Meteors

I see, the wolfenstein one has a very masculine appearance, it really threw me!

Looks cool! But why does it say ‘A series of German women’s soldiers’!?!

Oh, well in that case I might withdraw my withdrawal. Ignore me, carry on!

Oh wait, this in September?! I’m giving overseas for five weeks. Oops, sorry, I will have to bow out of this one I’m afraid. Looking forward to seeing what you all come up with, have fun guys!

Fantastic work, looks camera-ready!!

Hi Stix, we’ve had a lot of family stuff to deal with over the last few weeks which has stalled my progress. I attempted some of the PE stuff, and it was just ridiculously fiddly, and I just couldn’t manage it! I either lost them, broke them, or just couldn’t do what was needed as I didn’t have the required tools. So I’ve given up on a lot of the kit. I’m pretty certain I won’t get anywhere near finishing before the end date. If I get some primer and base coat on it in the next week I’d be amazed! I hang my head in shame. Tom

Thanks very much for the kind words guys! I’ve gotten some more done. I’ve cut and sanded all the tools and accessories for painting before attachment to the model. There were some cool jerry cans too, so I built those up. I’ve built most of the turret, which is now in its subsections, I’ll paint the inside before assembly as it has really nice detail in there. I went with open hatches to try to capture some of that. Here are some pics, I did a dry fit to see what it looks like with the turret in place, and I’m liking it, it’s given me a bit of drive to get some paint on her! Still haven’t decided whether to go panzer grey or Dak. Thanks for looking! Tom

Thanks for the positive feedback guys! My sporting predictions weren’t too bad, Fulham lost of course, but only 2-1, and I got one of the teams for the Superbowl right. But all that sport allowed me to get some work done, although I haven’t had a chance to touch it really since then. Here’s what she looks like at the mo. I’ve got some of the upper hull on and did the PE air intakes or whatever they are, although there are a few gunky glue bits on there, don’t look too closely! Its slow going. I don’t think I’ll be doing the option to do all the PE tool attachments, I don’t really have a good PE manipulating tool, I need some good small needle nose pliers and some tweezers with a really flat edge to bend along. So I’ll pass on that, and just use the bog standard ones, they’ll do! Then it’s on to the fun bit, the turret and the gun! One thing did occur to me though, I’ve no idea what I’m going to do about the tracks. They’re not exactly workable, they’re those magic tracks you glue together, so I’m not sure what to do about that as I’d like to have employed the working suspension. Maybe I could nick some rubber band ones off another kit and just use those. I’m not faffing about with those fruil things, this is a complicated enough build as it is! Hopefully I can have another update soon! Thanks for looking! Tom

Looks great!

Lovely camo!

Love these outdoors shots!

Thanks, Yetifan! Over here the college games aren’t on free TV so I don’t get to see any really. Although I did go to the college game they hosted here in 2017, Rice vs Stanford I think it was. The score was 63-7, mental! Anyway, back to the build. Things are progressing well, I’ve got most of the lower hull done. Now for a moan. As modellers I’m sure that we all appreciate attention to detail. It’s something we pride ourselves in, it’s something that the hobby requires in spades. But when the instructions lack that attention to detail it really p’s me off. Take this for example. You have to add this cylindrical piece F36 into the bottom hull to hold up the turret. We rely on the instructions to show us which bits point which way, usually because it has a knock on effect later in the build. So here’s what the picture in the instructions looks like. As you can see there’s a bit at the bottom that locks it into place, meaning there is only one definitive way this goes in. The two small bits cut out of the ring at the top are then pointing to 8 and 2, see? Here’s what it looks like when you’ve put the piece in. Those bits point to 10 and 4. That really annoys me, because now I can’t trust these instructions. And with a 1000+ part kit that worries me. I just hope there’s no major errors that bite me in the bum later on. Right, whinge over, let’s see some pics! So I added most of the back parts, minus the delicate PE chains which I’ll add right at the end. I added the suspension and the sort of armour that goes in between them. There was an odd fit issue with some of the suspensions, but I just made it so they were lined up from the side, I wasn’t bothered about them being a bit wonky underneath. I did the sprocket holder things that had so many parts that ended up just hidden underneath the shield bits. You have to add each of those bolt bits on that front shield thing individually. They’re tiny, and looking at these pics I’ve realised I forgot to do the other side! And then here’s what a side view of the suspension looks like. Here with some things to simulate rubble or something, I’d like to do a small base with the tank driving over a destroyed wall or something. And then I thought I should add the wheels to see what that looked like, and I think it looks pretty cool. So that’s where I’m up to! Tomorrow is Monday. I’m not back to work until next week, so with my wife at work and the kids at daycare I have the day to myself! I plan to get a lot done as there’s a big day of sport ahead, so I’ll set up in front of the TV again and plug away. There’s the Fulham vs Tottenham game that’s at 5am our time, so watch that on demand after the family is gone. My prediction: 3-1 to Spurs. Boo. Then there are the two NFL Divisional Championship games that will decide the two teams that make it to the Super Bowl. My prediction: it’ll be the Rams vs the Chiefs. So that’s about 6-7 hours of sport which should enable me to get a whole load of this tank done! Sorry for the mega post, life has kept me too busy for regular updates. Thanks for reading all this if you made it this far!! Tom

