What's on my desk? Part 80.
Hello and welcome to part 80 (!) of the weekly build log,
Last week I finished the Tortoise! I painted the fire extinguishers a different shade of green and assembled, painted & fixed the tow cables.
In the box you get a length of vinyl thread, but the Voyager detail set includes some copper wire, which is a bit harder to cut and glue together, but holds it shape better than thread. Sometimes you find thread of other fabric material, which when painted looks really off, with all the fuzz sticking out. To be fair, this vinyl thread you get from Meng doesn't fuzz when painted, so props to them! Still replaced it with copper, though:
Here's the completed Tortoise, with barrel lock in place:
Here's a side view with a view of the cables. They were painted Ammo Polished Metal and then washed with Streaking Rust Effects. I got a bit impatient and fixed the cables before the wash was dry, causing some of it to rub off, but I think it gives a nice effect with the metal colour shining through in places.
Rear side view of the vehicle. You can see the fire extinguishers on the rear plate have received a lighter shade of green, and I washed the heat-resistant tape with Citadel Agrax Earthshade. The wrappings come over a bit clearer now.
Oh, and the spare track links were installed, too, obviously. No problems there, they fitted perfectly.
Overall a nice kit, although I continously had trouble with the running gear and tracks. It's all hidden behind the armour plate anyway, so I feel Meng would have been justified in making this whole assembly simpler and less fragile, or at least giving the option to do so...
On to the BT-42. I played with mud, fixed the wheels and tracks and it's now ready for further weathering.
The tracks are the link-and-length type, where you get long runs on the top and bottom, and only need to assemble individual links around the idler and drive sprocket. They went together perfectly. I didn't even need to glue them (although I still might, just to be sure). I drybrushed a darker shade of metal over the teeth because it was just way too shiny.
The mud mix on the side of the tank is still mostly visible, so that was no waste of time! The 'wet' shine comes through nicely, as you can see:
I used the same colours on the wheels and will do the same on the outside of the tracks. The track is pretty narrow and the inside would have constant wear because of the wheels. It wouldn't be as dirty as a result.
The headlights also needed the inside painted. I used an Ammo Oilbrusher to get a nice shiny silver colour. Unfortunately this will all be hidden because the light cover is of a blackout type...
I'll now have to carefully gloss coat the top of the tank, masking off the underside to avoid wiping out the dry/wet mud effects.
Lastly, I took a commission last week. Someone wants me to build their Formula 1 race car. It's the Tamiya Williams FW13B, driven by Thierry Boutsen. It's a 1/20 scale kit from 1990.
It's mostly unstarted, only the pilot and part of the engine were already assembled:
I primed these and then painted the pilot's face with oils. His body is taped off to avoid dirtying his overall and because I'll have to airbrush the helmet gloss black once the oils are dry.
That's it!.
See you next week!