressive. The PE does make a vast difference.

Looks good so far!!

The P/E really does a good job...but i think there has to be an "x" on each of the front fenders

as far as i know these aren't only on SEP's and on the real early Abrams (don't the
exact declararion)

some of the more experienced guys may help you more here

shall become the 3-tone nato color or sand??

Greetings Alex

Looking good so far. I agree on the front fenders though. M1A1s come with the X stamp on the fenders. A few may have fenders without, but it is not the norm. Personally, I think the kit fenders would look better.

Awesome work on the PE.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the compliments. Im building the Abrams which is pictured on the box cover, which, it doenst have the X stamped on it. , which is why I replaced them with sheet metal ones.

Tim -

Very nicely done! Thanks for sharing your pics, looking forward to the paint!

Cheers!

Tim

Thanks Tim, I appreciate that... and you asked for it...so heres some paint on this puppy... so far its just the camo application...once I have the details painted and stowage added it'll be ready for some good weathering. from looking at the few photos I could find of this unit, it appears that not all the demarcation lines of the camo colors were divided by the Gulf sand color,.. the majority of them are, but not all. odd that Dragon doesnt even show these lines in the painting diagram..even though it clearly shows them on the box cover! so, what do you think so far? oh, I used Tamiya paints, the NATO colors, for the camo..

I was waiting for this puppy to get the paint flowing and it does not dissapoint Tim, very nice as always! That bustle rack looks like a royal PITA to get camo through there. Cant wait to see it get fleshed out with the weathering

Hey Tim,
Saw your post over at ML and the last reply to it. As for the demarcation lines, they are dust build ups between the camo lines, not sand paint. Not sure how it happens, but it does. Its a great start, so with that info, you should be able to effectively weather it futher with out changing anything.

the tan lines are not part of the camo. it dust build up in the CARC paint. the samething happened to our AAV in OIF 1.

wow that's interesting, do they tape them off or is it maybe just the stippling of the overspray that has a bit of 'bite' to catch dust... hmm

The paint is rougher on the edges so it collects dust and holds it. This results in the paint looking like it has been painted with a sand color. A tricky effect to get right but you got it bang on. I did the same thing on my previous Abrams and I was rather disapointed. Do you want to trade? Can't wait to see more. I love these tanks. I'm curious as to whose figures you are using. I have the recent set by Verlinden as well as the crew from Alpine. Both are quite nice. The Alpine figures are simply amazing.

Hello sir,
Your build really looks fantastic.I have a question,It appears that you assembled and painted your tracks first,how did you achieve the masking on the road wheels and tracks while spraying the rest of the tank,I have this kit and I am contemplating the build,previously on all of my previous builds I usually save the tracks for last,but on this job it looks like they should go on first.Perhaps this sounds simplistic but i am not that clear on the best way to proceed.

thanks.

Tin foil tends to work good for stuff like that

thanks everyone for the compliments and tips on the paint scheme. I had no idea that was dirt! Im going to fix that today...maybe I'll give some MIG pigments a try, applying them wet..otherwise, in person you would be able to tell that it was airbrsuhed on.

Matthew , the Verlinden ones I have are #2277 now that I have them though, Im not sure if theyre correct..they appear to be an earlier uniform perhaps? does anyone know?

Anthony, I did paint the roadwheels and tracks sperately along with the lower hull. I then attached them and then added the sidearmor. I had to plan it out, seeing this was my first Abrams, I too wasnt sure how to go about it, but now thats it done, it was quite simple that way.. I first tried the foil method to mask it off, but it was a pain to get it between the tracks and skirts and still get everything covered..the darn foil kept snagging and crinkling up on me...so I just went with regular masking tape... worked just fine.

The paint job turned out great. It shouldn't be a problem correcting the sand borders.

Gave me motivation to finish mines.

Looking forward to more updates.

Ronnie

I kinda like the sand borders, if you're going to dust it up pretty good why not try to keep some of it and maybe do something like slim the lines down and make them a bit more spotty by re-doing the outlines of the camo?? Then again, it may make it 'confusing' to someone who doesn't know exactly what it's representing...

thanks guys for the comments. I decides to go around the camo edges with their original colors to cover up what I had done with the sand color. now that I have most of the weather done, I went back with some Mig pigments , and applied them wet with a brush around some of the edges. The rest of the dusting is also Migs applied as a wash...did I overdo it? Is it too much dust on the top of the hull? After applying the washes I went back and smoothed everything out with a dry brush and then applied fresh paint of the original camo colors to show the dust being disturbed by crew and such. next, on to the figures and stowage.

Tim,
Beautiful work, great job with the weathering. Love the detail work of the small disturbed areas…”wash me” nice touch.

Joe

Great job! Perfect weathering. The sand outlines gave the perfect effect.

That is a kick ass build dude.

Really great overall and the finger prints and Wash me really set it out.

Thanks for the look.

Nice work, funny that you choose the same version I did on mine, but with a different stowage layout.



Maybe the ghost and the "gott mit uns" decals were too appealing to left them on the sheet

Keep up the good work

Cheers

WASH ME

nice touch on this AIM...like the weathering tim-really good looking kit to me

the areas overpainted after weathering look very nice, too


can't wait to see the stowage added

cheers Alex

Nicely done Tim! Really like the way the camo paint and weathering came out, echo the comments so far! The "wash me" is awesome!

Thanks for the update! Cheers!

Tim