Hello Armorama!

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Mike and although this will be my first post here at Armorama, it has certainly not been the first time I've visited. I've been lurking for months and have been undecided up until now, of whether or not I should join up here.

There are some really talented builders here and I'd like to join in and perhaps enjoy some of the conversations as well as show my own work a little.

Since most of my work lately has been armor I guess this should have been a no-brainer before now.

I guess I will show you guys what I've been up to most recently. Please forgive me as I stumble about, getting used to how this new forum works.

















Yep, that's fun stuff! My full build log is on FSM if anyone's interested in the details. But for now this'll have to do.

It's in primer and waiting for paint but that's about it for now.

Now, before the rivet counters blast me apart for my modelling sins, I'm perfectly aware and I've chosen to go forward with it as-is. I've got some OCD issues when it comes to my builds, but in the end I go for what looks cool to me and at the end of the day, I'm happy about it.

Thank you for reading this, and I really hope you enjoy my work thus far. It's only been about a weeks worth of work on the little guy so far, but it's shaped up well as far as I'm concerned.

Have a great night and Happy Modelling, Gents.

Are those Archer weld seams? Do any hatches open, or are they all molded closed? Did you have any difficulty with the kit or directions? I guess accuracy will be up to the "experten", but what is your overall impression?

Mike, welcome to both Armorama and especially the Braille Scale forum. I've built and reviewed this beast here on this site so I know what you had to deal with. For Biggles2, you can find the review at http://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/10487. Hopefully it will answer a few of your questions about the kit. Mine still isn't finished so I will be curious to see how this one turns out with paint, Mike.

Cheers,
Jan

Thank you for the warm welcome guys.

The hatches are molded separately so you can model them open if you choose to.

The welds are very thin stretched sprue shaped with a hobby knife and/or needle. You just need a lot of patience lol.

As for the painting, I started it this morning.

I shot some Tamiya (TF-5?) Olive Drab from a spray can on it this morning and although I like that color it didn't look right. I decided to go with the recommended Tamiya XF-51 Khaki Drab and it looks much better for the base color and I'm certain it will look a whole lot better then the red-brown the instructions are calling for (which doesn't look right to me at all).


^ Tamiya Olive Drab (TF-5?)

(XF-51) Khaki Drab (below)




That's the base color that was recommended and I have to agree it looks like the best color to start with. After some highlighting, washes, and details, I'll add a green filter so its not too brown.

I'm also not positive which of the three markings I'll be choosing for this build. "Calgary", I believe, was a Mk I, but "Beefy" was a Mk III for sure (Lots of pictures of it knocked out on the beach), and "Blossom" may have been one of the 7 Churchill's that made it off the beach and into town, but I'm pretty sure it was a Mk III also (I haven't found any pictures of it yet). So yeah, I'm leaning towards "Beefy" for the moment. If anyone has any clarification to this dilemma please let me know.

Well... now I have to watch paint dry.

So that is where I have left off this morning.

I really like this kit. The only problem I have with it is the numerous overly-large sprue tabs that line the bogie wheels. I like that they engineered it in two easy to assemble pieces, but they didn't tell me that it would take about 45 minutes to clean the parts properly lol.

One other thing I'd like to see changed would be the tow cables and how they are molded onto the hull sponson sides. That really should be a separate piece. Especially since they require you to place decals under it in two locations.

I've read the reviews, including yours, and they helped guide me around some of the trickier parts of the assembly, such as the hatches and the sprue tabs on those. Annoying things, but not too difficult to overcome. Not like those bogie sprue tabs anyways lol.

It's a really good kit and details-up quite well. I will recommend it without reservation. Now I just wish for Dragon to keep on this line and make a Mk I and II which also were involved in the Dieppe Raid. That would finish the line off nicely and allow some builders the option of actually reproducing an entire squadron if they chose to. Since there were a mix of Mk's in each squadron as far as I can tell.

Have a great day gentlemen! Happy modelling!

Mike,

I believe your choice of Tamiya Khaki Drab is a good one. I have been reading scores of comments on the Dieppe Churchill colour and wasting countless hours trying to mix a match for SCC-2 or what many call "Feces" Brown. I originally tried Tamiya Khaki XF-49 but found it too greenish. I started adding browns to it and eventually settled on mixing it with NATO Brown XF-68. Here are a few images of the test shots with the paint mix.





One has to be careful with "Commonwealth" Colours as they are fairly time period specific. As it stands, the XF-51 I believe is more related to later war and I think came out around the time of the Cromwell IV tank (Oct. 1943?).

Unfortunately a lot of the information out there can be contradictory so your research or guess might be as good as mine.

Cheers,
Jan

Yeah Jan, I don't like that S.C.C 2 brown at all. Looks gross and I think I'll be able to better reproduce a better result starting from the Khaki Drab.

From what I can deduce from historic photographs they were not THAT brown, but it's hard to see. All I know is that the SCC2 is gross and really looks out of place on a Churchill.

So I'm going for a brown-green finish. Historically accurate or not, it will look far better.

