Hey fellas,
despite it doesn't occur that often to me it somehw seems like I've just finished this little project.
the base kit is dragon's M1A1 AIM kit, the USMC specific parts and the TAB adapter were scratch built, did the painting and weathering using tamiya, vallejo and life color acrylics, schmincke and 502 abteilung oils, mig filters, mig- and vallejo pigments.
the main stowage comes from hobby fan, legends, verlinden, dragon and tamiya, the remaining parts were either scratch built or modelled from green stuff...
a more-less complete overview of the build can be found here

well, nuff said, time to show off

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I'll still have to add a figure but that's another story....
special thanks to: Bill Cross, Mike Mummey, Chris Noone, Frenchy and Nick (angrydog) for their great help...

enjoy,
Cheers, Max

Looks good. Good job on the paint and details. This one came out really nicely.

Nice one Max!

And another Abrams rolls out of the Citizinsane Abrams factory

Seen worse !

Cheers
Christopher

Looks outstanding, great job on the details: straps on the kevlars, the correct types of gear on the tank and especially the empty wooden .50 cal box over the EPLARS antenna.

I personally would not have hung my Kevlar helmet on an antenna as they fill up with grit and dust and will grate on the head when worn but that is just me...

Like everyone else, I am looking for the next installment of USMC Armor from Max's Tank Plant. There can't be too many hawgs left in the Marine Corps that you have not replicated...

John

Like John puts it, very nice job on the details !
Thanks for sharing this one Max.

Excelant represintation of an Abrams. The weathering is perfect and the stowage rack breaths life into this kit.

Howdy Max, ya nailed it! Very nice scale depiction of the real deal. If you put the mini TC in there he wore glasses during the campaign. Again really nice work.
Outta here, Mike sends . . .

Wow, amazing work! Not too much weathering, just right.


cheers

Max,

Your USMC Hog looks great!

One detail it appears you could add is that since you have the old style hull-mounted EAPU Brackets on the right rear of the hull on either side of the taillight guard, you can add the mounting bolt underneath the guard "tube", since these were removable for clearance and relocation to the rear of the EAPU:



Here is the real thing on one of our SC Army National Guard M1A1s, which should be fairly easy to added:



This is very minor, I just thought you would want to know,

I think this is your best effiort so far!

Gino, thanks. btw how's it going with your 'Kuler Blynd' build? have you already decided on a base kit?
think I mentioned it before, but B-22 (I think that is) is up next on my build schedule though I'm still a little undecided wether to do a tank named 'prom queen' (sand colored) first so I'll have a little diversion in between the builds. I tend to go: sand-green-sand-green and so on

John (Mac Pherson), tank you. already got started with your M1 build? I think it was a tank called 'baghdad's nightmare' ore something, right? looking forward to seeing anyone else doing those fancy CIP's...

Chris, absolutely positively shure on that?

John (Charvat) thank you. it was a real pain in the ass getting all the stowage done accurately. there are four molle assault packs which i had to cast in resin and modify so they looked a little different from each other.... just to cover everything with that TIP:D also the wooden ammo box and the MBS container were really time consuming. as for the helmets I see your point however seems like them grunts like it gritty... most of the marine tanks back from 2003 I've seen had the kevlars hung on the aerial masts....

Olivier, thank you too. your 'sinister minister' build really inspired me back when I started on all that marine M1 madness

Matt, thanks.

Mike. well you actually made this one possible in the first place. I had that one really blurry pic to start out with and it wouldn't have gotten half as much work without all the info you've supplied me. so thanks for that. be shure I'll get back at you for more

Rick, thank you. been following your lav 3 thread. still no start on that OOB project? I can really understand you there. that's the reason why I keep away from those stryker based thingies, there are just tooo many conversion options out on the market

Jeff, thanks for the pointer think I'll add that detail tomorrow or so. must have missed it all the time. just had a close look at my ref pics, turns out got armor had that darned thing...
same goes for the little antennae atop the CMDR's side smoke discharger. just stumbled over that piece a few days ago. completely missed it on my previous builds though most of the MC tanks had that thing installed...


well btw. I spy with my little eye: a few more WIP's:

Von GOT ARMOR
and a little hint on what else you'll might see in the near future:
Von GOT ARMOR


Cheers, Max

Got Armor looks great Max. Great to see you've got more WIPs on the way.
Is that another USMC M1A1 and a LAV-25?

