Here is the first kit I have completed after my 30 year vacation. I know it’s not accurate but it was available at hobby lobby and at 40% off could not pass it up. I figure right now I need to concentrate on my basic skills before I worry too much about accuracy.

This was a straight OOB build painted with MM acrylics and pin washed with Vallejo washes. The kit was nice because there weren’t too many small bits to fight with, did not lose anything except for 1 smoke grenade into the glue bottle, must remember don’t work over open glue bottle. I used a badger 250 and caned air to spray the primer and base coat. Only thing that disappointed me was I wanted to use the War Pig decal but it ripped when I tried to remove it from the backer paper.

I have a thing about bases and Dio’s so I had to create a base for it. I think it came out OK.

Thanks for taking the time to look.

Very good work for a not so accurate kit! Now go on over to the Buy,Sell, Trade forum and get that Dragon M1A1 AIM kit off of Bill C.

Welcome back! Very nice build!

It looks really nice. The finish and weathering are very good and the base looks awesome.

One small niggle...On the sand 40mm ammo can hanging off the rear, it should not have the marking decals on it. I would paint over them w/sand. The cans only come in dark green with the white markings. Any other color and the can has been repainted by the crew. The markings would also have been painted over.

If you want to update the most blatant problem, AFV Club has some really nice indi-link T158 tracks that would be easy to swap out. Other than the too short turret, the rest is fine.

Welcome back to the hobby Rob ! You did absolutely the right thing starting out with an inexpensive kit to get your feet wet. It looks pretty darned good and the base is a nice way to display it. That's what I like to do too.
Just a simple base to hint at how it got dirty and usually a figure or two for scale.
Can't wait to see kit #2 ! Thanks for sharing with us !
Tom

Thank you for your warm welcome and taking the time to look.

Thanks for the good info, I think that the ammo cans I will correct. For this kit I think I will just keep the cheap wrong tracks.

Again thanks for advise

Great looking work Robert! Please share more about how you did the ground cover items? Nice stuff there

Thanks, I will try and explane what I did. First I built a frame from some 1 x 2 I had around the house. I used 1.8" green flower arranging foam, stuff shapes really nicely with a hack saw blade and file. then I used 1/8" plywood veneer to protect the outside of the foam.

Then I used woodland scenic plaster cloth and after that dried I painted on a really runny coat plaster. after everything dried I glued down some wet dry sand paper for the asphalt road and then applied a water glue mix down and then applied sand from around my house for the ground. I used just normal craft paint to paint the base.

For the retaining wall I used some drywall joint compound and built the wall one stone at a time. I used three products for the ground cover, I used JTT wheat bushes, Highland Tuft from Battlefield and bristles that i cut off a paint brush. Then I used pastel chalks to blend all the ground work together.

I hope this made some sense and if any has suggestions on how to write better explanation please let me know.

Wow! Great stuff. Thank you for your description