Very nice work Karl well done it looks fantastic.

The kit has some nice weld seams molded on. Great looking camo.

Reminds me of driving one around in Battlefield 2.

Paul

@David- Thanks, and I airbrushed the camo and then finished off any tricky bits with a brush.

@vertigo- too kind bro, thanks. I was thinking of doing a ZBD myself but I want to wait and see if Hobbyboss bring out the Naval/Marine version which was pictured in the Beijing parades in a strange blue, light blue, grey and white camo. It would certainly stand out in my display cabinet against all those greens and tans!

@Scott- Cheers, much appreciated.

@Paul- Thanks. The weld seems are great on this, but quite delicate so be careful if you happen to be sanding near one! I remember getting run over in BF2 by one of these...several times !

The ZBD is a great kit, fits together well with very little problems.

The only issue I found were the drive sprockets. After solidly gluing them to the tub I found they were misaligned meaning the tracks will go a little skewed.

I know the camo scheme you're talking about too, I was thinking about doing it but decided to go with something more simple in the end.

I think it is a marine vehicle though. It's shaped like a boat, has two large water jets and from the research I've done it appears the vehicle designed to be launched from a ship and make its way in shore.

Yeap, it is a marine vehicle. They call it the ZBD-2000 (although I've heard of other designations for it).


Its based on US Amphibious Armored Personnel Carriers. You are right about the water jets but it also has a planing device on the end of the hull, they can position it so the vehicle can hydro-plane on the water, as opposed to being mostly submerged. Some claim its the fastest of its type (I doubt that, the Chinese military say stuff like that about all their vehicles) but some have pointed out its armor is very thin and can only withstand small arms fire.

I heard a rumour (on here I think) that Hobbyboss were planning a release but it doesn't seem likely this year.

Ah I see what you mean now. The ZBD 04 is issued to the South Military Region and is fully amphibious but the ZBD 2000 is a naval vehicle.

Funnily enough when I bought the kit it came with a page displaying a group of different Chinese vehicles, some of which HobbyBoss already produce. The others were the ZBD 2000, ZBD 05, ZSD 89 and the ZBL 09.

Did you get something similar?

Yeah I got a sheet at the bottom of the box with the box art on one side and all these vehicles pictures on the other side, some of them have been released. The ones that stand out and that have not been released are the ones you mentioned and what appears to be a jeep, from the front headlights it appears to be a BJ2022 Brave Warrior- kind of like a Chinese Land Rover, but there is no English translation on the sheet. So far I've read one rumour about the ZBD-2000 and thats it.

Brave Warrior:


The BJ2022 would be an interesting release as I think Bronco are going to release a Dongfeng EQ2050, the Chinese Hummer clone, sometime soon. It would be a bit of competition and there aren't many (if any) PLA softskins around.

Dongfeng (again with that snazzy camo!):

Well I wouldn't say no to more modern Chinese equipment, I've been eying up the ZLC-2000 for a future project.

So the first stage of weathering is finally complete.

I'll put up the pictures first and explain a little below them.

















So the weathering went a bit like this:

Unfortunately I'm having trouble finding Future Floor Polish/Johnson's Klear anywhere in Northern Ireland (does anyone know where to get this stuff in the UK?) so that option was out. I have some Tamiya Clear but I've never used it in place of Johnson's Klear (does it work the same way?) and so I decided to go with plain old Matt Varnish.
The brand I use is called 'The Army Painter Anti-Shine Matt Varnish' and comes in a big aerosol can. I like it because the finish is very hardwearing and produces a nice base for pigments. Its not so good if your doing your oil/enamel wash because it doesn't let the paint flow very well (making pin washes very difficult) and for some reason, when dry, it leaves a fine dusty residue. This can be removed with a stiff brush, or I find the small stiff end of the Tamiya Anti-Static brush works very well.

So, like I said, matt varnish isn't great for enamel or oil washes but sometimes we can't have everything. A wash will still go on but it requires a little more work. For this model I wanted a fairly dirtied up vehicle that had perhaps been wading in a muddy river earlier in the day and I used a light brown enamel wash (you could also use light brown oils) followed by a dark one (you could use black oil paint for this).

I worked it into the wheel wells as well as on the rest of the model, although here I didn't concentrate a lot of dirt as the large wheels pretty much obscure anything behind them.

Unfortunately while I was working the foot plate at the rear exit door kept breaking off so I've left that off until I get the wheels on. The eagle eyed of you might also notice the co-ax machine gun barrel is different and thats because it did a dissappearing act on me- there one minute, gone the next and still not found! I drilled a little hole and opened it up with a scalpel and then stuck a piece of paper-clip in which seems to do the trick. (Never underestimate the humble paperclip...). Anyway, that about finished this stage and all that was left was to give the model another very light coat of matte varnish to seal in the enamels for the pigments and various other small weathering bits still to do.

