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Looking like a (severely) scaled down T-34, the T-70 was the last REALLY light (i.e. weighting less than 10 tons) tank until the appearance of the British Scorpion and Scimitar 30 years later. Its contemporary US M24 Chaffee (18 tons, 5 crew, 290hp) dwarfed the T-70 in all respects two to one. Being the last small tank (crewed by 2, like a tankette) it was also the most numerous – 8,230 were manufactured in 1942-43. The T-70 hull (with an additional pair of road wheels) extended by 70cm was used in the SU-76 infantry support SPG/tank destroyer. Almost 15,000 of these open-top vehicles were built, making them the 2nd (after the ubiquitous T-34) Soviet tracked AFV of the WW2. The main and the only mass-produced variant, the T-70M (officially only the first short series from 1942 was called T-70) was powered by two 70hp GAZ (nee Dodge) inline six-cylinder engines. Armed with a 45 mm gun and a 7.6 mm MG, this variant weighed a bit less than 10 tons. The 2002-tool Unimodels kit is the only injected kit of the T-70 in Braille scale. The #306 boxing contains 110 styrene parts and a PE fret with 17 details. Among them there were six identical hoisting eyelets, while in a real tank they should be in two sizes. So I left the kit-supplied tiny ones for the engine hatch (1) and the main gun mantlet (2), replacing the other three (for hoisting the turret) with much beefier plastic ones from my spare box. Otherwise, the model was made OOB except for drilling the cannon muzzle and exhaust stubs. Although the instruction manual shows only 3 painting schemes, the decals are provided for six. After a short search, I identified the tank sporting the red „275” on the turret. It belonged to the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, which took part in Operation Little Saturn (closing the Stalingrad encirclement) near Mikhaylovka (200 km west of Stalingrad) in December 1942. The paints are (as always) Humbrol enamels: 226 for the 1941-43 period 4BO and 34 for the temporary whitewash - painted with Italeri brushes. Finally the Vallejo acrylic matt varnish was brush-applied overall. The photos are taken with an LG smartphone. Comments are welcome

Hello guys, my T-70M Miniart is finished some picts

Hello everyone! Another recently finished build, along with my Rebel T-65 X-Wings of Red Squadron - this is Bandai's 1/72 kit of the T-70 X-Wing from the sequel (Disney) Star Wars trilogy. The less I say about my opinion of these movies, the better, and while I did find most designs bland and uninspired, the new X-Wing was very nice! I got this back in 2015 when it was released and I've only managed to completed it a few weeks ago. The build process was very fast, two afternoons and it can be completed even faster if you do not paint or weather. Painted with a 50:50 mix of Mr. Color H338 Light Gray and H11 White, practically the same color as the kit plastic, over a preshaded surface done with black washes. I didn't want mine to be Blue-3 from the movies (the only paint scheme seen), so I decided this would be a New Republic squadron leader, Blue 1. The squadron markings are placed similar to the older Rebel ones, I've added some paneling of various colors, most of the chrome plating decals weren't used opting instead for the fuselage color, and I've replaced BB-8 with an R5 droid taken from one of my Fine Mold's T-65 kits. Weathered using enamel washes, oil paints and soft pastels. Finally, sealed up with a few thin coats of 50:50 Mr. Color Clear and Clear Flat. I may have overdone the weathering a bit but it was difficult given the light base color - unfortunately, the photos turned out too dark but it's a lot lighter in person! Criticism and feedback welcome!

Something WEIRD happened to me today. Like, REALLY flippin weird. So weird that "weird" should be in italics. I'm posting pictures of a COMPLETED model. Mark this day on your calendar folks, I know I will. Click the link to check out the full build. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235001750-bandai-t-70-black-leader/ 20160607-MJS_4704 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4705 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4701 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4697 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4695 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4714 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4716 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4706 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Kill markings painted on using an old Verlinden scribing template as a stencil. 20160607-MJS_4724 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Clear resin navigation lights courtesy CMK to replace the solid plastic ones that come with the kit. 20160607-MJS_4732 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4742 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4750 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4766 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr A cool accident in this pic. The light hits in just the right way to make the NAV lights look like they're actually lit up. 20160607-MJS_4777 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4799 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4814 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Not enough photos? OK! Too many? Too bad cause here comes even MORE! 20160607-MJS_4821 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4829 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4830 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4834 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr The design for the base was inspired by Poe Dameron's helmet. 20160607-MJS_4836 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4841 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4845 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Solid plastic barrels replaced with fine brass tube. 20160607-MJS_4843 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20160607-MJS_4846 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Interesting little fact about this piece. Only about five decals were used in total and they all were on BB-8. The X-wing itself has zero decals and as a result, zero clear coats. That's a first for me. Thanks for looking! -matt

