Yes, I am!

I also think the ACU digital pattern "fades" into an overall sagegreen-blue from a distance, especially if the uniform is faded and/or dusty (picture from Prime Portal):

Cheers guys!

Thanks for the interest in my humble efforts!

@ Austin: I really like how the ACU turned out on these little soldiers of yours! Caesar's? Have to paint some of those myself some day. I am, however, still unsure on how to properly paint ACU in 1/72. As Jeff has remarked, this pattern, at a distance, blends into a grey-greenish colour. But I guess I will give Austins method a try. These soldiers really look good.

As for the lack of progress on the TUSK - I am pretty busy studying right now, plus I need a new compressor before I can slab some paint on the thing, so it will be a while until it gets finished. Have to figure out what extra stuff to put on the beast as well (rucks, tarps and such...)
Also, I am currently pretty distracted by a little LAV-25A1 SLEP, as seen in Iraq. I am using the Trumpeter 1/72 kit as a base and scratch the addon-armour and all the little things that it needs... I might one day post my progress on that one too.

As for the review of the CSMC tankers - I will consider writing one, but have first to figure out how to take proper photos of these tiny miniatures. Does anyone know whom of the mods to approach for guidlines for a review?

Cheers!

Thanks. The first one is part sculpt, part hasegawa, the second is ceaser. And at more of a distance, it seems to blend in more, or atleast to me. This is what I mean...

And as far as the review goes, I'd say take pictures of them like you took pictures of your figure, but with a solid color background...possibly light blue (I use light blue printer paper)

Anyways, keep up the work, I love seeing detailed braille scale builds! Any pics of your LAV? I don't think I've seen that one yet...

Take care,
Austin

Hello Gents,

with horror, I just saw that the last progress in this build-log was in March 2010! Time sure flies...

Well, after a longer hiatus from this build (life has a nasty habit of getting in to the way of modeling...) I have had some time to progress a bit on my M1. After a lot of filing here and sanding there, I decided finish the build-phase (albeit there is still room for improvement in some areas...) and proceed to the painting-stage (oh horror...). The tank first got a base coat of Tamiya Sand and a wash with black/brown oils thinned with white spirit. Then some blending with oils again. It is now a tad too dark, but that will hopefully be toned down again, once I am finished with weathering and highlighting, Using oils is a still new for me, so I am curious as to how it will all turn out.
Anyway, up until now this build has been a (slow) blast!

Just realizing that Flickr does not allow embedding pictures anymore. Has anyone an idea what service to use instead? I will upload the pics as soon as I figure that one out...

Till then,

Cheers!

Here we go:







As you can see, I chose to have one fender in green (also one roadwheel, not visible in the pics...) as this seems to be common on active M1s (replacement parts from NATO-camouflaged M1s...). Sorry for the quality, but it is winter over here, which means that the light is baaaaaad!

Hope you like em anyway!

Looking good, Grillmaster!

And I can relate to time flying by and getting little accomplished on your models.

Great job, Grillmaster! I am glad to see that I am not the only slow builder. After tackling the ESCI M1 I am getting an affinity for this machine. It's great to see other Braille scale versions of it.

Regards,
AJ

A fair amount of time might have past since your last posting but it's always a treat to see a nice build come together. Time constraints seem to plague most of us but it's great when you can persevere and achieve these kind of results.

Cheers,
Jan

Great work so far Grillmaster!
Thanks for the detailed pics.
Gary

Looks awesome! Sometimes you can get your camera to compensate for the lighting (I'm not camera savvy so I can't explain with the correct terminology). The green fender was a nice touch.

As far as pictures go, I upload them to picasa, but you can also use tinypic which requires no logging in, but I'd recommend saving the image urls in a word doc to not lose them.

Can't wait to see more, and maybe some of the other stuff in the background

Take care,
Austin

Grillmaster,

I've been following your build since the beginning. Its good to see your in the final phases of your build. Looks fantastic! Nice job on all of the scratch built items. It's all of these tiny and not so tiny details that really add to the overall look of the build. Great job on the figure too.

-Eddy

Feels like ages that this thread was updated... oh wait... it HAS been ages!

Time sure flies...

Anyway. This is still trying to resemble a M1A1 TUSK in braille scale. Building is done, painting nearly so. Apart from a few touch ups and perhaps a base I am declaring this one finished...

















Thanks for watching!!

@Grillmaster – Just Me!

Excellent finish. Have saved this one to the hard drive just in case the photographs begin to disappear. Will be using your build for reference when I do mine, hoping it turns out half as good as yours. I usually don’t build modern machines but I do like the look of the M1A1 Tusk Abrams especially with all of the modifications and add-ons.

Thanks for posting and sharing your build here, hoping to see more of your work here soon.
~ Eddy

Nice to see this one finally come together! I really have a spot for these modern tanks and with yours, we've had some great ones show up in this forum. I can't wait to see the final touches applied and even a simple base to set it off.

Regards,
AJ

Very nice work! The MG sheild looks great and the figure really brings it to life. Are you going to do base for it?
Cheers,
Tim

Thanks guys, the feedback is greatly appreciated!

I had lots of fun building this little beast and learned a lot. I will eventually base it and am looking for an appropriate picture-frame or something like that. I recently got hold of some sets of modern british infantry from under fire miniatures - these 20mm white metal brits are a bit taller than the usual preiser guys but approx. the same size as the csmc tanker in the turret. perhaps I´ll create a little anglo-american cooperation on that base...
The figs itself are absolutely fantastic - simply the best I´ve seen so far in that scale. They have some splendid russians as well - just no modern Yanks yet. See for yourself! (Pics from the website - mine look not near as cool painted yet...)

http://www.underfireminiatures.com




I will still do some touch-ups (for example, the tow-cable is not painted yet. How could I miss that...?)

Thanks again for watching.

PS: my nest entry will be a Trumpeter LAV-25A1 with scratch-built add-on armour and all the bells n whistles. Its nearly done so not a full build log however... Stay tuned.