Wow Frank what a super build! I look foward to seeing her in her colors!

Thanks John ... your wish is my command ...
this is at the top of the list, until its finished!

Nice work Frank, looking forward to seeing it with some paint on.

Looks good Frank! I like the straps and the little grease fittings on the roadwheels.

beautiful work Frank i also love those straps they really set things off, nice.

Thanks again Bill, Kevin and Ron for your kind comments.
I started the painting (spraying) this evening .. this is going to be a darker version, and another attempt to get a heavy dusting effect to contrast.
Im taking pictures of this as well .. so I´ll try to do a SBS on the painting. Might be interesting for some!

Anybody have experience with cementing these Dragon styrene tracks? I tried to cement one of those figures that came with 3´n´1 - Sd.Kfz 251 ausf D, and my usual cements ... humbrol poly and model master ... had little or no effect ... hopefully I have better luck with these. Any tips or info would be appreciated.

Next up is the painting steps. I took photographs after each step to try to explain how my process goes ... because it is a process ... something Ive developed over the last few years ... it works for me and gets me the results I want each time, with very little concern or effort. I cant say anything is original, cause its not. All the steps from here on, are borrowed from other modellers and their explanations of their methods. Some modellers paint the model to a showroom finish first and then weather, but I tend to incorporate the weathering as I go along.

Base coat. Dark green/olive drab. This is much darker in reality, but to show details, bright lights are used. I dont get hung upon the "right" colour. I usualy mix three variations of the same colour and lable them .. ie: sherman base, sherman faded and sherman bleeched ... with each one adding more yellow, white, etc.



Next I used a rusty brown colour that was premixed for the underneath of the railwagens I finished a while ago. The lower hull, behind the boogies was sprayed with this. I also used this colour to spray the tracks. Blue tac was placed where the tracks joined, so I have a clean cementing area. the tracks were then sprayed black in the middle.





With the air brush loaded with black, I sprayed the rubber tyres. Lower the pressure and spray lightly. Hold the airbrush nozzle close to the area you´re spraying as possible. Overspray onto the hull actually looks good and natural. Overspray onto the wheel hubs can be dealt with later.



Next I sprayed over the lower hull again with desert yellow. The dirt build up looks better with lots of colours instead of one single colour. No great care was taken to get it perfect.

Maybe a stupid question, but why you painted center of tracks black? Well, wheel side I can understand, as rubber from wheel tires can leave steel track pads black. But why black road side?

Pawel

Next steps were to fading the base colour using lighter versions of the base colour. All the colours used here were pre-mixed from other projects, so this was faded first with "churchill faded" and again with "SU76M bleeched" :-) . Cant remember what these were used for previously :-) . The SU76M colour was more olive green than drab but it looks allright. Variations in the base colour are quite natural and with weathering to come this all adds to the effect! I also made some very light post shading to add greater depth and also as an early weathering step.





Next up ... dry brushing. YES I still do this ... with all the steps that follow this is pretty much hidden but it does help "pop" the details that little bit more. Only the higher peaks were dry-brushed.







Thats it so far ... next steps will be detail painting and decals. Stay tuned!!!

Hi Pawel. Because I thought the actual blocks were rubber. Are these all-steel tracks? If they are, a quick over-spray will easily solve this ... so not a dumb question in my books!! Cheers.

Actually now that I look at the painted model ... is the idler wheel all steel, or did they have rubber tyres as well?
8)

Yup, T54E1 were all-steel.



Idlers are all steel.

Pawel

Thanks very much Pawel. Its easily taken care of at this stage.

Very nice breakdown of your painting steps Frank, looking good so far.

Nice work so far!
I'd try one of these, but those fenders to bend make me scare...
Does this kit have vinyl tracks? If so, how did you prime them?

Tracks are made from a mixture of vinyl and styrene called "Dragon Styrene 100" (DS100). The can be glued with regular plastic cement and accept paints very well, without the need for priming.