Well, here we go. Finally have enough done to warrant my first post in my first WIP here. This is also my first time back at the bench in over a year. And this is my first personal project since... my Tamiya P-47 many many years ago. Time to shake off a lot of rust. This is a little out of my comfort zone. I don't do much sci-fi. And I've only dabbled in 1/72 maybe a half dozen times in my life. It's so much smaller than 1/48! I mean, look how tiny BB-8 is! FYI, the body detail was sanded off as I want to position his head on an angle. And since his body is on a sphere, all I need to do is adjust the placement of the decals on his body when the time comes. Seemed silly to cut off his head an re attach it. untitled by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Since this is a Star Wars kit, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to add my own "greeblies" to this X-wing. A great way to add a little extra detail and help make it my own. I went looking through old kits. But due to the small scale I quickly realized that my collection of photo etched detail sets was the way to go. I even found a supply of fine solder wire I probably purchased ten years ago and never touched. Till today. I also drilled out a vent (maybe, who knows) and added some very fine etched screen. Why? Because it looked right. untitled-2 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr More random etched pieces added where it looked appropriate. Some came from an Aber King Tiger set. Other pieces are from an old Verlinden Humvee set. I also used a fine drill and added the appearance of fasteners all over the ship. Just another way to add a little more visual appeal. This is the bottom of the fuselage.I had planned on adding some antennas like what you see on current aircraft. I was thrilled to discover the kit already has two! They just needed a little sanding to thin them down to make them look just right. untitled-3 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr I removed Poe's head and angled it to make it appear he is looking at something. Likely need to add a little filler to clean up the neck area. untitled-4 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr I made a small pitot tube and attached it inside one of the intakes. I figure since the ship flies in atmosphere frequently it might make sense to have one. And if you don't like that, just call it a random sensor. untitled-5 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Same as the fuselage. Various bits of PE. Fine solder wire and a fine drill used to replicate fasteners on different parts of the S foils and engines. I expect the lower engines will be more visible so I added a little more detail on them. untitled-6 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr One of the "top" engines detailed on the right. untitled-7 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr This time it's one of the "bottom" engines on the right side. untitled-8 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Oh how I missed you. untitled-9 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Got some primer on just to see if anything needs cleaning up. untitled-10 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr untitled-11 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Looking pretty good so far. Still early days though. And I am immensely rusty! untitled-12 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr This kit is amazing. By far the best 1/72 kit I've ever seen! The cockpit detail is better than many 1/48 aircraft kits!These intakes are fabulous. untitled-13 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr So this is where she stands as of now. untitled-14 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr I do apologize for the blinding white background. Haven't done this in a while and need to pick up some coloured paper to put in the photo booth I threw together today. Oh and if you haven't seen Andy's X-wings, get your butt over there now! Stunning work. Thanks for looking. -matt

Hello! Here are my two Revell T-70 X-Wing Fighters from The Force Awakens. Both kits were repainted and I added figures modified from the spares box. I used a degree of artistic license with the weathering! You can see more pictures of this build on my blog: http://thescalemodelhangar.blogspot.co.uk

Hello! Here is my Revell 1/50 Resistance T-70 X-Wing Fighter. A nice easy build, only mods were the droid and pilot. I painted the model as a fictional "Blue III" callsign as I will build Dameron's Black T-70 to fly in formation with this one in the future.

<<SKIP THIS IF YOU WANT TO GET STRAIGHT TO THE MODEL BUILD>> So a little bit of back story before I get to the fun stuff. So this build took place over the space of 48hrs and was a mad rush of a Christmas present for a friend of mine who is quite possibly the worst person to buy for in history. So it has now become apparent that I must make stuff for him stat h cant get anywhere else, so this x-wing is a one of a kind because even if I painted it again, it would not be exactly the same. <<END OF BACK STORY>> So I opened this Revel easy kit with the understanding that I would need to re-paint the whole thing from scratch and in my opinion that's exactly what has to be done. The paintwork is passable for your younglings if they wish to build their first model and put it on their shelf. They could eveN practice their detailing, washes and dry brushing on it to make it really pop. But for those modellers that need to make an impact on everyone who sees their work you will need a blank canvas. So below are some photos of the unboxed pieces. Pretty bland paintwork. The initial paintwork has been put directly onto the black plastic and gives a very unrealistic glossy finish to what should be the metal armour of a starfighter so this is my main issue with the original pieces. So first things first, masking, because unless you have the steadiest hand ever, achieving the pin width lines on the nose of the x-wing will be a hell of a lot easier. I would go over the orange and grey panels that revel painted on later with my own orange and grey mix. I then went straight into vallejo black surface primer (2-3 coats) this was essential in order to ensure adhesion of the paint and then 2 coats of Tamiya flat black all airbrushed. Once the black and the primer were done the rest was achieved using brushes. I focussed mainly on the s-foils to begin with, applying the orange detailing first. This was very nearly a disaster, as I first used Humbrol enamel orange which went well and truly wrong. It ended with me wiping it all off and starting from scratch with some custom mixed orange from red Vallejo and yellow Yamiya acrylic paints. It was a close call though so in my opinion be very careful with Humbrol paints. The s-foils and their additional panels and air intakes were then washed and dry brushed (before being assembled with the main body of the starfighter. Parallel to all of the s-foil painting I was applying detailing to all of the cockpit and the mechanical parts of the fighter. The easy kit is surprisingly detailed and has plenty of opportunities to experiment and include as much detail as you want. Once I was happy with the detail of the cockpit and the s-foil mechanics I was happy to assemble the model. Make sure you are absolutely happy before putting any of the pieces together. Easy kit means snap kit so once snapped together there is no going back without potentially destroying the model, YE HAVE BEEN WARNED. The following lot of pic's are of the final completed model which had undergone vallejo washing and dry brushing. I also added some scorch marks to the exhaust nozzle to show wear an tear and some additional detailing to the panelling once I had seen the movie again (perfect excuse ) So that's the full story, I hope you enjoyed this post as its my first any feedback is very welcome.

Here is one of my christmas builds, although I bought it some years ago! (one of those you build before the christmas models arrives and makes you forget older unbuilt models). I searched for a long time for a camo and I finally went for a woodland camo used for BA-10s, adapted to both the tank and the gun. At one point I added too much inkings and weatherings, and I had to "clean" a bit the tank to don't make it look like it has been taken out from a lake! The crew is painted representing a reconaissance camo, although it ended up looking too much like the 60s uniform. I modified all the original poses as I didn't like them all being just seating on top of the tank doing nothing. More pics here; http://toysoldierchest.blogspot.com/2014/02/soviet-t-70m-zis-3-wcrew-miniart-135.html

Started this soon after my last operation, but lost interest whilst healing. Things just went together really well and I'm very pleased with the results.