Here is my first model since September. I had an extremely busy fall and early winter and hadn't had a chance to spend more than a grand total of 10 - 15 hours since the month of September modeling until my Christmas vacation. I hadn't even had much chance to be here on this site even though I used to come around at least once a day. I wanted to get back into the swing of things with one of the fabled Tamiya "shake and bake" kits and this kit was no disappointment. The only thing in these photos that was not in the box (besides the paint and glue of course) are teh MV lenses for the headlights, wire grab handles, and the Aber chains on the front towing shackles and smoke grenade lauchers. Till this point, I had never built a kit this nice and I must say I am spoiled. As you can tell, it hasn't had a bit of weathering yet. I plan to make it pretty darn dirty and am going to attempt mud for the first time. Hopefully all will turn out well.

Very cool looking. Those MV lenses look great. Same for the Camo Job. Are the taillights MV lenses tool, or just paint? What ever they are, the look excellent.

First off I do WWII vehicles, From the look of this puppy...Very nice! major comment.............shrink your pic a tad! #:-) On the side..I think it looks great!

Lord Avukich,

Seeing you diverting to modern stuff, this is one real sweet build, although I am not fimiliar with the subject, but I can see the work and fine painting and subtle weathering that is now a trademark of your work, very impressed.

What a beautiful beast you have built. I can't wait to get home and finish mine. I started building that kit early last year but was interrupted by OIF. I have one question. What did you use for the orange color on the tail lights. I can see the main tail lights appear to be MV lenses. The lights that I am referring to are on the outside edge of the rear just below the grill (above the tail lights).

Its good to have you back to the board. Thanks for posting the great pictures.

Thanks for the comments guys. In reference to the tail lights:

The only lights that are MV lenses are the front headlights. The rear lights were all done the same way, which was to first paint them with an undercoat of Humbrol aluminum #27001 (basically I just wanted a silver color and this is what I had on hand) and then once that had dried go back over the silver with Humbrol clear red (1321) or Humbrol clear orange (1322). I learned this trick from a local airplane builder who uses this technique for all of his landing lights.

More pics to follow once I have this bad boy weathered.

Great to see you back again Adam. And with something modern as well!
Lovely model ... great camo, decals, .. in fact great everything!
Everything looks so neat and well built. Thank God i avent attempted a shake-and-make yet! Id probably end up throwing 80% of my stock!
Nice one!

Did you happen to mask the Camo on it? looks like it since its so hard edged....Looks great though!

Nice job, avukich.

was the camo self made pattern? I'm very curious as to the method you used to achieved this fine example of camo painting!

Adam, I agree with the others about how the headlights/taillights really add to the model. I must admit modern German armor has never been my intrest but you have a winner here. Almost makes me think I should reconsider. Nice job.......

Brian

What # are the MV lenses you used?

I glued in the kit parts into my kit with white glue so I can pop them out and replace them later, but I am having a hard time finding them and will have to mail order. I'd rather not order the wrong #

I totally agree with your comments on how great a kit it is to build, the Type 90 (modern Japanese) is creeping up onto the top of the 'to build' stack. I hear it is every bit as good!

Mike

Well, i know im gonna be a little but if saw that particula tank few months ago in Orahovac (Kosovo in Serbia), and its a bit more darker on all three colours ... a dark wash could help u with that, other stuff is cool! also i notices that the first insignia on the left front bumper is heavy schrached (like the tank hit something with it...) ;-) so if u wanna real time update u can add that aswell

cheers!
Mirko

Good camo job. Are those indy tracks? Well looks good even without the weathering. :-)

Ah come on and give it a shot! :-) It didn't want to make me get rid of my old stinkers. The reason I built it was because my last few builds were the type that make you re-evaluate why you pursue this hobby and I just wanted something to make me remember just what it is about this hobby that I love. This kit was just what the doctor ordered.




I used Silly Putty as a mask.




No. I tried to loosly follow the pattern supplied in the Tamiya kit instructions.




Me either to be honest, but I knew that this kit had the reputation (well deserved) of being a wonderful model to build and for modern stuff I really liked the look of the spaced armor on the turret. I am typically a WWII modeler, but when I make kits from that era I find it very hard not to do at least some super-detailing.




I used #138.




Nope, they are the Tamiya rubberband kit tracks. If I do this kit again (which is likely) I will probably buy the Armor Track Models indy tracks, a Model Point barrel, Eduard PE, and the Hong Kong Creation Workshop Strv 122 conversion.

Mirko--Thanks for the pointer. I haven't done even the slightest bit of weathering yet, but I plan to dirty this guy up quite a bit. I will be using a heavy wash of Raw Umber, dirtying it up with pastels, and then muddying up the suspension and lower hull using the "recipe" given in the article on the Swedish BGBV81C in the latest AFV Modeler (#14).

Excellent, after a wash i think ull get the right colour! All u can do than is a bit more metal drybrush over that front left marking so it looks damaged and its same like i saw it i think one of my friends even took a pictured of the real one, ill try to get it if he still keeps it and scan it for you so u can frame it and keep it next to ur model

GOOD WORK, not to mention im curently building same tank, but from Revell, and i dont think mine will be half as good as yours since i dont have an airbrush! keep them coming!

In the meantime here u are my pic i used as reference (this were not taken by me and its from 1999 or 2000 i think, before front left bumper was damaged)

Hey Adam, how's it going buddy ? Real nice work here. Nice camo scheme and a nice clean build. Are you planning to weather it at all ? Some washes maybe and some fading on those colors maybe. Other then that, its about time someone put one of these Leo 2A5 kits up on here. :-)

Keep up the great work !!

Robert

Can't add any more than has already been said about the model. Well Done! I am interested in the photography. Are those digital photos?

Adam,

What paint brand and colors did you use for camouflage?

Rgds,
Pawel

Very impressive Adam.

Chuck

Yes they are. I have an Olympus Camedia C-3040.




I used Polly Scale acrylic paints. The three colors were Nato Tri-Color Black, Nato Tri-Color Brown, and Nato Tri-Color Green.

I've actually got the tank completely finished now (as of Sunday), but haven't had a chance to take pictures. I will take them and post them ASAP.

Man, this big cat looks great. One thing I did notice is theat there are no baskets on the back of the turret. Were these left off on purpose or have yyou added them since taking thoses pics. If not you might want to think about filling in the connection points, IMHO.

Other than that she looks great, I love the camo scheme. Keep it up.

I left the baskets off on purpose as the photos seem to be 50/50 when it comes to them being present. The main reason that I left them off is that the mesh that comes with the kit doesn't look right at all and I didn't want to go out and buy PE since this was meant to be a sanity OOB build (well mostly anyway).




I wish I would have noticed that I had forgot that a long time ago (i.e. before painting and weathering). Well I will have to see about fixing that little oversite. Thanks for pointing it out.