KARL187

I think its fair to say that when most modellers open a shiny new model box and see a set of vinyl tyres they usually end up in the corner of the room. Pale and drawn they mutter 'The horror...the horror...'


Anyway, I though I'd just go through my own technique for vinyl tyres.

First off you need a good, old brush, some thinner and some pigments or ground up artists pastels in a suitable color.


I would always say to apply pigments on a sheet of paper or a tissue because they will get everywhere...yes they'll even get on that nice clean build you've just finished and on which the varnish is still wet! Basically, load up a dry brush with pigments and go to town on the wheel.


When you're done it should look something like this:


For most wheel weathering rubbing the excess off the tyre wall and tread produces a decent look.


Mud and dirt is rarely one monotonous color and so adding other colors of pigments gives it that bit more accuracy and makes it look suitably natural.
I had used Dark Mud originally and now I added some African Earth, not too much, in random areas and rubbed it in a bit with the brush before using my finger to take off the excess again:


You can just leave the tyres as is now but the pigments will come off on your hands if you are trying to fix them in place or hold the model by the wheels. Your best bet is to 'fix' them using the branded fixer or some thinner.


Don't go overboard rubbing with the fixer/thinner, just dab it and let it flow. Rubbing it will move the pigment around and produce an uneven finish.




So vinyl tyres aren't great and they really don't like paint but they don't produce half-bad results with pigments.

KARL187

As luck would have it I opened up this model over the weekend. So far I'm seeing very much what you are saying--good fit, not too much flash.
I see you have the same problem I do with the springs, but they should be well covered and nearly invisible when done. Quite like your wheels. Good work all around; I'm a little nervous about the three-color scheme, only my second stab.
Have you used any other references? I've been looking around a bit and haven't found much in the way of useful pictures.

Here's a fantastic few pictures I found:
http://mil.huanqiu.com/photo/china/2008-04/94967.html

Unfortunately there is a dearth of decent pictures on Chinese AFV's.

Thanks for looking and good luck with your build.

So after the wheels were all done I decided to start on the wheel arches. I didn't spend too much time on these as once the wheels are in place you can't really see them. I mixed up some Dark Mud pigments with water until it was paintable but not stodgy. Then I just painted it on and waited for it to dry.







As you can see in the pictures above there is some mud deposits around the corners of the hull/wheel arches. This is Tamiya Soil Texture Paint- its great for adding bits of mud/grit because its ready mixed, goes on quickly, dries quickly and doesn't brush off. It can also be painted or weathered.

Once that was done I then put the wheels on.





I then moved on to weathering the rest of the vehicle.
With pigments and other weathering techniques you can go to town and get carried away so I always find it good to think of how your vehicle got weathered. I already mentioned the dark enamel wash was to simulate dirt from deep wading that had then dried. So now I thought my vehicle should run onto some dry mud/dirt which would inch up the side of the vehicle as it is kicked up by the wheels. This meant not putting too many pigments on the top of the vehicle and limiting that around the top edges of the hull sides.













I always like to add some black smoke pigments to the engine grilles, guns and exhausts of vehicles to show they've been used/driven.





Now I'm off to fix the pigments and finish any little final detailing. Hopefully I should have the finished pictures up soon.

KARL187

Nice work Karl well done.

@Scott- thanks.

@Juan- I'm not entirely sure what your getting at. I think your talking about the metal finish on the tow-cables and main armament? If so, I haven't completed the model just yet, I usually apply some graphite powder to the metal/gunmetal parts to give them a metal shine.

FINISHED!!
It took a while but I got there.
After the last post the only other things I did was add some pigments in places on the upper hull where the crew would have been walking. Once that was fixed I added on the rear door step and weathered it accordingly. Then I just ran a pencil around some edges and metal parts to give them a metallic sheen.
Then I mounted it on a base and added a plaque I'd had made.

All in all the kit was damn good and there were few problems.

I'll finish this post off with some pictures of the finished model.


















Thanks to everyone for having a look, commenting and contributing.

KARL187

hey karl it came out great the wearthering was spot on can't wait to get started on the one i have whats nexts????
dave

Thanks Dave, much appreciated. Are you doing a build log for yours?
Next, I've started a Humber Scout Car of the Irish Guards during Market Garden and depending on how various experiments with water products turn out (for a diorama with the vehicle), I may post the project up as a build log.

Hey Karl I will but I first have to finsh the build and Wright the feature. Be for I start thank Dave

Hi Karl, would it be possibke for you to restore the pictures in this post ?

Many thanks.

Thomas

Hi Thomas, right now I don't even know where these pictures are. This is a pretty old thread and its likely I don't have those pics on my current computer. Its possible I have them on an old SD card somewhere. These pics and I believe pretty much all the pics I ever uploaded to threads have been wiped out by the mess over at Photobucket. I do plan to try and sort them out at some point but these pics might very well have been deleted. Sorry about that. A lot of people are in this situation with their photos thanks to Photobucket !