A11, Infantry Tank Mark.I 'Matilda I'

[Steben]

On 06/05/2021 at 00:19, diablo rsv said:

 

 

It's always an interesting debate when it comes to correct colours for models. I use MRP paints for my British vehicle colours and have been very impressed by them. I have pretty much used all of them now and each one has been a very good match for Mike Starmer's colour chips, which is good enough for me. The only one I haven't checked is the Dark Green No.4 but I am confident it will be a good match. If you are happy with spraying lacquer paints I can thoroughly recommend them. Their Khaki Green No.3

is what I used on my Valentine Mk.I below.

As regards to the kit Peter, I have the more recent casting with the resin wheels. From what I have seen of the older ones this release seems to be better cast as well with less bubbles. As for the tracks, I binned them and got a set of Friuls for the T-26. As the T-26 was basically a Vickers 6-Ton and the A11 shared many common parts I think they should be a pretty good match.

 

 

Wayne

If the colours sufficiently match Mike's swatches you have good stuff.

[M3talpig]

All the debate on colour I find most interesting...... and is a subject that pops up in almost all aspects of model making, inevitable I guess when the pursuit of accuracy comes into play.

But there is one aspect of colour I never see discussed... a few months ago I was watching a programme on the great masters of art and painting, it brought up a subject that was very interesting and seldom considered when we talk about colour, perception of colour, and how the human eye and the brain interprets the data that our gelatinous orbs send to the brain, I'm sure you have heard when art critics talk about a particular artist they often talk of the period they are painting in, for instance an artists "blue period" or "yellow period" ...this programme I was watching put forward the theory that these "periods" were in fact because of the given artists perception of colour changing with age, I thought as I watched this how our age would change what each of us see as a correct hue of say olive drab once you take into account for instance the wearing of glasses or contact lenses or how many of us work out doors for extended periods (UV damage) any way just an observation (no pun intended)

 

This was also a very interesting read.

 

https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/microscope-resource/primer/lightandcolor/humanvisionintro/

[Steben]

1 hour ago, M3talpig said:

All the debate on colour I find most interesting...... and is a subject that pops up in almost all aspects of model making, inevitable I guess when the pursuit of accuracy comes into play.

But there is one aspect of colour I never see discussed... a few months ago I was watching a programme on the great masters of art and painting, it brought up a subject that was very interesting and seldom considered when we talk about colour, perception of colour, and how the human eye and the brain interprets the data that our gelatinous orbs send to the brain, I'm sure you have heard when art critics talk about a particular artist they often talk of the period they are painting in, for instance an artists "blue period" or "yellow period" ...this programme I was watching put forward the theory that these "periods" were in fact because of the given artists perception of colour changing with age, I thought as I watched this how our age would change what each of us see as a correct hue of say olive drab once you take into account for instance the wearing of glasses or contact lenses or how many of us work out doors for extended periods (UV damage) any way just an observation (no pun intended)

 

This was also a very interesting read.

 

https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/microscope-resource/primer/lightandcolor/humanvisionintro/

True. Camera's are always more reliable than human eye. We tend to dismiss pictures because of shift, hardware pc screen etc... all true. Yet the change in colour of different pictures with angle and light is simply the true difference put on film. Our eyes or better brains do a lot of processing which the camera does not. That's why references in numbers and mixes is so important. We have the munsell codes for od319 for example. 

[Lummox]

Shame about those bogies Wayne, but deep down you probably know you'll have to bite the axle bullet otherwise you'll grimace every time you see them.

 

It looks a challenge, but reckon there's the basis of a nice A11 in there - I'm sure you'll whip it into shape. 👍

[Nenad Ilijic]

Ouch, really nasty. I feel your pain. Please don't abandon the project, I am sure many people here would like to see it coming to life

 

Cheers,

Nenad

[diablo rsv]

I've had a little break from model making after losing my mojo, mostly due to this kit, but I am determined not to give up on the Matilda so I thought it was about time I got back to it. I still don't think it will be one of my finest pieces of work however I feel that the A11 is an important part of a collection of British armour models and so I will have to do the best I can with what I have to work with.

The first thing I needed to sort out was the rear hull plate.  I sanded off all of the kit details and made a new rear plate from plastic card. I also resurfaced the inner faces of the final drive housings. A few bolts were added and supports for the jack and tow hooks were again made from plastic card.

 

  

 

The area around the drivers hatch was sanded and filled, a new vision slit was made and a couple of bolts added. I will have to see how it looks when the model is primed but I don't think there is much more I can do to it.

 

 

Along the bottom of the hull there was some tidying up to do and some more bolt heads to add. Once that was done I could add all of the various tools and accessories. I did replace the kits starter handle with a scratch built one as I didn't think the resin one looked great. I will also replace the resin Pyrene fire extinguishes with some brass ones from Aber. 

