Ralph's Great War secret weapon***Finished***

[Softscience]

I'm a little late to the game, but I'll see if I can blitz this little guy before the holiday. It looks like a straight forward build.

[Softscience]

And after about 1.5 hours of work.



Fit has been really good. The vinyl tracks have ugly thick sprue gates that mar the track. I'll have to see about disguising the one that ended up on the upper starboard track. Yuck!

[jssel]

Knock Knock.........Land Ship.

[Softscience]

Lol. Candygram....

[JohnRatzenberger]

I built their "Gaza" Male - it is a nice kit, very clean fit with only the tracks being disappointing.

[Softscience]

Seems the same for this version, John.

I added the "tail" assembly and one of the gun sponsons today. The parts required lots of cleanup but fit well.



A few small details to add tomorrow and then its painting time

[TobyC]

I have this kit and will be interested in how you progress which seems to be pretty good so far.

[Softscience]

All built up, though the grenade roof will not be glued down until after painting. I applied globs of putty to simulate caked-on mud.



Once this dries it will be precoated with a Vallejo primer of a dark khaki tone.

Tomorrow I'll also begin laying down some groundwork.

[jssel]

That is some great Photo Etch. Shaping up nicely.

[Softscience]

Base coated with Vallejo earth green primer.

[TobyC]

Nice work so far.

[Molly-new]

Looking very smart, I like the idea of building up the mud before painting. The amount of times I have intended to weather mine up to the hilt and then chickened out once the paint was on.

This build reminded me of a display that I saw at the Hooge Crater Museum in July:



There are a couple of close up pictures in the reference section that you may find useful.

[Softscience]

Cool! Thanks for that Chip!

Phase I of weathering; a heavy wash of raw umber and black oil paint.

[ShaunW]

Great stuff, that is looking very Great War with that Somme effect mud

[Softscience]

More mud soon

Phase II of the weathering process involved a light dry brushing of the base coat followed by paint progressively darker shades of brown over the peripheries of the areas which were most exposed to mud.

Does that make sense? Its kind of hard for me to explain.

Also, tyr beginnings of a base. This was the pink foamy marshmellow portion of the Somme valley. Soldiers who fought there were known to subsist on mushrooms that grew in the area