As for the other photo, Im guessing a Humvee, cant be sure if its Marine or not. Am i correct?

Anirudh

...... Chris, absolutely positively shure on that?

Cheers, Max
[/quote]


...... every time I look at mine !

Cheers
Christopher

Very nice work, both the build details AND the finish. No hint of plastic, definitely metal. Especially like the dullness of the finish, I find it hard to get the right dullness of paint in this scale to rival the almost chalky texture of weathered paints in real life.

Glad to see those decals come alive!

Anirudh, thanks.
yupp, that's going to be another marine corps M1 and an uparmored LAV A1
I figured it's easier backdating the Trumpy A2 than correcting all those little flaws in that kit...

as for the HMMWV you're correct! still not shure wether to make it an army vehicle or not. I've got the Bronco M1114 (outstanding tooling, far better than the tamyia offering!!!), Legends Rhino system and blast's Warlock Duke. my plan when picking up all the AM stuff was to scratch build the spaced doors previously released by Voyager and putting everything else together as fast as possible BUT I'm having a hard time finding references of vehicles with that combination of gear. only have one pic showing the spaced doors in use with the Warlock antennae and there's no sign of the Rhino and Warlock being used together... well... maybe that'll make for a good whatif build...




thank you Bill! I think the secret to that 'realistic' finish is to apply dark weathering underneath the dusty finish... many people simply skip that step as the dusting definitely is more apparent at first glance. anyway if your having a close look at the real deal you'll find loads of dark splashes, stains and the like. by leaving that out the models usually lack deepness as the surfaces might appear a little monotone at times. I do also apply dark spots, stains ect. after the first few dusting steps and combine pigments and darker shades of oils throughout the entire weathering process. just like on the real vehicle.


Cheers, Max

Looks so tight man! Enjoyed looking at it!


Cheers!
Val

Max, you should think about doing a feature for us on "dark weathering." PM me if you're interested.

Hi Max,
I am still waiting on the parts and kit to come in the mail. I have a couple small PE sets (turret basket mesh and Eduard folding BRE) on the way and the Dragon USMC M1A1 HA Iraq 2003 kit (3533). I should get started on it in a week or so. I look forward to seeing yours once you start it too. "Prom Queen" sounds interesting. Have any pics of it?

I second that

Yes I've made a start on "BN" but its a very slow wip. I tinker with it every now and then. Took your advice and used the AIM kit.

Will eventually post the final result

Beautiful!

Thanks for posting the photos and comments.

Cheers,

Christophe

well, been a little busy so unfortunately I've neither had the time to paint the figure, nor to build that rear EAPU hose... (actually built it already but misplaced it )

Val, Jeremy, Christophe, thank you! it's really nice hearing you folks like it!

Gino, well, the old dragon kits were nice until they came up with the new ones, I wouldn't build anything but that anymore, just an unbearable pain in the ass...
have any more AIM/SEP kit leftovers? anyway, looking forward to seeing some of your progress.
as for prom queen shure I got pics... not the best ones though, lots of blurry footage and such.
should guide me through making it look right however. you don't happen to have some nice HD photos of that tank?

John, glad you chose to go with the AIM kit, would love to see some pics of your progress!

Bill, think you've got mail

Cheers, Max

Yo Max !

Is that BLAST accessory set any good ?
Worth buying

Cheers
Christopher

more than useful I think... quite expensive though (more than 20 bucks for a small zip bag)...
you'll get 19 resin parts with only very few airbubbles, no warpage at all and in some cases readily removed casting plugs as well as a small sheet of paper with cardboard water cases, a map and one of those 'stay away 100 meters' signs...
the highlights are some peli cases, a ply wood map board, folding cots, a 'weighted' CVC helmet, coolers and some other stuff usually found laying around commander's hatches. anyway I can only recommend it...

Cheers, Max

Okeydoke,
took me some more time than i thought at first but I can now call this one done:
Von GOT ARMOR

Cheers, Max