Kalor

Chassis almost finished, only drum brakes are left. Rear bumper made from bristol as I still cant work find workaround for strips of hips deforming during cutting. Muffler from bleedproof marker paper.

Updated brush guard.

Ok, I made a brush guard, on internet I found only two models: two part like this one and one welded from pipes. Both are attached to a bumper and neither resembles guard from the kit. However I have to redo it because it is too worn from fitting to model and base seems to be too wide. I also connected winch with PTO: Kit offers to arrange wheels in three positions but steering linkage has only one position, I had to cut and reassemble it, nothing major but kind of irritating.

It's not that hard to miss with one or two updates per year 🙃

I managed to make something interesting from this somewhat boring model. During the build I changed texture of the cast armor to make it more aligned with the original. I added various casting marks like mold lines, residues of gates and cleaned surface of the hull. The turret basket is completely fictional but I tried to stay in line with other French vehicles. Tracks were drilled to make them semi-workable, which made assembly and painting easier. For painting the only option was Vert IR OTAN, for a vehicle with so many flat surfaces I had to introduce some variety so I used the fact that this paint is fading very quickly, in addition I make multicolored marbling for underpaint and varied the level of fade on cast and smooth surfaces. Weathering, for paint to fade vehicle have to sit under the sun for longer time and that means rain, stains, dirt moved by dripping water, rust under nuts etc. Paint wear in places that were often touched. A bit of mud because I want this vehicle to not rust in museum. Build: https://imgur.com/a/tha8tdx Gallery, 33 photos: https://imgur.com/a/i2m9lhE

Yet nine month later I'm still stuck with it : ) Anyway, through my work on AMX and troubles I had with ARL-44 I realized that matte varnish is a rootcause. Model didn't look right and weathering products, oils or acrylics didn't flow well and left ugly, grainy texture. So yesterday I pu thin layer of satin varnish and it got it's sheen back. I do not know what it is.

Imagine that Conqueror is even bigger, at hull at least, IS-3 must have really impressed the West.

I'm very close to finishing it this week. I added ground cable and welder(3D print). Guitar(print), strings are made from thin nylon wire. Bonus, I was checking my stash and took M103 and AMX-13 for comparison. AMX not, but M103 will certainly receive some attention this year.

I had fun with that winch, although I was at my limit at the end after two failed attempts. I'm testing macro filter for my camera so here is a collage of photos collected during construction.

I made a mistake of looking at reference photos again, just when I'm close to finish other models. First was bumper, it should be thinner, easy job. Next was winch which was too simplified and I thin I will have to make new one as it seems to be too small. Winch also needs to be powered by a shaft connected to gearbox. Wheels needs brakes, especially the one being close to soldier figure. Brush guard, I didn't find similar looking on internet, I will make a new one.

It isn't fresh project, I'm taking it from the shelf after a few months since I got burned on really bad 3d printed figures I was planning to use in it. I got new ones: driver form Dijiti and some US Army dude from DEF Model so I have to revise concept for the base because of this. But car being with one wheel on sidewalk will stay, it was good excuse to DIY leaf springs.

I started working on the base, I plan to use it for more than this one model so it will be simple concrete lot with fragment of workshop in background.

Probably like every other game changing paints so far, multiple praising reviews at beginning, but everybody ends up using vallejo anyway. [edit] But to be serious, there is not too much to review for now, they are sold in sets of 12, 20ml bottles in not-so-useful combinations, a lot of redundant colors like 5 shades of dunkelgelb or 4bo but nothing to modulate them so a lot depends on how they are mixing with other brands. I would say rust set looks promising, but it doesn't have bright colors like yellow or orange.

Mud, I'm trying to not overwork myself, not much will be visible anyway.

It's me or it's hard to find usable references for weathering army vehicles? What I'm trying to do now is dust, dirt and rain effects. I plan to have more dust under the back of the turret and the rest of the tank more cleaner, with dust being washed by rain.