Hi all. Here's my second build for this campaign. The hull is Tamiya, turret is from Legends with a Jordi barrel. HVSS suspension and tracks are from AFV and pe from Eduard. I appreciate your comments and thanks for looking!

Very nice Sherman. How are the items on the side fenders being held on?

Thanks Alan. The supply sergeant had boxes and boxes of chewing gum so the crew put it to good use to save valuable rope.

IMHO an excellent Sherman. Very effective paint job.

Thanks Dave,

your humble opinion is valued and appreciated.

Hi Mike,
Nicely done. I think you really pulled it off. IF I may offer a bit of contructive advice. Just run a few dark washes into the sand shield attatchment strips and a few of the other crevices as well. It will really make things pop Keep up the great work.
Cheers,
Bryan

Bryan,

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I will give it a go.

Cheers

Mike---this is nice Sherman -- Congrats.

Care to share how you painted and weathered the entire vehicle? It just looks heavy I would especially appreciate a paint/weather walk through on the tracks and suspension.

Good stuff here sir--thanks for posting.

Steve

I'm with Steve. Please share, Mike!

Sweet Easy Eight

Wow guys, I am honored.

The paint job actually evolved over a coule of weeks because of an article I read in Armor Models #6. I'll get to that later.

The lower hull was first painted flat black (Tamiya acrylic 50/50 mix with thinner). Then everything was painted in acrylic OD (50/50 with thinner), more OD on the middle of an area so that any edges looked somewhat darker. I think this is called pre-shading. All this was done before suspension and track was installed.I would usually have done a coat of Future here but decided not to because I wanted to keep the detail as sharp as possible and there are only a few decals on this model. I did spot applications of future with a brush on the areas that were going to get the decals and then applied the decals.

Next came the white paint which is also Tamiya acrylic but was extemely thinned, about 5% paint and 95% alcohol. This allowed me to have a lot of control over varying the white color coverage. Again I applied more white in the center so that the edges would be somewhat darker.

I assembled and painted the suspension and wheels OD and fixed them to the hull. The rubber part of the wheels is Tamiya German Grey. They were then painted very lightly with the thinned white paint. The tracks were painted using German Grey for the rubber treads and dilute Model Master rust was used to paint the connectors. I then put the tracks on. A burnt umber oil wash was applied heavily to the suspension and wheels. I then mixed up MMP number 6 (Medium earth) in alcohol and brushed it on the treads and wheels trying to keep it off any raised parts.

A very faint burnt umber wash was applied to some of the crooks and crannies and I was done...or so I thought.

A couple of days after finishing the painting I picked up a copy of Armor Models No. 6. There were a couple of great builds that referred to "melting" oils to get a multichromatic effect. There was not a good description of what "melting" was but there was one picture that showed many small dabs of different colored oils on the side of a Sherman being painted. I decided to give it a try. All the vertical surfaces of my Sherman have had 5 different colors of oils "melted" on them (upper hull and turret only). You simply apply a very small dab of the oil paint and then smear it or streak it locally however you want with another brush loaded with an oil thinner. Its like a wash but since you control the amount of thinner on the brush you have a lot more control over patterns and intensity than a typical wash. This really adds some depth. I used black, burnt umber, raw umber, yellow and white. It is so subtle but really adds depth and breaks up the monotone color. I finished it off with a few scratches and some very subtle paint shipping around hatches and some edges.

I hope that this description helps. Thanks again for your comments.

Looks great Mike.

Very Nice,
Really like the paint job and weathering....

Nice weathering, I love the winter wash!
Are you going to put it in a dio??
You MUST put it in a dio, it's really beautifull done!

Greatz hilbert

Very cool! I like the M4A3E8 most of all Shermans and yours is really nice!

Is it a late WW2 tank? Or a Korean war? (could be both)

Martin,

This one is WWII 6th Armored Division tank in the Ardennes.

Thanks everyone. I have never done a dio, I guess I'm somewhat hesitant to plunge into figure painting right now but perhaps soon.

Oh sorry actually it was a stupid question as this is an Ardennes Offensive campaign entry....my mistake lol :-)

You should try a dio mate! Or just some groundwork, enough to put the tank on......if you need help with it, there are lots of people here willing to help! Including me

Martin

Very nice Sherman you have there ...the only thing that has me scratching my head a bit is the tracks ..I have never seen them used on a WWII sherman but of course I might be wrong ..

Rick

They were already used late 1944.....I think the Ardennes Offensive was the first time these new Shermies saw action!

This is ABSOLUTELY NOT a NICE Sherman!!!


It's an AWSOME GREAT one!!!!
I really love this model and you did a realy good job!

Thanks Paul

Mike,
This is a wonderful Sherman. I really like the effect you have got with the oil "melting" I will have to give it a go.