 

 

 

The etched grills were added to the engine deck without too much trouble.

 

 

There wasn't much to do on the turret but the hatches did put up a bit of a fight.

 

 

Replacing the axles on the bogies really was going to be an easy job so I resorted to straightening things out as best as I could. Due to the weight of the model I supported the hull with blu tac before attaching the wheel bogies. I'm still not very happy with them but now they are fitted I suppose they don't look too bad. This model may well be getting a heavy coat of mud.

 

 

Construction wise I'm not too far off now, I just need to sort out the headlights and some other small details and then I can get some paint on. The tracks will be my next big challenge but that goes for most armour kits.

 

 

 

  

[Nenad Ilijic]

I am glad to see work being resumed. Thanks

 

It will be great A11! Don't worry too much about little imperfections, I am quite sure they will be hardly noticeable once model is painted and weathered.

 

Fantastic work repairing running gear and rear plate 

 

Cheers,

Nenad

[edjbartos]

A lot of really good work here Wayne, it’s  looking brilliant, considering all the issues that you have had with this you have done fantastic work here...

 

Ed

[Hamden]

 

Great to see this back on your bench, you've made stunning progress definitely turning this into a silk purse. Looking forward to seeing this in paint now!

Best of luck with the tracks

 

  Stay safe          Roger

[Bullbasket]

I think that a silk purse will be the end result here Wayne. Kudos for sticking with it, because it's paying off.

 

John.

[diablo rsv]

On 08/08/2021 at 17:51, Nenad Ilijic said:

I am glad to see work being resumed. Thanks

 

It will be great A11! Don't worry too much about little imperfections, I am quite sure they will be hardly noticeable once model is painted and weathered.

 

Fantastic work repairing running gear and rear plate 

 

Cheers,

Nenad

 

On 08/08/2021 at 19:59, edjbartos said:

A lot of really good work here Wayne, it’s  looking brilliant, considering all the issues that you have had with this you have done fantastic work here...

 

Ed

 

On 09/08/2021 at 08:01, Hamden said:

 

Great to see this back on your bench, you've made stunning progress definitely turning this into a silk purse. Looking forward to seeing this in paint now!

Best of luck with the tracks

 

  Stay safe          Roger

 

On 09/08/2021 at 09:12, Bullbasket said:

I think that a silk purse will be the end result here Wayne. Kudos for sticking with it, because it's paying off.

 

John.

 

Thank you all very much for the encouraging words, I really do appreciate all of your feedback. Posting my work on this forum has definitely given me the drive to finish projects that would otherwise have been to easily abandoned.

The building work has now pretty much been completed and after giving the model a wash in some soapy water I gave it a coat of Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500 Black primer. Hopefully there won't be too many imperfections to sort out before I can get on with the real painting work.

 

 

Whilst waiting for the primer to dry I made a start on the tracks. The resin tracks supplied with the kit aren't great so as I mentioned above I bought a set of  Friuls for the T-26 ( ALT- 45) At first glance it looked as though they would be really fiddley, being such a small link, but once I got into a rhythm they went together quite quickly.

 

  

 

Hopefully I can find some time in the next couple of weeks to get the painting done. 🤞

 

Wayne

[Maginot]

Dog of a tank; dog of a kit; gem of a build.

 

Wow! Looks so good assembled with only a coat of primer. Can't wait for the result of painting and weathering. And somehow I think there will be only a minimal requirement for mud to hide blemishes.

 

Cheers.

[diablo rsv]

I have started the painting process by applying a light coat of white. The black primer does add a bit of depth in the shadow areas and recesses but I prefer a lighter base coat to work on especially as my go to MRP paints aren't very opaque. I do put the white down heavier on the upper surfaces to help with the contrast but in reality once the top coats are applied the effect is minimal. I find post shading to be more effective than pre shading but I'm not really a fan of heavy modulation and artificial lighting effects on armour models.

 

 

 

Once dry I sprayed on the first coat of Khaki Green No.3 (MRP -333). I was surprised to find that this came out some what browner than I expected and when I compared it to my Valentine Mk.I, on which I used the same paint, it confirmed my fears. So I grabbed another bottle and this came out much better and compared very well with the Mike Starmer swatch in his booklet.

 

 

Confusingly when I checked the batch numbers on the bottles they matched. My only explanation is that there was a lot of brown pigment at the bottom of the bottles and I shook the first one more thoroughly.

 

 

 

Next task will be working out the pattern for the disruptive colour and a tricky masking job.

 

 

 

 

 

On 13/08/2021 at 17:40, Maginot said:

Dog of a tank; dog of a kit; gem of a build.

 

Thank you very much Maginot,

to be fair to the kit, in terms of accuracy, as far as I can tell, it is pretty accurate and the nature of limited run resin kits always throw up a few challenges but there is definitely room for improvement. I can almost guarantee when I finish this build an injection moulded kit will be announced.

