Fantastic T-34! That bedspring looks great, really nice weathering also!

Luke,
The T-34 looks super. I have always loved the look of the bed-spring armor. I wonder if anyone has any hard evidence on how effective it was in reality?
Anyway, looks great and if nothing else has inspired me to shut down the computer and go get some building done....thanks!!

Rick Cooper
in foggy Clovis CA

Ah I remember that T-34/85. That thing was simply amazing.

I'm a believer that a model is never truly 'finished', and in this case i wasn't ready to call the tank done, so I'm going to dedicate a few more hours to getting it as good as i can. I really want this vehicle to look like i has been in service for some time and the war has taken it's toll on it. It just looked too flat and boring when i looked at it today, so i've added some paint chips to give some contrast. At the moment it may look like the effect is overdone, but i plan to add some more effect over the top and i didn't want this to get covered up like some of the other techniques used earlier. I also restored the existing worn metal shine with a pencil, which had gotten a bit smothered with some of the other effects. The slightly milky colour is nothing more than bad lighting, which can hopefully be remedied with the new SLR i plan on getting soon. As usual, comments are welcome!

Wow, that is a great T-34 and I like the bullet hole in the glass window too. Makes want to do a T-34 seeing yours

Hi Luke,

Very good work on the windows! I like your broken glass pattern.

Great painting of the tank to!

Cheers
Claude

Thanks
Doing the glass was a lot of fun, and i've still got a little bit more to do. The hardest thing is coming up with patterns that look random and not repetetive.
I can highly reccomend the kit used for the T 34 (dragons t 34/58 w/ bedspring armour). It's a great kit to build with loads of PE included. PE fenders are a good idea, although you could just as easily make them yourself like i did.
Hopefully i'll get some more work done on this in the evening.

right well i promised an evening update and here it is;
I've used pigments loads of times before, and they've been good, but tonight, something really 'clicked' and i got some fantastic results. I think part of the reason is that you read so much about people saying how the subtle effect is ruined by applying thinners/ fixers. Consequently i never really bothered to try using turpentine. How wrong i was . What it really does is create a perfect blending effect that even an airbrush would struggle with. The dried splattered mud i am very pleased with, and the rust has really complemented all those chips. Even the turpentine tide marks break up the flatness of the bascoat, acting like mini filters. I'll do some more tommorow, mostly on the sides and turret, but i don't want to overdo it so i'll take my time. Let me know what you think, all this excitement has taken it's toll , i'm off to bed!

Absolutely awsome job. Very realistic. As an electrician , I can really appreciate the busted off wall mounted streetlight............Al

This is going to be a good-looking diorama. I hate to be a nit-picker but one thing that caught my eye is that your T-34 driver is blind. His hatch is closed and his periscopes are also closed. If there's any way you can open up one or the other you will be in good shape - or just forget about it since not many people notice

Excellent work, love the battle damage.

I agree with everyone else, this is going to be a very great diorama. I can't wait to see the result.

I'm glad you came back to the T-34/85. Sometimes that incubation period is what people need to get going again with something even better than before.

I couldn't agree more Sean, just having it on my shelf for a while and seeing it every day has given me a chance to develop my ideas.
I'd really not noticed the periscopes before, that's obviously one of those late night things where you just follow the instructions without considering what you are doing Unfortunately it's a bit late to do anything about it since everything is solidly glued down. It could still be realistic though if your imagination is good enough .
Perhaps the driver can't open his periscopes because they have jammed or rusted shut. Advancing under fire from the off-scene german defensive position, it would be suicidal to open his hatch as the german MG would almost certainly target him, leaving the tank immobile and vulnerable. The best he can do is follow instructions from the rest of the crew and keep moving blindly forwards. As you say though Danny, hopefully not many people will notice.

Almost there i think...





As the camera flash has shown, a few areas are still a bit shiny. I'll dust a little bit of pigment over those areas.
For a finishing touch, it would be nice to have some water or oil leaking out of somewhere. When you put the turpentine on, the way it changes the colour of the pigments when it is still wet looks brilliant. I don't know much about tank anatomy, but could anyone suggest somewhere on a T34 where water could seep out of? Failing that i'll have to show some oil leeking out of the engine access hatch, but this wouldn't be quite as nice.

Hi Luke. Great work with the pigments. The weathering and damage have really tied this beast together, and the final result is top notch. One thing I always look for is inner parts not properly weathered and this image shows it immediatly. Add some more weathering inside the drive wheels and make sure there are no other areas where fresh green is visible. Looking forward to more.

haha that's just plain laziness on my part
Will try to eliminate all of the shiny areas today.

Excellent work Luke!

I've managed to add quite a bit of mud to the lower hull section, so hopefully now anyone peering at the dio from ground level will just see a nice dust and crusted mud finish. Most other shiny spots on the tank have now been dusted also. Any advice on that water/ fuel leak is still welcome.

Might take a little break for a few days on this one. Don't think i've given up, but my casting resin has finally come (yey!) so i can at last finish off my Tiger dio. I'll bump the thread when i start work on that so you can all follow my progress on that if you're interested.
I think i may have ordered a little too much resin (it was the smallest they did), so i have a litre of the stuff to get through! Anyone know how long it lasts for?

Excellent work Luke tank looks amazing
Gerard

Hi Luke, That tank is so cool!! The bed springs are a great touch and your work with the pigments is terrific!!

Randy

ok back to work on this i think. I still have a figure to repair for the other dio (unfortunate melting MG accident), but other than that i can concentrate all of my efforts on this. I managed to buy some 4mm cork placemats from ikea. They are now called 'YTTERLIG' and have a nice dandelion pattern on them . They measure 32x42 cm and 4 will cost about £6.
I started by cutting them into strips and gluing these together to make up the pavement hight.



The slabs were made from thinner strips cut into pieces (not measured to get a bit of variation).


I then glued these to the base.




I then applied some pollyfilla, making sure i filled all of the gaps.

All credit goes to Blockhaus for poineering this fantastic technique.
More progress to follow soon i hope.

Hi Luke,

I have a little problem with your corkwork.
I admit i had to look out first on a online dictionnary what a "slab" is. Still a lot of words missing from my vocabulary.
I do not hink that it is a good thing to do the same "slabs" on the boardwalk and on the street. It was probably not done so in reality and for the sake of visual interest another size of cobbles or so would be better.
If you want to keep the big slabs, ui would leave them on the boardwalk and replace by cobblestones on the street. (less work for you as the road part is smaller)

JMO

Claude