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1/72 Joseph Stalin-7 (IS-7) Trumpeter


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While waiting for some scratch building materials for my Mig-3 project I decided to do this Trumpeter IS-7 kit I had laying around, because I find Trumpeter 1/72 kits are always a pleasure to work on. I did a few modifications for added detail, but overall the kit had the nice detail that I have come to expect from these 1/72 Trumpeter kits. The last one I did was an STRV-103 from Trumpeter that I loved building, so I was hoping this would be another reasonably priced gem. Although it was missing a few details that were present on the model shown on the package, it was pretty much just as good. 

 

Hope you enjoy.

 

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For those who are curious it was primed with black Stynylrez primer (same as Mig One Shot) with some pre-shading done with light grey. 

 

Colours used were XF-13 then XF-67 NATO green for some modulation, Vallejo Metal Color steel was used for the tracks with Vallejo 70.862 grey black used for the tires. I also used the grey black for the machine gun barrels after which I dry brushed them with Mr. Metal Color iron once the final flat clear was applied. My gloss coats for decals and weathering was Future (or Pledge whatever it is now) and the final matt was Microscale Micro Flat thinned 50/50. I often see people saying they have really bad results from Microscale flat and satin clear coat, but it seems like most of the time they don't thin it enough. I at least thin it 40/60 and I have always had good results, I've tried the Tamiya flat clear but I find it just doesn't do a very good job at achieving a flat finish. Anyways that's enough of my flat clear coat rant. 

 

As far as weathering goes I just used Tamiya black, dark brown and brown panel liner along with AK European earth and dark earth pigments. Then using enamel thinner for pre-fixing pigments and then enamel pigment binder or Vallejo water based binder depending on whether applying with brush or airbrush. 

 

I also had detail upgrade parts for the main gun and plethora of machine guns mounted all over this thing. 

 

The main thing I wish I had done better were the headlights. They were just molded out of one piece normal plastic, so I made it recessed with a ball engraving bit which worked well, painted the inside silver (wish I had done a slightly cleaner job or used a bit of panel liner for the edge) then put a thick dab of microscale kristal klear on for a lens. Sadly it didn't quite dry in a convex manner as I hoped, but it still look pretty good for the scale. Any recommendations on what I could use in the future? Clear epoxy maybe? I thought about shaping something out of some scrap clear sprue, but the scale was just too small to do something like that properly.  

Edited by CzarPeppers
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On 9/1/2018 at 7:14 PM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Nice build.....You've added what Trumpeter couldn't be bothered with.  :coolio:

 

These kits could be so much more (if say Modelcollect made them), I suspect the model on the box top was their 1/35 kit.  :unsure:

Hahah, yeah basically. Although honestly as long as a kit is fundamentally solid I rather like thinking outside the box to add extra detail. 

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they used their 1/35 version on the box though. For example the towing points were pretty pathetic, I just made my own out of .5mm wire instead. Weird considering the ones from the S-tank kit I did were brilliant, but I find Trumpeter kits can vary. 

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9 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Their S-Tank is a can of worms in itself.....There are several boxings with differing numbers of sprues/parts.  :rolleyes:

Yeah I do remember some weird extra parts and I think a whole sprue that I didn't even touch. 

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