Great, thanks Dennis, looking forward to it!!

I'd be keen on this, I've got a bunch of Halcyon Alien kits that need doing, plus a Horizon vinyl ED-209 that's been quietly staring at me lately. Any news on the dates for this one?

Thanks Stix, I think taking it slow will be the motto of this build, this kit is a beast. So I’ve managed to get a good portion of the wheels and suspension done. Monday was good. I’m still off work because of my back, it was the wife’s first day back after maternity leave, and the kids were both at daycare. So that meant I could bring some of the modelling gear out of the garage, and set it up in front of the NFL playoffs. Sweet. I finished off the idlers, and then went to work on the sprockets, which were a nightmare with seven parts each. They were super fiddly, so it took me an hour and a bit just to do those. You have the option to add all the bolts in seperately, 24 on each sprocket. I tried one out to see what it looked like, and didn’t think it was that much more amazing that I wanted to add another hour or so to my build. Here you can see the pre-bolted one piece, and behind it the one without the bolts, and I’ve put one in there just next to the sprue gate on the left. Much of a muchness, if you ask me. After the earlier successful experiment with the suspension bogey I went ahead and made all those (8 parts per bogey), and did all the road wheels (3 parts per wheel, plus two rubber rims each). So this is what it looks like with the idlers, sprockets, return idlers, road wheels, and suspension all done. I haven’t yet done the rims for the road wheels, they have an annoying bit to clean up that’s really hard to do, so I’ll leave that for a bit, I want to start doing other stuff to actually feel like I’m building a tank! Current part count: 162. Good grief.

Oh man, I’ve made two mistakes already. When trying out the two different types of idlers I glued the little middle cap thing on both, without thinking that I’d then need them both on whichever type I chose in the end! Luckily I was able to pry it off without too much damage. Mistake two was with the PE itself, I didn’t notice that the inner circle of the piece had a small lip making one front and one back, and I used the wrong one, meaning that the back which is supposed to be a full clear circle to slot into the axle now has a lip bit that will block the axle’s insertion. Shouldn’t be too bad, I’ll just file down the axle, it’s not like these needed to be workable, but it just goes to show how much attention I need to be paying!

Thanks, Stix. Let’s try doing a sprocket now. Right, part A38, which of my two ‘A’ sprues is that on.....? Oh, of course, there’s a third sprue ‘A’. Mental. That annoyed me, so I thought I’d try a suspension bogey, is that what they are called? I’d found a really good build of this kit during my research, the guy did a great job of detailing each part of the process. He noted you could make it a workable suspension by omitting the glue on a couple of bits, and I’m really happy with the way this turned out!! So next I’ll try a sprocket and a road wheel, and then having done one of each I can bash them all out, which, considering that’s well over a hundred parts, will probably end up taking me at least a week!

