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Hello my friends. I first want to say that I’ve only been a member here since December ‘23. Newbie. And I have to say; I love this site and the people on it. Top quality all around. Thank you for letting me be here to share and learn from you. So many good modelers here!! Now, onto to today’s BEAST of a model, the Tamiya 1/35 Mk. IV Male. What a great kit! Typical Tamiya, pain free. At least till I got the the weathering. Oh man, let me tell yah, there’s parts of my body on there, inside and out. I sh*te you not. Here’s a few shots to prove it... I painted in Tamiya with a glaze technique to build the color and saturation. I did lots and lots of washes. Lots! Lots of dry brushing to get those beautiful bolts to shine through. I used every trick up my sleeve to create dry mud, wet mud, angry mud, happy mud. I think I even added some drunk mud. No, I’m sure of it. I used Mr Hobby weathering pastes. I think all of’em. I used their “wet effect” along with a few here and there. I think I even spit on the thing a few times. Sorry, true story. Maybe I should package that up and sell it as it worked. At least a little. I had some fun with the photo shoot and my wife’s camera. Sorry for so many pics. This is my first WW1 model and I loved doing it. Granted it took me awhile but totally worth it. I hope you like it. Please share your thoughts or critique. Cheers, Graeme

The first of the 150 Mark I tanks left the factory in August 1916. Then came 50 Mark II trainers (made of unhardened steel) and 50 Mark III trainers, followed in May 1917 by the “definitive” Mark IV with significantly increased armour. Like the Mark I, the Mark IV was also manufactured in Female (armed with 5 MGs) and Male variants. In the latter, two (forward) sponson MGs were replaced with the 57mm cannon. Of the 1,220 Mark IV built, nearly 600 were Females, 420 Males and 200 unarmed vehicles used for supply work. The last variant that emerged from this ancient design was the more powerful Mark V, of which just over 1,000 were built. Crewed by 8 men, the Mark IV was powered by a Daimler 105 hp inline six-cylinder engine. Armed with 5 Maxim, Hotchkiss or Lewis 0.303 machine guns, the Female variant weighed roughly 28 tons (compared to 7 tons of the contemporary French Renault FT), so the “landship” nickname given to all these lozenge-shaped dinosaurs seems to be fully justified. The 1996 Emhar kit consists of only 31 styrene parts and two continuous viyl tracks. The EM5001 is the Male variant, but I preferred the more common EM5002 Female. While far from being state-of-the-art, it is still considered a better kit than the 1:76 Airfix Mark I. The model was made almost OOB, i.e. only a few modifications were made. First, the rails along the top of the hull had to be reversed – Emhar makes them with the horizontal ledges facing outward from the vertical walls, and the original ledges faced inwards. I took this opportunity to replace the mid-length supports with beefier ones, as the ones supplied by the manufacturer looked severely anorexic. Then the rear fuel tank had to be rotated 90 degrees so that the hatches were on its top (level) surface instead of on the vertical wall as suggested by Emhar. Due to this, the open end of the box-shaped tank was facing the ground and had to be filled with a plastic card. On this occasion, an applique armour wall with four small holes was added above the fuel tank. After selecting the C.56 Crusader II of the 3rd Battalion (which fought in the December 1917 Battle of Cambrai) as the reference vehicle for my model, I also had to shorten the exhaust pipe (a widely noticed modification to prevent exhaust fumes from entering the interior easily) and replace Maxim MGs with fat-barrel Lewis guns. These new barrels were made of the Aber 1.0mm brass tube. Like most (if not all) Mark IVs at Cambrai, the original was painted in the “standard” Khaki Brown, which looked really very close to the Humbrol 26 I used. The enamel was applied (as usual) with an Italeri brush. Decals are courtesy of my drawer: yellow C 56 comes from Tamiya Mitsubishi A6M, yellow 2604 from RS P-39 Airacobra, white C.56 from Revell BRDM and white Crusader II (cut and applied individually, letter by letter) from WarlordGames WGB-DEC-030 sheet. Finally, Vallejo acrylic matt varnish was brush-applied overall. The pictures are taken with an LG smartphone. Comments welcome

Hey guys! So, this is my third tank on the 'Mark' basis, having built the Tadpole, and Mark. V by Takom also. Assembly was Fiddly yet satisfying as it was simply a repetitive case of building weird, angular boxes. Tracks were click together, and apart from being lengthy, the wheels were a breeze compared to that on other tanks. Painting was a mix of Tamiya Deep Green mixed with Khaki Brown. Although operationally I have read that the colour on these was a chocolate brown, no contemporary colour photos exist of these things as far as I'm aware and Takom calls for 'Moss Green', and to be fair I prefer it in green. The identification bands were masked off with maskol to get over the rivets and if it was over done in areas it wouldn't really matter as it gave a convincing chipped look. Weathering was done by first darkening the colour which i thought was too light to begin with by thinning dark green oil paint and airbrushing it on the low areas to bring a basic colour modulation into the mix. This was followed by thin brown paint ringed around the running gear. Finally, three coats of Raw Umber wash were applied before weathering back with dry-brushing and chipping. The exhaust is an older technique which I'm currently trying to perfect. I tried it on a maus I was building (currently on the bench complete in the corner as the track have scared me off!) and now on the Mark IV. I paint the exhaust in black oil paint to create a sooty fixer for pigment. This is something I'm yet to perfect however... Compared with my Mark V, it is a heavily different tank, just the shape's the same! Hope you enjoy! Sam Excuse the lighting but i've only got a temporary set up at the mo using the sun! Which in the UK is never advisable!

