Thanks for the comment. I plan to use it is strategy games, so no base for it.

Great job on the color modulation. Looks nice. I have bought Vallejo's set for color modulation as well, but so far have not tried it.

Looking forward to see more.

Jesper - Your Landship looks like it could be a real thing. I like the way you used a burnished metal look in places and added mud to others. great job!

Zsolt - Your T-35 is turning out well. Yours looks more field worn and natural than mine. Mine is going to be an older Landship gussied for review by Uncle Joe in one of the mid-thirties May Day parades so the upper works will show a quick & dirty brighter paint job over dirt & wear. I'm still puzzling how to achieve that look.

It would be fun to do another model of the same tank abandoned by its crew in the path of Barbarosa as most all of them were. This one would be a well worn example looking very sad & tired, a mournful comment on the viability of the Landship concept.

Zvezda did a great job engineering the tracks. they are link & length with the join happening on the top of the drive sprockets. The assembled tracks slide on from the front and the sprokets hold them in perfect position for the final drop of glue. They ain't Fruils but still look pretty nice. They have been strong enough to take all of the handling & abuse I gave them during assembly, paint & weathering.

Thanks for the comments, Paul.

Much appreciated.

Jesper, what an impressive machine!
Zsolt, watching your finished kit.
I finished my Lee M-3. It's an old kit from Academy with bad decals.





Thanks for this great campaign.

K.

What a great looking M3. It may be old, but it came out well in the end. I was particularly impressed with the way your tracks turned out. The metal parts look like rusty metal and the rubber pads look like worn hard rubber, very convincing!

@Mr.K congratulations! Nicely done model and the weathering is just the way I like Regarding the photos: that is the exactly same method (laptop photo as a background) I used for Lego figures photography earlier - I have not imagined ever that it could work with models as well... many thanks for the idea

Regarding my T-35: track has its black base color with track wash - now more dirt and dust will come. And the vehicle itself is varnished (satin), waiting for washes, streaks, dirt and other weathering... but to be honest, I've fallen in love with it and it hurts to hide any parts with dust and mud. That's why the weathering will be very soft and subtle

How are you guys with that? Sometimes I see finished models in autumn-winter settings covered with mud and I am sure I could not ever do that with a finished, detailed model (not technically... more emotionally) - even though I know that those finished models are realistic looking...

cheers,
Zsolt

startedt woo weeks ago

Char B1 Bis Tamiya 1:35

What a sharp pic, Roman!

And thank you, Paul and Zsolt, about your kind words.

Hey Mr K and Roman: Nice work on the M3 and the Char B1. Two of my favorite tanks back-to-back.

Zsolt - Your T-35 is looking great! I think rust & dust are fine without mud for much of the year. As I understand it, much of Western Russia is hot & dry during the summer and this look would be just right.

Roman - What fast work on your Char B! It looks great in its new livery. Good job, its a real Landship.

I have been making progress with my own T-35. The tracks are on and it was very easy to mount them. They were just threaded between the return rollers & the fenders and when the tracks engaged the drive sprocket they were in place. A few drops of CA gel glue completed the job. Here are a few pics of where the project was a few days ago:









There is still more to do and time is running short . . .

Great builds going on Gentlemen. I have been thoroughly inspired. With 5 days left in the campaign, I'd like to join with a blitz build. It's a 1/72 scale Crusader Mk.II by Airfix.
I tried the enlist link with no joy. I have documented start photos and in progress build photos ready to upload. Can I enlist?

Paul, well done weathering and stay positive: we still have ~3 days - I'm almost at the same stage with my T-35 and I hope today I can finish it (the other evenings this week will not be free ) and shot some final photos.
The size of this soviet landship is amazing anyway. I was surprised how much of paint it "soaked", how long the weathering takes and how many parts I find suddenly to be left out in the weathering process
Cheers,
Zsolt

It's an honor to join in on this fun campaign as a 12th hour participant. I'm going to do a Blitz build of the old Airfix Crusader Mk.II tank in 1/72nd scale.

