Got him out of the box and cleaned up... now to prime and start painting...

And here I thought you had scratched an M48A-nothing!

Yeah - me too! You're a tease!

Gunnie #:-)

(P.S. I would really like to get into a M48 early too - anyone know where I can gather all the components to model one - without having to spend $100 bucks? Any started that someone got frustrated with and set aside? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?)

Track down a DML m-46 now that is the earliest Patton. The 48A1 was a gas burner so you would have to kitbash a gas burner deck onto it. Don't know if the DML 46 or the Italerie 47 would work. Find out from one of those guru's at Fine Scale Modeler. I just checked the 47 is the same size so you could cut away the back decks and substitute. 47 doesn't have a "Little Joe" Damn and I don't have a reference on the 48 either. Seems there are some other differences but it's been 27 years since I played with a 48

Sorry to fool you guys, but it was the best caption I could come up with. He is 120mm by the way...

Here is the next step. I have the helmet done and the pistols look pretty good, except for some touchup. I have the eyes done and the first coat on the face. I hae a couple of questions, such as, should the boots be shined? I know they are leather brown, but shiny or more of a semi-gloss?

My buddy, who is one hell of an artist, thinks I should try to do the shading on the pants with an airbrush, not oils and I am really tempted. Any thoughts on that from figure/airbrush guys? He said I should simply put a darker color of the base in and paint that from below and a lighter color and paint it from above. He is a taxidermist and artist and has a lot of experience with 3-D coloration.

I have read a few articles lately in Military Modelling Magazine where guy have used the airbrush for figures, especially bigger figures like this. Why not? It sounds feesable and it has worked for others.