An M4 Sherman tank and an M3 Stuart light tank were some my first attempts at modeling some armor. What do you think?








Cheers!

Not bad Jesse. Keep up the steady work (welcome to Armorama BTW).

Some suggestions if I may:

use stretched sprue for antenna on the M3 Stuart (heat a bit of styrene runner over a candle flame. when soft pull apart and you'll get a long thin piece of styrene)

2) maybe try evening out your weathering a bit, especially on the suspension (the M4 hull behind the suspension seems very clean and the M3 has only blotches). A good book that I recommend is Kalmbach Publishing's "Modelling Realistic Tanks and Artillery" The tips included are very useful

3) a final note: the spare links you have on the M4 turret edge look out of place. Think about how everything is attached (imagine if you were going dune buggying -- how would you store your water, backpack, gear, etc.). Those links are pretty heavy, too. (sometimes UK units would weld all steel links all over to add protection -- this wasn't done much by US units in Europe -- and those are rubber T48 tracks too)

Hope these suggestions help. RC

Look way better than my first attempts! Good work.
capnjock

wow, thanks for the awesome comments and tips. everything i know so far i've either learned from a book or website...theres definetly something to to be said about great personal advice from someone whos experienced. You cant beat it, its tried and true.
Thanks again for taking the time to drop me some tips.

Cheers!

for a set of first attempts those look really good. Far better than my first 2 (or 20 for that matter) tanks. You'll pick up tips as you go along, and it seems that you're off to a good start.

One trick which I picked up early is dry-brushing, because of all the weathering techniques it is probably easiest to master.

All you need to do is take the shade of your base coat, lighten it a little bit (for Olive drab I like to add a few drops of any dark yellow shade ) and then dab a flat brush into it. Wipe away most of the paint and lightly swipe it back and forth over the raised details to make them "pop out".

The key is to have the least amount of paint possible left on the brush so that the effect is subtle.

Try the same with some metalic silver paint on the machine guns and some dark grey for the chevrons on the tracks.

I hope you continue to enjoy modeling armor, and share your results with the rest of us


Cheers,
Ralph


PS. I really love the topo-map the sherman comander is looking at. That's a real nice touch

Thanks BornToDig!

Man thats soo cool you noticed that map! I need to improve my picture taking abilites so i can have clearer shots..I didnt think anyone would notice that little thing. Yeah i added that at the last moment...drew it by hand, weathered it and slipped it under his arm. It was like putting the cherry on top. I had lots of fun building the Sherman and would love to do another one with a different turret possibly. Thanks for the advice on drybrushing, i'll have to try it out on my next build.

Cheers!

Hi Jesse,

1st, welcome to Armorama..

2nd, I wish I could have got your results when I first started modelling.

Most of the comments were alredy made, I liked the map, too.

About the pics, I´m no expert but this could help you:
I recommend you take the photos from 40-50 cm from the kit, and use the zoom feature. Also place your camera in a fixed place, be a tripod or a table. In that way, you could get better pics of your models. Better indirect light will also help a lot.

Keep up the good job

Cheers

Not bad at all. My first attempts were painted the wrong color entirely! Stay tuned here, I have learned so much by listening to the folks on this site. Some of the builds here are incredible!!!

Keep at it!

Gary

Gday Jesse
As the others have said these are good for first attempts! Shermans will have you hooked by the way... :-)
One thing not touched on is all the irregular 'waves' in the diorama bases' edge. Half if not more of these could be omitted, as the mounds (Especially on the 'viewing' side of the Sherman dio) could still be made off a straight edged base, just set back a little, then sloped to their heights as needed. It may actually be that the groundcover doesn't run right to the edges, and the ensuing light coloured border is a little distracting on the eye? But hey, each one will get better and better...
Cheers
Brad

Take a look at the photogaphy forum for good tips mate.