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Hello friends, some picrures of my last building, i hope you like

This is Takom's new kit, the T29E3. An American heavy tank that saw it's design begin in 1944 but a prototype wasn't completed until 1947. An evolution of the M26 Pershing, by the time the prototypes were built it was decided that the need had passed for such a heavy vehicle. As such, only a handful of vehicles were ever built. The T29E3 is also a popular machine in the online game "World of Tanks". Since I acquired a T29 of my own it quickly became a favorite and I've hardly played any other tank since. And when I discovered that Takom had a kit of this beast I knew I had to build my tank from the game. Here's a shot of my vehicle wearing the "summer" camouflage in World of Tanks. I plan on building my machine to closely replicate this image. The two stars on the barrel represent "marks of excellence" which are obtained by dealing statistically high amounts of damage in a game. IMG_8103 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr I don't plan on this being a step by step blog of building the T29. More a record of simply where I am at with the build. So this is how far I've gotten after about a week of on and off building. There are some differences between the Takom model (which looks quite accurate) compared to the model in the game. My vehicle will likely blend details from the two together. 20170220-MJS_9747 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr The road wheels and drive wheels have been built and cleaned up. I used a sharp x-acto knife and a coarse file to add some character to the rubber tires. 20170220-MJS_9758 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr In the game the tank is famous for having an extremely heavily armoured turret front and gun mantlet. In a hull down position with enemies ahead, she is a fearsome enemy! I wanted to help demonstrate that by modelling the affects of several armour piercing rounds that had hit but failed to penetrate the turret front. 20170220-MJS_9756 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr I noticed on real tanks you could sometimes make out what appear to be rifling marks caused when a shell managed to ricochet. I replicated this using the tip of a hobby knife and various sharp dremel bits. 20170220-MJS_9754 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr To help determine how large the shell impacts should be I'm using some Tiger II shells as reference. I think I'm going to enlarge a couple of my shell impacts as they are starting to look a little under scale. Of course, in World of Tanks you meet a huge variety of vehicles in combat so I don't need to be super precise. I don't have to worry too much about historical accuracy! 20170220-MJS_9761 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr The kit comes molded with a nice cast texture on certain parts. But it's a little too smooth for my taste so Mr Surfacer 1000 was stippled on with a brush. Tamiya epoxy putty was used to help build up the shape of the shell impacts.The shell impacts still need plenty of work. 20170220-MJS_9757 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr Vehicles in WoT don't carry much stowage. But for the purposes of the game you can equip your tank with different types of "consumables". These can range from medical kits to treat injured crew. Repair kits to fix a damaged gun. And for American tanks you can even equip a "case of cola" to improve the performance of your entire crew for one battle. IMG_8236 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr I thought it would be funny to have some Wot consumables as stowage on my tank. I don't use the case of cola myself but I just couldn't resist adding it. I'm terrible at scratch building and have almost zero experience. But I think I've managed to make something that will resemble close enough to the item in the game. 20170220-MJS_9764 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr So that's where I am at so far. It's very early days and there is a ton of work still to do. I will post again once I've made some more progress. Cheers and thanks for looking! -matt