Here are the photos of when I started construction:
In this image I had to put a plastic rod the middle because dragon did not mould the bottom hull correctly.
Here I used parts from the voyager upgrade for the tank infantry telephone.
When I was assembling the barrel I realized a spring could be used inside it to simulate recoil of the barrel.
This is when the tank started to take shape before the hull was glued together. The belly Armour on the hull was from one of the voyager upgrades but I decided to use Tamiya's belly Armour because thought it was better.
Here is the driver’s cabin I used from Italari's m1a1 with resin interior.
This is after the hull pieces were glued together.
This is the belly Armour i used from Tamiya's m1a2 tusk 2. It required cleaning up and i removed the bolts later.
sorry about the quality of this picture, it didn't come out very clearly.
i put masking over the optics before primering it in white paint.
here it is after i applied the primer
figures I'm using from Tamiya's m1a2 tusk 2 sitting in the tank. the wheels and the tracks were painted black unlike the rest of the tank. in this picture i didn't glue the wheels on yet.
the painting starts with a Vallejo Iraq sand.
followed by a wash.
then the tracks were painted.
afterwards i dry brushed the hull.
the wheels were then glued to the hull.
the oil gauges were then added to the wheels.
this is what it looked afterwards.
the tracks were put on glued.
at first i wasn't going to put a 50.calibre because i required some parts but i salvaged what i needed from Tamiya's m1a2 tusk 2 and used other parts i had for the transmission. i also had a spare browning machine gun which was more detailed than Tamiya's gun. i converted the part that holds browning machine gun along with the putting everything in place. i also made a few scratch built parts for it.
i thought it looked brillian.
Here i put on the voyager parts on the side skirts. assembling the all the different pieces was the easiest thing to do but sticking them on the tank was the hardest since i had trouble sticking them on. apparently the brass side skirt was supposed to replace the whole plastic side skirt but i thought there would be problems for fitting it in. So i thought it's best if i just added the brass part on the plastic side skirt. for spacing spacing out all the connectors i used a previously build tile to measure how far each one is positioned. i put as many sections for tiles as it showed in the instructions but when i was finished i noticed that it was one section too short.
this of the construction of the brass tiles.
It was very difficult to make perfectly good tiles because the faces of the tiles were bent when they should have been flat. as i was building, some of the tiles became damaged and weren't good for use. personally i would not recommend buying the voyager tusk 1 upgrade and instead a legendary products conversion kit would be better.
The picture below may not look like much but if you look closely at the parts you can see that they are slightly bent.
As a result of the difficulty i had and tiles not being good for use i decided that i should cast resin copies of the existing tiles using the best ones. i glued then in two's to reduce time.
after casting them i faced the worst and most difficult part of gluing then on. since the models weren't perfect some of the tiles couldn't fit into place.
I eventually stuck then on but the sight of the tiles were horrendous.
So i improvised a solution to my mistakes by hiding it under a net.
i left the one of the stowage containers open to reveal the stowage inside.
added the extra meshes that came with the voyager kit.
replaced the rear plastic grill with more detailed brass grill. this was also challenging to put together since the glue kept getting stuck to the template and damaged the template.
The aerial stand broke so i wrapped it around one of the antennas.
the tank after the sides of the hull was sprayed in primer.
The stowage and figures for the model.
The major painting of the tank starts.
the optics.
I put enamel paint on parts that weren't painted with primer spray.
The base layer is complete.
I thought about painting my tank in a camouflage to took more appealing.
Dragon did a mistake on the crows 2 by missing out a part at the back but luckily i had a spare piece for that from the voyager kit. i also made the bars using brass pipes.
i used metallic paper for making the lights reflective.
Here i lost one of the tail lights but luckily i had spare Tamiya lights and a part is placed over it.
the tank is taking more shape.
The tank may have tow cables already on but i thought it would took better with extended cables on the front.
The figures sitting in their places.
painted stowage.
Here is where i start the shading.
followed by the dry brushing.
I had a number of names in my mind of what to write on the tank but i had forgotten them. I didn't want to call it anything original but i wanted something a little humorous. So when i looked through my transfer sheets for ideas and options i stumbled on a sheet that said "Discovery". i was trying to make an anagram of that word when i realized i could make the word "Disco". At first i was going to call it "Disco night" which sometimes i think it would of been best however, instead i called it "Disco time". The way it was written would be as if a crew member painted it by hand on the barrel.
Here's a shot of the turret after it was shaded.
After the weathering was and other battle marks were added.
This is the m1a2 v2 when it was completed.
the drivers cabin being revealed.
Hope you all enjoyed seeing my work.
