Good evening, gents.

This is only my second post. This time I present the work in progress pics of my latest project. It is the ACE T-72B kit. It is my first ACE kit (apart from that BMD-2 that is in a rather sorry state of misconstruction...), and it goes together rather well for a short run kit. I replaced the tracks with Revell tracks, and used the turret without the B-version addon armour and anti radiation cladding, because I want to save that for a forthcoming build of a T-72BM. Since ACE includes two turrets in this release, and most of the extra armour and anti-radiation cladding is not visible under the ERA bricks anyway, I helped myself with putty. After istalling the ERA bricks, I discovered that I got the front angle wrong. §%&!!
I will not change that however. The purists will discover a lot of inaccuracies, but I am not aiming for the 100% finish. If it looks the part, that will be cool for me.
I added a lot of small parts, but will not go into details here. The kit was also a first on casting in resin for me, for I copied the roadwheels of Revells T-72. Much better than the ACE ones!!

Righto. Here are the pics. Sound off, what do you think?

Hey Stefan, it looks like an era clad T-72 to me. Very nice work, looking forward to seeing it as you progress with it.

Stefan, how is the T-72 coming along? I'm interested to see it.

Looks good to me, good luck with the remaining stages.

Thank you for the feedback.
I did manage to get some work done on the smoke dischargers. These parts are quite small in this scale and my fingers are waaaay to big. But I am pretty happy how the dischargers came out. The ACE part is not useable in my perception, because it is a very simplyfied one-piece affair. I scratched the whole thing using evergreen sheet.



Stay tuned!

Here we go.

Smoke dischargers.





The pics are not great, but will have to suffice.

So much to add and so little time...

Well This is a really great build
I am not an expert of this vehicle but it is coming from ACE.
Do you have a website ??
cheers
Seb

Looking good Stefan! The T-80BV from Revell AG has similar style smoke mortars, just not as many per side. They look great scratch built, especially in this scale.

Hi folks!

After all, I had some time to spend on this mean machine. I focused on the turret this time, adding the NSV-machinegun as well as the commanders dirt-shield. I also added the snorkel and various little items, such as lamps etc. I mostly used sprue, wire and aluminium-foil from a bottle of port.
The dirt-shield lacks dept as well as glass. I may redo the thing once I figure out how to get the curved edges of the shield done. The other T-72B in this forum used PE for that and it came out quite splendidly. However, I dont want to spend money on PE, so I will have to find another way of doing this or leave as is. Tell me what you think.

Ok, here goes:











Thats it for today, stay tuned. I am planning to finish this beast before the end of the year!! (hopefully)

Cheers!

Don'r forget to consider sending a feature either OD or build to the features team here.

Righto.

I am somewhat eager to get this project done, so I have fought the urge to add anymore details and to correct some of the many mistakes this beast has when compared to the real thing. Its funny how many inaccuracies one discovers once the build is underway... .
However, I have fiddled around with the commanders shield and have added the rim / "curved edges" using sheet styrene. It looks much better than the first attempt, which was just a flat shied. I also added some of the lights. I was however not able to construct the lightguards at the front. After several attempts I broke off the effort and decided to live with the situation as is.

I have also started the painting process, giving the whole thing a coat of ModelMaster "Dark Green Flat" mixed with black.
Over this dark basecoat I gave it a layer of "Dark Green Flat" mixed with a bit of Yellow and toned down with a bit of "Graugrün RLM 74". In school I once learned that the more you get away from an object, the more blue/grey it gets. Adding some grey nicely replicates this toned down appearance.
The next stage will be a light wash with oils. Hopefully I don't screw this up, since I have a habit of doing so during the painting stage.

Nuff said, here are the pics:







Thanks for looking. Tell me what you think.

proceed with confidence - this baby is coming along very nicely

Hello folks.

Looks like I failed on my promise to finish that T-72B before the new Year. As so often is the case, the interest in that particular model left me somewhat and I started on other projects. However, I have started with a wash and then added weathering using acrylics and pastels.
This beast is not done yet, but I thought I show you a few more in progress pics.
So here we go.





this is proof that it is indeed 1/72!













thats it for now, folks. Let me know what you think. Any suggestions on how to proceed (final finish, markings etc... are greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

I think it looks great. Keep on keeping on

Wow it looks great
Astonishing for 1/72 with all the small resin panels
Evan