This will be my first attempt at an AFV since coming back to the hobby. I'll be looking for suggestions etc. from those more experienced AFV builders on here, if they are willing

Anyway, I picked this kit up from ebay for £30, which i though wasn't bad. The box is a bit battered and a few pieces had come off of the sprues in thier bags. The decals are yellow but its all there. I am going to attempt an Israerli version in Dark Yellow. I Know that their current vehicles are painted Yellow-Grey, but I don't think that the early Centurions were done in that colour. I'm happy to be corrected by those more knowledgable.

These first few shots are from the internal turret detail. The light grey is just Vajello grey primer sprayed liberally and dry brushed with tamiya metallic grey XF56. The chipping was applied by hand with a very fine brush, dabbing on MC214 Dark Iron from Mr.MetalColor. A Mix of Dark And Rust wash was applied.




The light grey primer sprayed over the Mid Grey-Blue Plastic showing the contrast.




The shell cases were sprayed with MC217 Mr.MetalColor Gold.




Images showing the bits before they are all hidden:(







The Ammo Boxes were Sprayed with Mr.MetalColor Stainless Steel.




Turret Base with seat, the cushion was coloured dark green and gently weathered with Tamiya weathering powder/paste 'Sand'.




Box edges chipped with Dark Iron.




The Main Gun Breach component






Turret Gearbox and commanders seat.



As always guys, I'm open to comments.:cool:

i recognise these potos..... cant get enough of your work...

Hi Rob.

I'll post more later. I'll try not to bore you

I love these old kits. The ammo storage looks quite good. The whole interior should be sile as well. Have you found a .50 to go on it?

While looking for detail parts I noticed Mouse House Enterprises ( see in Review section ) has 1/25 scale Centurion detail parts . Most are for Aussie conversions , but you never know ...also saw a 1/25 scale 30cal machine gun that might work for you . Always wanted to build this old Tamiya tank , maybe one day

A quick update for you all.

The interior of the turret is now complete. The main issue was poorly fitting turret halves which necessitated a bit of filling with Vallejo white filler and some sanding.:rolleyes:

A couple of points of interest - The radio pack face was sprayed with buffable Dark Iron and when dry, I rubbed my finger over it to shine the protrusions. The white dials and small needles were painted and and then a drop of Krystal Clear added, which when dry gave me a nice glass face effect.

I was thinking about the one in the Italeri Land Cruiser Technical, but have not seen one built up. I wonder if Live Resin would consider doing a 1/25 .50 cal?

These are from the two different Hasegawa 1:24 Willys Jeeps:

great build,love the detail of the paint.

During my training days on Cents the Breech was Green and the sliding Block Steel. The kit is missing the BML (Breech Mechanism Lever) which is actually under the Breech and the handle with press button on top, fits just in front of the lower right portion of the block face.
It was operated by the loader using his left arm and hand by depressing the button and swiftly pulling the lever towards your body in an arc, thus opening the sliding breech block (left to right), ready for action.
Once the block locked in the open position the lever was returned to the stowed position...

Try this stowage picture, allow it to open fully, then click on it for additional details. > http://tinyurl.com/o4ab9xq

Keith.

I have now completed the turret.

It was airbrushed with a base coat of Vallejo grey primer. A graded coat of dark brown was added to the shadow areas underneath with a gradual fade to the grey undercoat at the top highlight areas.

A preshade of matt black was then applied around all of the edges and join lines. Heavily thinned dark yellow was then sprayed in 4 applications to build up the effect that I wanted. Once dried I brush washed the whole thing with a 'grime' clay wash and removed it in such a way to allow it to sit in the recesses and leave some dirt streaking. Chipping was then applied by hand using a teeny weeny (technical term) brush and some dark iron paint.

The track pieces were airbrushed with buffable dark iron and when dry, the high spots were buffed. Rust pigment was brushed into the crevises (Ooo-err Missus):eek:

The cable on the cable drum is just weathered fuse wire wrapped around.

The whole lot was then dry brushed with Tamiya weathering light sand to highlight the edges.

Coats of matt varnish were applied in different amounts to different areas to give a variation in 'Mattness' (I'm sure that's not a real word)

I made some camo netting to scale and coloured it in desert shades. The retaining straps were made of lead wire which I rolled flat with a bottle of tamiya XF-1 and then shaped the straps around the netting and barrel. They were glued at the bottom with Gator Glue and painted in Dark Yellow. I think this adds a touch more realisms to the stark barrel.

Comments welcome.....:cool:

I have managed to get the hull painted and weathered this week. The wheels are mostly finished, I'm just working through them progressively so that I dont get too fed up with them

Most of the fully working suspension is screwed on to the hull, and held in place with the covers. The usual Vallejo grey primer was laid down, and pre-shading was airbrushed with a combination of flat black and dark brown. This was followed by layered Tamiya dark yellow. A coat of Gloss sealed it all in.

A grime wash dirtied it up followed by subtle highlighting on some of the edges with tamiya weathering master light sand. The lot was then airbrushed with a matt varnish.

I finished off with some chipping applied by hand using MrMetalColor Dark Iron.