Keep an eye out here, and we'll find out soon enough if I'm correct or not lol.

Nice start. I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

There's a photo of 'Blossom' here still on the beach:
http://www.ramtank.ca/churchill%20registry%202b.htm

Also colour photo here which you've possibly already seen:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/weapons-of-world-war-two/churchill-tank/

Malcolm, THANK YOU!! That is perfect!!

I see Beefy and Blossom are indeed Mk III's and never made it off the beach. And yeah, that is definitely NOT a red-brown paint they are in. I've not seen that picture before, but it shows me exactly what I have already seen. They weren't brown.

Those are both pure freakin' gold references and I have saved them as favorites. THANK YOU!

I'm happy to help.
I wouldn't say the colour photo is totally convincing proof as many black & white photos have been coloured at a later date.
But it does add some weight to the 'green' argument.

Thanks for sharing Mike.

I like the weld seams that you've put on. I've also built that kit -- ditto on the sprue tabs on the bogies, they were a pain to clean up. I just took off what I think would be visible. I intend to finish it as a captured tank -- got as far as the base coat last year. Your post reminded me to go and get it done -- soon!

Cheers,

Tat

Colourized photos are unfortunately to be suspect depending on when the process was done. Even some modern attempts with software do not fare much better. The best bet is either an eye witness ( getting rarer) or a surviving painted and unrepainted piece in a museum (quite rare). In most cases, a good guess and good looking results may be the best way to go.

Cheers,
Jan

Haven't had an opportunity to try this yet, but SCC 2 looks like a mix of Tamiya Nato Brown with a hint of Khaki. Definitly more brown than green.

I can understand and I support your assertion that you want to build your way. Perfectly fine by me.

However, the documentation and period photos show that the Churchills at the time of Dieppe were coloured SCC2 "Service Colour", which was definitely a very rich brown.

The "colour" photo of the Churchills on the beach is colourised and colourised incorrectly.

Here are some guides :







The mix using Tamiya colours, from Mark Starmer, is:

SCC No.2 Brown

This colour replaced Khaki Green 3 as the basic colour from late 1941 and remained in use right through to the end of the war although replaced on vehicles for NWE in about March 1944 on. Also on vehicles from U.K. and Canada send to M.E. in 1943-45. In the MTP46 scheme you can put Dark Tarmac, SCC 1A Dark Brown or SCC 14 Black over this.

Mix: 5 pts XF68 + 4 pts XF3 + 1 pt XF1.

The result is just a fraction strong on the red so go careful and do not overdo the black as even a slight touch too much darkens the result a great deal. This should be OK with some medium grey added for scale effect.

Oh, and XF-51 Khaki Drab is not a match for any vehicle fielded by the UK. Ever. It's mostly a uniform colour, not a vehicle colour. Late war UK vehicles were SCC15 Olive Drab.

All the best,

Paul

Dangit. Well, I went Green. I have to admit I'm happy with it too. But now I'll have to build another one in the correct color lol.

Wow, I got a lot done in a day.

Alrighty, let me begin lol. I started a little modulation for the overall paint scheme by mixing up some Khaki (XF-49) with the Khaki Drab to make a mid tone and then mixed a bit more Khaki and a touch of NATO Green (XF-67) for a tinge of green in the highlights.



Which didn't look too spectacular at first.




But after a green wash from Vallejo (#512 Dark Green) it blended pretty well.




I painted the tracks with Vallejo Black-Brown (#822 German Camo Black Brown) and gave them an AK Interactive track wash (AK 083)



Then I gave the entire model a gloss (Vallejo 70.510 Gloss Varnish) before starting the decals.



In the picture below, you can see that I had to cut the decals to get them into position. Also, since I lack any real decal solutions (Testors sucks) I used a touch of Liquid Cement to get them to conform. This is the first time I've ever used any decals made by Cartographer and they are really, really nice decals. But as you can see the LC ate them up pretty badly. Not much of a worry for me as I'm used to this happening anyways.



I usually use the LC trick for the decals on my armor because it lends itself to looking like it's been painted on and I like that look on my armor. I just get out the artist's acrylics and spot repair. However, these Cartographer decals didn't need any LC when they were applied to a flat surface, and thank goodness too, because the LC would've destroyed them little suckers lol.

Anyways, I persevered as always and sprayed another cote of gloss over the decals before using an AK Interactive wash for NATO vehicles (black wash) to pin wash in some of the details, such as hatches and panel lines.

After that I used Vallejo Matte Varnish to seal it all up.






Now all that is left is the detail painting and some touch-ups before a tiny bit of weathering. Maybe even a tiny bit of chipping, but these vehicles were relatively new and were well maintained before being dropped off as cannon fodder.

That's all for today. I think I'll let it all rest a while before moving on again lol.

Happy modelling, Gentlemen!!

Welcome Mike,i have the same thoughts as you.
So we join almost the same day here

I hope your next model gonna be awesome just like this one....

greetz
Razz / Michaël

Not as awesome as yours will probably be.