 

Wayne

 

 

  

[Bullbasket]

8 hours ago, diablo rsv said:

I can almost guarantee when I finish this build an injection moulded kit will be announced.

Ahhhh! Sod's Law. I know it so well. Try scratch building a RR Merlin in 1/72nd scale, only to find when you've finished, that John Adams is bringing out one in white metal.

That coat has brought it all together Wayne. Nice work.

 

John.

[Milan Mynar]

Great modeling work. I hope that someone will make me a model of this tank as a classic kit.

[diablo rsv]

On 17/08/2021 at 09:08, Bullbasket said:

Try scratch building a RR Merlin in 1/72nd scale, only to find when you've finished, that John Adams is bringing out one in white metal.

 

I feel your frustration John, although I don't recall that happening to to me with any completed models I do have quite a few limited run kits in the stash, mostly Blue Max and indeed Aeroclub, that have been superseded by the likes of Eduard and Special Hobby. 

Of course I have every intention of building them still, I just need to be able to carry on model making into my hundreds. 🤔

Wayne.

[Bertie McBoatface]

You've done really well pulling this back from the brink. It was well beyond the point where I would have conceded defeat and now looks pretty damn good to me. 

[diablo rsv]

On 30/08/2021 at 16:16, Bertie Psmith said:

You've done really well pulling this back from the brink. It was well beyond the point where I would have conceded defeat and now looks pretty damn good to me. 

 

Thanks Bertie, 

The 'Matilda I' is quite an important part of the collection that I'm building so I couldn't really give up on it and now the end is in sight I am actually enjoying it. 

 

Wayne.

[diablo rsv]

I couldn't find enough images of any particular vehicle to work out an accurate pattern for the disruptive camouflage pattern so I thought I would just make a representative model of the type.

Using the few references I have and the Mike Starmer booklet I worked out a likely pattern and  masked this off with Silly Putty. I then sprayed the disruptive colour with MRP-343 Dark Green G4.

 

 

I was a little concerned that some of the small detail parts would be broken off or damaged when the putty was removed but luckily I got away with it this time.

 

 

I used the kit decals for the markings to represent a tank from the 4th RTR. The white recognition squares were masked and spayed on.

The model was then given a pin wash with thinned oil paint to help pick out some of the details before it received a flat clear coat of Mr. Color GX113 thinned with Mr.Color Rapid Thinner.

The wheels were painted a rubber colour and detail painting on the tools etc was carried out with acrylics and oils.

 

 

The yellow blob on the front is to represent gas warning paint, it would change from a yellow ochre colour to red in the presence of gas.

In most of the period photos I have seen the headlights appear to have an opaque appearance as does the Bovington example. I haven't worked out yet if this was opaque glass or some kind of covering so I haven't put in any glass yet.  

 

 

 

The end is finally in sight for this one. I just need to finish off the tracks and start the weathering process so hopefully it won't be too long before the next update.

 

Wayne

 

 

 

 

[vytautas]

Looks brilliant. I really like camouflage. Uncontrasting camouflage colors do not interfere with the perception of the shape of the tank.
And this somehow reminds me of some predatory aquatic animal...

 

Vytautas

 

 

[Jasper dog]

Hi Wayne, rather you than me!

As important a tank it might be but no way could I even look at a kit like that without breaking into a cold sweat. However with a good dose of perseverance you appear to have beaten it into submission, just in time for Tamiyas release of one. 

Really great workmanship!

 

Atb

Darryl 

[Hamden]

 

That has really come together well, the end is definitely in sight and a silk purse is appearing

 

    Stay safe            Roger 

[Bullbasket]

Nice work Wayne. What did you use for the reflective surfaces of the headlamps?

 

John.

[diablo rsv]

On 01/09/2021 at 07:57, Jasper dog said:

just in time for Tamiyas release of one. 

Thanks Darryl.

Now you know what their upcoming secret 1/35 release is. 🤫

[diablo rsv]

On 01/09/2021 at 08:30, Hamden said:

 

That has really come together well, the end is definitely in sight and a silk purse is appearing

 

    Stay safe            Roger 

 

On 01/09/2021 at 09:09, Bullbasket said:

Nice work Wayne. What did you use for the reflective surfaces of the headlamps?

 

John.

 

Thanks guys.

The reflective coating is Molotov liquid chrome.

https://www.molotow.com/anwendungen/marker-anwendungen/liquid-chrometm

It is excellent stuff but lacks a little bit on the durability side. I know some modellers have thinned it with lacquer thinners and dipped parts in it  to great effect but I just use the pens.

It may be possible to put a coat of Aqua gloss over it for protection although that may dull it's reflectivness.

 

Wayne