The kit went together well with only some minor filling and seam removal required ... the fuel tanks being the worse assemblies in the whole kit.
I determined to build this kit straight "Out of the Box" and have so far .... except for the addition of a styrene rod antennae which may or may not stay, I've yet to decide.
I use cheap ($1.00 / 4 oz. bottle) craft acrylics and mix my own colors. I have been doing this for the past several years and find that the resulting finish is as good as anything I ever bought pre-mixed, if handled properly. I use regular rubbing alcohol to thin it for my airbrush and as you can see, get a pretty good flat finish out of it.
I wasn't happy at all with that first mix, so re-formulating with the addition of some bright leaf green, I came pretty close on the second try -
This particular T34 has a fairly narrow white, air recognition stripe atop the turret and this was achieved via 3M painter's "No stick" tape as a stencil, masking off the remaining surface and spraying three layers of really thin white -
As you can see, I pre-shaded the engine deck area and rear plate with some thin, brushed on black paint. This should facilitate the final shading process in this area -
I took the point of my #11 Exacto blade and "Chipped" the recognition band around the hatches and randomly here and there. A very light wash of dark green was applied over the stripe to simulate the tanks base coat showing through wear spots. Finally, I reapplied some white via brush in between the chips to accentuate the original white color.
This project just kind of popped up out of nowhere - I'll be interested myself to see where it goes.
rb