Thanks guys. Took me a few days to find time to make a start on this one, but start it I have. So what did I do first. Well, I discovered that there are two different sprues called ‘A’. I knew this was going to be a difficult build. Thes e are ‘A’ and ‘Other A’. Why couldn’t it just be another letter? So anyway, half of the return rollers are on ‘A’, and the other half on ‘Other A’. Here they are assembled, as they consist of only two parts they’re the least complicated of all the wheel bits. We have a beginning to the build! And actually, the detail is pretty good, they even have tiny writing on them. It wasn’t until I actually zoomed into this picture I could see it said Continental. They also have a huge horrid seam, which I’m guessing I should clean up, but the illustration in the instructions keeps it on there, so if anyone in the know could clarify that I’d really appreciate it! I wouldn’t want to go erasing what was supposed to be some legitimate tyre tread thing. Then what’s next? Oh, we’re onto PE already?! The idlers come in two flavours, a standard plastic one that’s two bits stuck together with a little circle bit plonked in the middle, or a sexy option which is one large plastic bit with thinner middle spokey bits, and some PE whacked on either side. And then a circle bit in the middle. (sorry, I’m a sci-fi and horror guy, this is only my third tank, I don’t know all the relevant nomenclature) I made one of each to see which I liked best. Oddly enough the left one is misaligned, even though the two plastic parts had a little toothy catchy bit where a portion of a circle is missing on the other half, you know what I’m on about, these painkillers have made my brain mush. Anyway, I quite like the look of the PE one and it wasn’t too difficult, so I’ll forge ahead with those. Cheers, Tom

Looks amazing, can’t believe you’ve done this much already! Your early kit problems are making me worried about my first Dragon build, though!

Hello chaps! I’ve been out of action for a few months, I had back surgery (again) in August, and that pretty much prevented any modelling since then. I’ve got a ton of half finished projects lying around the modelling room, but I signed up for this group build last year, so what better way to get my modelling mojo back! This GB should help provide the push and inspiration I need! So, here’s the kit I’m going to attempt to make: I picked this up at a little model show here in Sydney for only 40 bucks, about 22 quid, which is quite good. After some research I discovered it was called a ‘Super’ kit, not because of its amazing quality, but because of the incredibly high part count! There’s a lot of plastic here. Here’s a look at the complex instructions. It looks properly mental. The wheels, suspension, and idlers and all that have about 10 parts each. You can even choose to put each little bolt on the idlers: Er, no thanks, I’ll do the other option! Hopefully I can make a start on it over the next few days. Wish me luck! Tom

Hey guys, sorry there hasn’t been an update for so long. First off the World Cup happened, and that had me occupied for a month, so no modelling got done. Then shortly after that I had to have surgery on my back again, so that’s laid me up for over two months. Finally getting back in my feet again so hopefully I can get some time and motivation to finish this fella. Sorry for the delay and lack of updates! (And sorry to hear someone nicked your version of this kit, Gimme!)

Looks wicked, nice one!

Hey guys, thanks for the comments, I’m so sorry I haven’t acknowledged them or provided an update for a while. I managed to get some base colour on the creature, I used a bottle of mig ammo rotbraun for a base. This is actually a bottle that has something wrong with it, it’s far too orange, but I thought it would make for an interesting start. Then I applied some Vallejo burnt umber. In a few places I applied a bit more to see if I liked the effect, and I’ve decided I do, so I’ll darken the arms and legs a bit more. Then I’ll seal it all in and give it some washes and dry brushing to highlight all those little bumps and stuff. The head needs a lot more work, I’ll need to get some shading in those ridges, and do his teeth. Haven’t decided yet what to do with the dome, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it! Hopefully sooner rather than later! Thanks for looking, Tom

Quick update, gave it a light coat of primer, looks pretty good, used Citadel’s green stuff to fill gaps along the shoulders, neck, and hips beforehand and it worked pretty well. Came up pretty well, revealed a few flaws and places that need a bit more attention. It also made me realise that I really want to be able to see the ‘face’ and the ridges on the head under the dome, they look really good. I’ve left the arms off for ease when painting, but here are a couple of pics to see what it’ll look like. It’s a great pose, as many have already noted! Really looking forward to getting some colour on it! Tom

Wow, Richard, thanks for a very detailed response! I’ve never really done anything with clear parts before, so that’s sure to come handy! I’ll have a look at that one you recommended, thanks for that. Tom