The last image shows the hull next to that of a Tamiya 1/35th scale Panther, just to give you an idea of the size of this 1/25th Centurion.

Hi Guys


Another quick update before I dash off to work.


The wheels were assembled and the rubber 'tyres' were flattened as they all had an annoying dip in the middle all of the way around. I was quite aggressive with a very rough sanding stick, which also gave a nice worn feel to the rubber faces. A few nicks were cut into the odd rubber tyre. They were all airbrushed with primer and then dark yellow before a grime wash was applied. This encouraged the bolts to stand out. A light sand dry brushing sorted out some subtle highlights.


The tyres were hand painted with Tamiya Rubber Black and when dry, given a good dose of sandy pigment to show some perceived use. A final application of some paint wear and chipping was painted on by hand with a fine brush and Dark Iron paint. SOme of the dark Iron was buffed to give some variation.


The track pieces were assembled a few evening ago whilst watching Stargate Atlantis on t' telly. They were airbrushed with Dark Iron and the high and touching faces buffed to leave shiny faces where they rubbed the wheels, sprockets and ground. Rust pigment was brushed with a stiff brush into the joints and then over brushed with a mixture of sand and green earth pigments. The whole lot was airbrushed with Alcohol to help keep the dust in place.


The track skirts were painted and weathered with the same techniques used on the turret. I shaded from light to dark to give some weight. The streaking was done with Tamiya weathering master. The original decals were very worn and faded, so I redesigned the characters on CAD software and cut out some masks with a laser cutter. I lifted the mask slightly from the surface when airbrushing the white characters, as I wanted a 'roughly sprayed at the front with a stencil' look.

This is the reasonably detailed engine and sub-engine.

I decided to paint a base colour of Tamiya XF-21 Sky. For the fuel tank I used Stainless steel, a hint of leakage was applied using Tamiya Smoke and an application of burnt blue from thier Weathering Master powder. The hoses were Tamiya Rubber Black and were finished off with the hose clips in chrome silver.

A Dark Dirt wash was applied over a coat of gloss, and when dry, removed as required to give some definition to the details. Chipping was hand brushed with Dark Iron. The dusty and sandy areas were completed with Tamiya weathering master Sand and Light Sand.

I Have now squeezed the engine unit in, fitted the radiators and exhaust, The drivers compartment has also been fitted, painted and weathered.

So here is the finished 1:25 scale model of the Centurion mk.III British main battle tank. It has been built out of the box with no extras, apart from the camouflage netting around the barrel which I made myself.

The paints used were as follows:

Primer was Vallejo grey polyurethane acrylic. This was also used for all of the interior surfaces. It gives a lovely smooth and resilient surface for the following paints.

The main overall colour was Tamiya Dark Yellow Matt XF-60. This was mixed about 40% paint with 60% Tamiya X-20 thinner.

Panel line preshading was done with Tamiya XF-1 Matt Black and overhead light simulation presahding was done with Tamiya XF-64 Red Brown.

Some weathering effects and shadow areas were done with Tamiya XF-49 Khaki.

The matt finish was thinned Vallejo matt varnish.

Chipping was hand painted with MrMetalColor MC24 Dark Iron. Exhaust and metal tool parts were also airbrushed with this paint as were the tracks and tow cables.

Weathering and rusting was done with a combination of Rust and Sand pigments. Various Tamiya weathering master sets for were used for streaking, rusting and staining effects. Lighter colours from these sets were used for edge highlighting.

Once the track pieces were buffed where the wheels ran and also where the locating lugs rubbed between the wheels, the pieces received a dunking in first rust, then sand pigments, with a good brush scrubbing between the two.

The exhaust parts were treated in the same way.

Although this was an old kit that I picked up from ebay for £30ukp, it went together reasonably well. There were plenty of moulding lines that needed scraping off before painting and the instructions had a couple of anomalies. The old decals were very yellow, so the markings for my choice of variant were spayed using a template that I cut out with a laser cutter, from a CAD drawing that I made.

I learnt a lot from trying various weathering methods on this build and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

As usual, and observations or comments are welcome. Enjoy the images.

WOW! It's really amazing. Outstanding build, and great final effect.

Paweł

Very nice finish!

Excellent photography as well.



cheers

I like how this came out, but one thing just jumps out at me every time I see it; the single flat handle on the jerrycan. Given the amount of work you put into the rest of the model, the flat plate where there should be three handles really stands out in a bad way. It is inexcusable that Tamiya made their jerrycan like this on such a nice kit, but it's not that difficult to replace it with handles made from plastic rod.

As a suggestion, it would also add a little to the depth of the finish if the tie down straps were a slightly different shade than the surrounding vehicle. Just a small thing, though.

Paul

Very nice work on the interior.

The driver's instrument cluster and panel could be painted in a factory primer red if you wanted to add some colour.

They were of course, Black and not White.

The very large sink (ejector pin) mark on the commanders hatch should be removed as this is very eye catching...

But again, the paint and weathering is nicely done..

Keith.

Beautiful paintwork! My brother made this kit many many years ago.