Again I have ventured into the realm of the small: 1/144 armor. This time it's a M1A1 Abrams from the company MiniHobbyModels. It seems to be an offshoot brand from Trumpeter. It's a dual kit that includes a mine roller as well. I decided to build it without the mine roller and as such had to patch up a couple holes in the hull. 2 in the front and 1 on the bottom that must have had some purpose but it can't be a motorization hole as the tank is so small.

The upper hull is just dry fitted on the lower one. It isn't glued because there's still some painting left to do on the wheel/track assembly and the bottom of the track guards.






While taking the pictures I noticed some spots that need touching up. I also drilled out the barrel of the main gun. I'm wondering whether I should go ahead with a wash and if so what color.

Any suggestions?

you could try raw umber oil paint .

Sean

Nice to see someone posting something about these MiniHobbyModels. You’ve done a very respectable job on the painting so far, espetialy, considering the size. I have recently added one of these models to my stable, the T-72M2, so am aware of these kits peculiarities. Thanks for sharing and posting this here.

Cheers,
Jan

P.S. - Might I suggest for a wash you use burnt umber slightly lightened with your base colour or a darker version of your base colour. ;-)

Made more progress on the little kit. For such a little kit, there's a lot to do. I added 2 antennas out of stretched sprue (the first time I've ever used it) and added that little out cropping on the top of the mantle, also out of a flattened piece of stretched sprue. I've closed up that hole in the back and painted the middle exhaust duct a mixture of PollyScale Night Black and ModelMaster acrylic Earth Red. I'm not sure as to the height of the antenna whether I should shorten them a little or if they're fine as they sit. I also want to add that mast sensor (?) that's on the back of the turret but I'm not sure how to go about with it. I'd also like to add a few more antennas but I'm not sure where to put them. Also, does anyone have any suggestion as to what to use for sand in this scale? I want to make a diorama but I'm not sure what to use for sand. I can't use beach sand because it's 144 times too large. I'm thinking to just forgo with sand and carve a landscape out of compressed foam board or a cube of foam. Just need to find the right type. Anyways, that's my spiel for today. On with the pictures! (Oh, eventually I plan on finding DML's M2 Bradley pack to get so I can use it in the diorama... Eventually... I found someone who has it but he's asking $10 for it, not including shipping...)

Michael, for sand, how about sand coloured pigment? Seems you want fine powder and that would be near the color you want already. You could introduce some colour variation by painting after it is fixed in place, or perhaps if you had a few different colors you might mix them together. I guess for painting them you would just use something like a thin wash that you transfer by touching the tip of the brush to the pigment... Or an airbrush.

Yeah I could do that. I'm thinking about trying to carve a base out of foam (steyr foam?) block. Then I guess I could mix some plaster with a sand colored paint and spread it on. Would I need pigments in that case? But actually I guess if I have pigments of a different color than the plaster base I could spread them on randomly. Or do some wash.