Hello, One of the few models that I built tank. The kit is pure box without accessories. In the finals, I have modified the pad. I replaced the log behind barbed wire tangled with the "pig tails" More photos in the spoiler

British Mark IV Tadpole Takom 1:35 History[/size] Tadpole tails were an innovation designed to improve the trench crossing ability of Rhomboid tanks. They were not a success and were apparently only ever fitted to several trial vehicles. Three vehicles were fitted with tadpole Tails by Central Workshops in France. In March of 1918 a male and Female Mk.IV were fitted with Tadpole tails. The work was started on 6th March 1918, the first tail being fitted by the 18th; the second, strengthened tail was fitted by the 23rd. At least one other Mark IV male was fitted with Tadpole tails and used in trials at Dollis Hill, these trials included fitting a stokes mortar between the lengthened tails. On 5 August 1918 Mk V male, 9001 was fitted with a tail and issued to No.3 Advanced Workshops. A Mark V female, 9277 was fitted with a tadpole tail, possibly at Fosters yard where this tank had given a (Tadpole tailless) demonstration to King George V. Three hundred sets of tails were manufactured and shipped to France, the first arriving in May 1918, they were never fitted. The Model The kit is packaged in a very attractive and sturdy top opening box with an artists impression of the vehicle on the front. Inside there are eight sprues of caramel coloured styrene, which is becoming the norm for Takom, on small fret of etched brass, and a bag of individual track links. The moulding of the parts is superb with no signs of flash although there are quite a few moulding pips. The parts are suitably covered in well rendered bolt heads and rivets but here are some awkward sprue gates which will need to be carefully removed and fettled. The hull and sponsons are each made up of individual panels so care will also need to be taken with alignment, but having built the Takom Mark IV Male, I found that they actually went together really well with no requirement for filler. The build begins with the assembly of the small commanders/drivers cupola complete with poseable hatches, although there is nothing of the interior to see and centrally mounted Lewis machine gun in its ball mount. The hull is made up of the individual plates which, due to the possible alignment problems, to alleviate this it may be best fitted to one of the inside rhomboid sections. The is a large towing shackle and plates fitted to the front panel, followed by the exhaust plates and one part of the unditching beam strake plates, top hatch surround and strengthening ribs are fitted to the top deck. The exhaust consists of the two parts silencer and single piece tube. The tube is completely plain, whereas, for the most part the area next to the top hatch was covered in asbestos, best shown using tape wrapped around the area. The stowage box complete with exhaust cover is assembled and fitted to the rear of the upper decking, whilst the upper hatch is glued into position along with six tie down eyes to the upper storage box and the exhaust silencer is fitted with PE straps. As with the Mark IV the Tadpole was fitted with an armoured fuel tank box on the rear of the hull between the rhomboids, this is represented by five plates glued together and attached to the rear hull panel, with the rear mounted radiator and its cover. Being mirror images, the rhomboid sections of the tank go together in the same way with each of the inner and outer panels being separated by individual plates and the inner faces of the sponson openings. The rear mounted drive sprockets are fitted and, in this, kit the drive chain assemblies, as found in the earlier Mark IV kits, is not used, making construction a whole lot easier. The front mounted idler wheel is mounted before the 33 road wheels are assembled and clicked into position before the rhomboid plates are joined together. Unlike the Mark IV tanks where the tracks were a little on the frustrating side, this kit comes with the super click together indie links. These take only a matter of seconds to put together and the whole run can take as little as 10 minutes to create. The tracks can be left off till end of the painting as they can be clicked into place once everything is finished. If required the kit does include a set of grouser that can be fitted to the tracks although the instructions don't call on them to be used. The main guns come with complete breech detail which unfortunately will never be seen and are fitted with the splinter shields and barrel before being fitted to the mounting via a poly cap. The sponson plates are then built around this and the Lewis gun with ball mount also attached. The completed sponsons are then glued into position on the sides of the rhomboids. The Tadpole differed from the earlier style tanks in that they could also be armed with a mortar mounted on a large plate on top of crossbeams between the rhomboids. The mortar is made up of two halves bi-pod and elevation wheel before being affixed to the mounting plate before the rhomboid assemblies are fitted to the hull, thus completing the build. There are no decals provided with this kit, but I’m sure the modeller can make up his own identification numbers quite easily. Conclusion Ok, so this vehicle never made it to the front line, but at a least a few were modified and tested and the extensions were sent to France for use, it does make for a very interesting model. The fact that the drive chain assemblies and original indie link tracks aren’t used with this kit actually makes it a lot easier to build it will be a nice fun mojo reliever and you can got to town on the weathering. Very highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of UK Distributors for