Started this build on the 26th of September, 2017.

Construction started with the turret. Kit contained 2 options, the 2 pounder main gun or the 6 pounder main gun. Figure is from Hasegawa's Churchill tank.

Painted the interior black to hide the lack of interior detail.

I used Web references to help me add many missing turret details. Items added include lift eyes, aiming post, periscope hoods, sliding hatch brackets, and antenna mounts. Also drilled out main gun and MG barrels.
Time to stop for now. I'll add the progress photos for the 27th of September later today. Thanks for watching. Bill

Update for work done on the 27th of September.

Lower hull parts and upper hull are readied for assembly. Lower hull is a flat pack design.

Road wheels, drive sprockets, and idler wheels are assembled and ready for painting. Several upper hull components are ready for attachment.

Missing details were added to the upper hull. Items include headlight brush guards, hatch details, bin latches, engine deck handles, tow lugs, shackles, and a fuel line. Also made Bren gun AA mount for turret.

Subassemblies are complete. Painting is next.

I'm going to paint the Crusader Mk.II in a North African desert scheme. Got to decide between the 2 or 3 tone camouflage patterns.
Thanks for watching. Painting update will be posted later today. Bill

Hello folks,
I've finished my dear T-35. It was a joy to build, Hobby Boss made a nice job on it. As it turned out during the progress, no need for aftermarket PE - though the Friul tracks add to the finish, I think. The weathering is intentionally light. I don't like heavy muddy vehicles (unless a dioramic setup requires that ugly muddy look). And here she is:



cheers,
Zsolt

(more photos on my blog soon)

Zsolt, great job on your T-35. It is a real behemoth of a machine. Paintwork looks spot on good. Bill

Thanks a lot It's a true landship - I tried to shoot some photos from "in scale eye level". It really reminds me of warships of that era - I plan to build one or more figures just to size comparison

Zsolt, great work on the T-35. I agree, I loved the Hobby Boss kit. I also used Fruilmodel tracks and thought that they finished it nicely. Gotta build my T-28 one of these days!

This is certainly true. There is more of everything on a T-35. I spent two weeks just on the outer hull that is barely seen once the armored skirts go on.

Glad to have you Panzerman1! You are making very rapid progress and your Landship is starting to look like you are going to make the deadline.

Zsolt - Your T-35 is a stunner. Not only is the model very realistic, your photography is top-notch. Well done!

I too finished my T-35. The Zvezda kit was a good one and I would have no problem buying it again. I did use a metal barrel set but more skillful building might have made the kit parts look better. I made two obvious errors with it. First was to ADD the metal barrel to the plastic part making the assembly too long. It looks good and I did notice until I started reviewing the photos of the real T-35s. Oops!

I can live with that mistake but the second one bothers me. I miscounted the number of side armor skirts and put the red star on the plate too far aft. I still haven't decided what to do about this. We are out of time so there it is - for now.

I selected a theme for this build - New Paint for Uncle Joe. The biggest use the Soviets got out of these T-35s was for propaganda. They were heavily filmed in the big Red Square parades on May Day with Uncle Joe watching from the stands.

I thought about what it would take to put on this annual show. The vehicle would be in service someplace and would have been prepped and transported. The prep would have included making sure the tanks were able to make the route without embarrassing breakdowns and a new coat of paint would be applied over the old finish. Then they would have been loaded on to a rail car and sent to a staging area that was most likely a dirt field.

There the crew would have crawled over the beast making sure all was well with it. The T-35s were maintenance hogs and despite the best efforts this had to have left marks on the new paint. Spring rains would have left their marks too. The underlying dirt & rust would have left streaks.

My model attempts to show the vehicle as it might have looked at a parade in say, 1937 when it had already seen several years of service. The paint was new, not faded but it was marked by boot prints, greasy rags and other wear. For the paint itself I choose a very light green, one not often thought of for Soviet vehicles. I thought that the crews would choose the brightest shade they could find to please Uncle Joe. Also I have seen illustrations showing such a color. Is it accurate? What do you think?