I added a tarp from apoxie sculpt today, similar to what I've seen on some Challenger 2's. I just painted the optics candy red & blue, once they are dry, they'll be masked off and I can start painting.

Also decided to replace the plastic cables with copper wire

WOW th´s what I call patience.....keep us informed of the progress

cheers

I thought you said OOB in your first post on this project... :-)
This is looking good. The tarp looks outstanding.

Cheers
Erik

Wow the tarps are indeed impressive. Looking forward to more progress shots!

I agree, the tarps are outstanding, can't wait to see it finished.

Hi,
great looking tarp indeed. Keep on your good job.

I should remove the antislip coating from the turret ring though.

olivier

Worked on the optics next.

Clear plastic was first backpainted with clear red and then overcoated with chrome silver, as on the main sight here:



What it looks like from the front:


Similar technique used for the driver's optics, except the outer two panes got a quick blast of clear blue, to give them a violet colour shift


Commander's optics where done the same, only in reverse. First I painted chrome silver, then clear red, then clear blue:

Began to paint, basecoating in Tamiya OD (too dark!) and Desert Yellow

Continued colour blocking with Flat Black. The colours were looking kind of wonky and not very Australian.

Decided to change the colours somewhat. Repainted the OD using a lighter Gunze OD+sail colour+ yellow mixture and the Desert Tan using Gunze Hemp + RLM Sand + white + red. Also tightened up the cam pattern a bit

I'm going to paint the rollers a faded field green, since they are leftovers from the Leopard AS-1 era.

Final step was to touch up the cammo pattern to reflect a factory applied (or depot level) finish.

Going to hand paint some call signs tomorrow and then I should be ready to start weathering.

Wow that Abrams looks cool!

Keep it up

cheers

Looking like its coming along really well. Are you painting your camo free hand?

Hi there, the build is looking good! Great job on the camo. Looking forward to seeing it completed.

btw, is the tarp supposed to have a camo tone too? or just a single color.

Cheers guys,

the painting is done freehand, but I'm basing it on the 5-view plans of the AS-1 scheme over on Armoured Acorn.

The tarp will be painted later on

Hi stormfront,
your Abrams is really looking good and original for sure.

olivier

Hey there Stormfront.....

Abrams is looking good......going to be around the weekend of April 29th???? If so, I expect to see this at the show!!!! LOL

Later
Scott

Looks pretty good to me too - an interesting Abrams project.

Gunnie

Storm,

Looks great!As I'm not huge fan of M1s I could see myself doing a down under one!!

Jim

Hey that looks great.

For the optics I would have probably used some of the prismatic coatings from Alclad though.

Hi, have you actually used the alclad primastic paints for optics? I'd like to see some pics of that.