The yellow + black will give a shade of olive drab (ie: yellow ochre + black = olive drab), so wouldn't Tamiya OD + NATO brown also yield a shade of SCC2?

Hi Mike, Welcome to Armorama/Kitmaker Net

Progress looks fine from here. Those weld seems really set this little model at a higher skill level. If it wasn't for the stuff in the background (and not mentioned in the beginning) I would assume 1/35 scale

That would be a bit more in the green spectrum, but it would be a brown shade of OD. Tamiya OD Green XF-62 is pretty close to a medium green than other OD colors. I would blend NATO Brown with the Red Brown they make and that would be closer with a touch of NATO Black.

The kicker is, if I hadn't added the decals, I could have changed the color by adding a red filter and then a brown wash over that and I would've come close to the SCC-2 without having to repaint the entire model. Red over Green makes a brown color almost by default. Next time I will know better.




Thank you. Once I finish it and take some final shots with a background I'm hoping the illusion will be complete.

Adding the weld seams was my personal challenge for this build just to push my skills a little farther in this scale. Most of my work is in 1/35 and I tend to scratch build a lot of details out of scraps even though I have a lot of AM and PE parts. Sometimes the PE just doesn't look right because of its thickness, y'know?

I have two other armor projects running right now and they have both taken a lot of time because of the changes I've made. Such as this Tamiya M-48A3 that I'm back-dating to an A2.



It's a bit of kit bashing (left-overs from Dragon's M-103A2), Some AM bits, and a lot of scratch build gizmos and details. Oh, and a lot of weld seams, because of it wasn't bolted on, it was welded.

Then I've got an AFV Club M-60A1 that I'm making into an AOS. The kit goes together really well without any issues, but I got bogged down with modifying and scratch building more interior items because I added a white and red Pico LED lighting system to the driver's compartment. Which was cool enough on its own, but with the lights in there you could see a whole lot of space around the driver's seat and an enormous black hole behind him.

The turret basket took me two tries and is still not accurate, but it fills in that space very well and gives you something to look at instead of a giant dark void.

The electrical system is completely internal and the entire rear engine deck has been built to lift off the model to access the battery and switch.










Yeah... this little Churchill has been a piece of cake and a very welcome distraction from the bigger builds. Its gone much quicker than I had anticipated. But I'm building it for my brother because the Churchill was the only tank model I ever saw him take any interest in when we were kids. The only one he ever tried to build himself.

So I'm going to see about finding a case for it and building up a little shale beach inside it.

Thanks for your interest, guys. I really appreciate it!

I just found out that Dragon is releasing a Mk III AVRE with the 290mm Petard Mortar this month. I'm sure this is the first of many to come and I'm looking forward to building the bridge layer eventually.

http://www.dragonmodelsusa.com/dmlusa/prodd.asp?pid=DRA7327

This morning I decided to forgo the detailing and weathering I was planning to change to color to the correct S.C.C. 2 Brown that I should have started this build with.



I wasn't originally going to use another filter because I had already applied the decals. But then I remembered that I have some watercolor paints in the inventory. I watered down some Daler Rowney Crimson Red to a very thin consistency and added a few drops of Tamiya X-20A to get it to flow easily. I applied several thin cotes very lightly till I got the right tone. There are still some areas where the Green shows up, but I'm not too worried about it. I assume these tanks were painted over the original Green they were supplied in by the British.



The watercolor made it really simple, as I just used a little clean water on a brush to just remove the paint from the decals. Once that was all dried I cleared it with some Testors Dullcote and now I've got a Brown Churchill. [smile]








Now I feel more comfortable moving on to the next steps.

Thanks for looking.

A little more progress, but not much. I sorted out the exhausts, MG's, tracks, a little modulation, and a few other minor things.








These pictures are terrible. My desk lamp gives off the wrong spectrum of light for taking pictures at night. Sorry about that. I'll get better ones later.

Have a good evening my fellow modeller's.

Small update here.

I painted the Pioneering tools on the back deck...



Re-did the antennas... again...



And drilled out the MG barrels. I had to modify one of my drill bits for the task, but it worked out pretty good. In the future I think I will drill them before assembly as it as pretty nerve-wracking doing it while they were on the model.




I made up some shale for the beach. Some fine odor absorbing cat litter was the right size and shape, but lacked the colors. I took some of the stuff and mixed it with some Blue-Black paint I made up and some with a Dark Yellow color. Of course they turned into mush as they absorbed the paints. I set the kitchen oven to 250 degrees and laid the stuff out on some wax paper for 30 minutes.







PERFECT! Now all I need is the case to build my little scene in. [smile]

Thanks for looking! Happy modelling my friends. [biggrin]

You've still got a few blue grains to pick out of the cat litter.

You made a brave move changing the colour to brown. There's plenty of green 'Dieppe Churchills' on the web that other modelers have made.

Still a great looking build and a beach scene should be fairly easy to replicate. Many photos show the tanks up to their axles so you'd better stock up on cat litter.