I managed to put some paint on my firefly early this morning.
first i applyed a flat black to some areas,followed by a mix of nato green and olive drab.after the paint had dryed i lightend the green and painted some highlights.next came a gloss coat ready for the decals.

some how dragon decals that come with the kit dont have the number 1126/LCT4/212,its a funny way they have done it and it looks like this,
ID5NCT4RR.so i took a deep breath and painted them on myself





any comments feel free to post

many thanks

karl

Looks good so far. Deep breath worked really well!!

Looking very good so far indeed, but there just one snag ( I hate this, thebear kept doing this to me when I build mine...) the Firefly you are portraying, no. 71 Carole, did not have the shell eject port on the left turret side.. I found this out after I repainted twice already... First I didn't add the Applique Armour, then I did after most people told me that this type of hull had it welded on in America in the factory. after this repaint I get the Archer dry transfers (thanks again GreatBrit ) and the photos of Carole that they add to the instructions show clearly that there is no shell ejection port... . So that meant more surgery, and another respray, although just the turret. Karl, come back to German Armour, Shermans are a slippeery slope, they argue about the slope of the glacis... :-) .

Don't forget the fuel spill stain on the left hull side. That's why the vehicle no. is only partialy there. I don't know if the Dragon instructions point this out? They should if they copied them from the Archer set aswel..

Cheers
Henk

Sorry, almost forgot to add, those hand painted markings look superb.

Just like what Henk and TheBear is doing... :-)

There should be an undercut under the driver and co-driver bulges. Only approximately 1mm of the coaxial MG should be visible in this scale (1/35). The hull weld seams should not be recessed but rather raised. I hope its still not too late to do the tweaks if you so desire.

The hand painted markings looks very good.

Cheers

Hope you let out your breath. :-) The hand painted markings are an eye catcher, Give it a realistic look.

Thanks for the info henk,see this happens when you have lack of reference on such vehicles,ie no book and not much info found on the net.

well theres no way i can attempt to remove it now as i will only mess things up if i try.

cheers henk.

karl

Who are "THEY", Henk?! Hehehe... Oh, and did you mean the 60 or 47 degree glacis?
Looks good there Karl. And I assume that your handpainted D-day markings are supposed to look hand painted... Look great if they are!
What PE set did you use (if any!)
Cheers
Brad

hi Karl,

The handpainted markings stand out and look really well done as does the paint work that you have done which looks really good.
I hope that you will be sharing progress shots of your work as things progress forward.

John

See what I mean Karl, Bradley is another one of those guys who knows far to much about Shermans.. I bet he sleeps with a copy of Hunnicutts Sherman bible under his pillow :-) :-) .
Only pulling your leg Brad . I really do appreciate all the feedback you give.

Karl, I understand you can't take the ejction port now, but you can easily cover it up with a rolled up tent or camo net.
I like your shade of green, I met a guy (hi Jez ) at the Poole Modelshow last weekend who painted his in a similar shade, as have I. Interesting sequence, painting the hull without the suspension bogies attached... a specific reason or 'just the way it went'?

Cheers
Henk

Thats the idea that i came up with today :-)




no its just that i like to paint the bogies and wheels of the model as you can get paint into all the hard places.
plus i will apply some mud to the low hull and it makes it easyer.

cheers all

karl

Looks good karl, the deap breath worked fine

Do you plan on having a plank holding the sotrage bin in front? I have a few photos of shermans with hte storage bin that way and they have a plank or soemthing under ( hard to say whats wood in black and white)

Nice paint job also

Frank

Karl,

Looking good so far. May be right behind you with a Hybrid (parts purchased at AMPS).

Dave

Hi Karl,
You could try and lightly airbrush over the decals with the base coat again and apply new decals, I had to do the same thing with my Panther tank I recently did...paint over the decals, add new ones and with some weathering, you shouldn't notice a thing.