Pawel

Exactly as pawel said ... no need for priming. I did wash them in warm soapy water and rinsed well ... just in case. Then tamiya paint (diluted with ethanol) sprayed straight. No problems.

Bill: Thanks once again. Pretty straight forward for anybody who is used to painting, but hopefully this is of use to somebody ... theres always loads of questions on "how to this" and "how to that".

Giacomo: Thanks. This is my first time soldering. Its not the hurdle I thought it would be. After attempting twice on an old etched frame, I went ahead. Give it a go .. you´ll be so surprised and wonder why you put it off for so long!

Gday Frank
This is looking tremendous, and I must say your colour selection has come up trumps! I almost couldn't help myself and wanted to say that you have to remove the grouser storage covers from force of habit, but hey, it was only a matter of time until they actually released a Sherman that used them huh!
I assume it was deliberate to show the towing pintle inverted?
Looking forward to the next instalment, as they are great quality photos
Cheers
Brad

After the burst of modelling time I had earlier this year, life and work have caught up with me again. Its been a while since I posted here last, but some small steps were made. Since the last time, decals were added and the small details were painted.
The steps were .. Klear/future was sprayed over the entire model for a gloss coat - kit supplied decals using microsol and microset solutions so they sat nicely, and then Klear/Future was brushed on thickly over the decals to hide any carrier film edge. Then a final spray of future to blend it all in.
After this I sprayed a filter of Humbrol earth (29?) over the whole model. This starts to tie everything together ...it also cuts down some of the glare from the gloss coat. Then all the pioneer tools were painted with humbrols, and a little oils (burnt sienna/burnt umber mix) for the wood effects. Finally another filter coat using humbrol black. These filter coats are approx. 90% thinner and 10% paint, misted lightly over the whole model. AS well as tieing everything together, it tones down the previous preshading and drybrushing effects .. making the final result more realistic, but still allowing some depth and raising the details somewhat!
Next stages will be weathering ... lots of sand and dust, hence the really dark colour, so it contrasts evenmore!
As usual, comments and critic are welcome.

Thanks Bradley for your kind comments.


If it looks cool, I´ll take all credit, :-) but this is actually how it is shown in the instructions. Im not the greatest Sherman fan in the world, so Im just winging it!!

i think I have noticed something.With the headlights stowed,the protective cap would be on the exposed electrical connection.
Where is the tube type mount for storing the cap when not in use? It is normally on the hroizontal leg of the brush guards.
Great job on the drybrushing.

Hi Carl. Thanks for your comments. They are not prominent enough to be seen clearly on the painted images, but if you go back to the earlier images when the hull was assembled, and then again when the PE was added, you´ll see the 2 strips that Dragon added to represent these. Hardly the sharpest detail .. but they are ... ahem ... represented!

You probably think about late position, where it was welded vertically in the middle of that horizontal leg. On early Shermans it was welded parallel to the glacis plate a fraction of inch above the hull surface, so DML decided to represent them as raised detail on glacis plate. Rather simplified approach, but better than nothing.

Pawel

Looking good Frank, Nice basis for that heavy dusting you're going to do. I hope to finish mine during the Easter break - zero chance of it happening over the Saint Paddy's day weekend :-)

Thanks Pat. I got the MM where S. Zaloga describes his method on this same model, and Im reading several other articles. Up to now, Ive only used pastels, but have purchased some MIG pigments for this one. Hoping to achieve something between Zaloga and what M. Rinaldi has done recently!!

I know what you mean about this weekend .
Im only getting modelling time at the weekends at the moment, but this weekend is a mess. I can´t get to the pub early on saturday, as I have a ticket to see UFO in concert in the evening, so it´ll be a late night/early morning. The few Irish pubs here will be packed all day .. with it being the 17th but also for the rugby ... as if anybody needed another excuse to get out early. Something tells me that not much will be done on sunday either :-) :-) :-)
Happy Paddys day

Good to see you're still able to sneak some time in on this one Frank, looking forward to seeing the weathering process build on the foundation you've laid.