Every Vally Shall Be Exalted - The Valentine Tank Family Vol.1 - Finished

[Maddoxx77]

1 hour ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

I've done some work tonight but my photo host isn't playing. It's just been assembly of bits and pieces, nothing much worth talking about. Apart from parts Ba 23/4. Have you seen them anywhere? Nr have I. They aren't small parts either but they have escaped completely. I found something in the spares box that will do the structural job of the back brake backplate even if it doesn't look the part (lol). 

I've checked my spares box but nope.... no Ba23/4. I think missing parts end up in an alternate dimension were they become part of the weirdest AFV's.

[Bertie McBoatface]

10 hours ago, Maddoxx77 said:

I've checked my spares box but nope.... no Ba23/4. I think missing parts end up in an alternate dimension were they become part of the weirdest AFV's.

 

It was kind of you to look, Maddox. Thank you. My ersatz brake drums will be fine, They are behind the wheel and invisible anyway. Also I'm losing the will to use all of the remaining parts! I think you might see a sprint to the finish. 

 

p.s. I'll put the  pictures up in a minute.

[Bullbasket]

2 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

p.s. I'll put the  pictures up in a minute.

Clock's ticking! 🕙

[Bertie McBoatface]

2 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Clock's ticking! 🕙

 

I put them up on the post I did last night. As an edit. It seemed the obvious place to put them to me but perhaps not to everyone... I always assume everybody thinks like me which would be bad news for the world at large!🤣

[Bullbasket]

1 hour ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

 

I put them up on the post I did last night. As an edit. It seemed the obvious place to put them to me but perhaps not to everyone...

Ah there they are. Sorry Bertie, nothing's obvious to me. You have to slap me around the face with a wet fish, Python style, before I realise something.

 

John.

[Bertie McBoatface]

Just now, Bullbasket said:

Ah there they are. Sorry Bertie, nothing's obvious to me. You have to slap me around the face with a wet fish, Python style, before I realise something.

 

John.

 

I didn't mean it as a dig at you John. I was thinking that it was typical that I'd expect everyone to be thinking the same way as me. 🤪

[Bullbasket]

3 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

I didn't mean it as a dig at you John.

Never even crossed my mind (small as it is).

 

John.

[AdrianMF]

15 hours ago, Maddoxx77 said:

I think missing parts end up in an alternate dimension were they become part of the weirdest AFV's.

I think they end up on spaceship models, glued on in between a 1/24 TransAm cylinder block and a 1/700 floatplane on its launching catapult.

In fact, here’s one they made earlier…

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Bertie McBoatface]

 

 

This is the underneath of the beast with more or less everything fitted. Nothing looks straight but I think that's right. The engine is mounted crookedly (on the real thing) and everything else follows. Apparently the idea was to make it low profiled and in that it pretty much fails. 😄

 

You can see the round objects that I glued securely to the back axle to serve as mountings for the wheels and pretend to be backplates for the drum brakes. There will be no shifting them now. They are well and truly welded into position...

 

 

...and here are the kit supplied brake backplates. I was looking through my spares for some likely looking stowage boxes for the mudguards when I found them. NOT in the general armour spares box but in the Valentine tank spares box, which is ridiculous as they aren't Vally parts but AEC chassis parts. Dammit! I don't even remember putting them aside but it would appear that I just twisted them from the sprue!

[Model Mate]

Oops -  love struck Bertie had just lost his powers of organisation! I’m sure you’ll overcome though - excellent work.

[Bertie McBoatface]

I think I can still make my deadline though.

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

Well, it's about time I did a bit of modelmaking and so I have.

 

There are so very many small tiny bits and pieces. I wander over to the bench, stick a few on, maybe not even a hundred and then I pick up the camera and I can't see what's changed! 

 

 

I did manage to capture this part on film, well then, on digits. Part 72 is actually a sub assembly with the tiny mirror stuck to a hair thin and impossibly fragile plastic rod. If I stuck that to the mudguard with cement, the whole thing would melt and even if it didn't, I'd knock it off again within minutes. So I drilled holes in the mudguards and used a broken drill bit as the support rod, well CA'ed into place above and below. Now, instead of knocking the defenceless mirrors off, I'll tear holes in my hands with the sharp ended steel. A much better idea, I'm sure you will agree?

 

 

And then, inspired by the beautifully formed PE of my friend @Faraway, I actually used some of the brass that came with the kit. There are four of those webbing straps holding the two sand channels to the side of the car and I managed to fit them all! Not well but securely, which is good enough. 

 

I'm stopping now and have six days left until I step over my self imposed deadline and get cut down by the MG42's of the guards in the towers. Deadlines are good for me. I WILL PREVAIL!

 

[Modelholic]

Smashing work.

I always weigh up whether to use PE. But I'm getting more adventurous!

Good job the guards haven't upgraded to gatling guns and auto grenade launchers!

Tom

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Modelholic said:

Smashing work.

I always weigh up whether to use PE. But I'm getting more adventurous!

Good job the guards haven't upgraded to gatling guns and auto grenade launchers!

Tom

 

I don't think it weighs much at all. I've got a boxful of my unused brass shrapnel, collected from a hundred kits, and I bet it's only an ounce. Malice for pound, the most evil substance in the galaxy! 😈

[Modelholic]

It's got it's good points.

And there all razor sharp!

Tom

[Bertie McBoatface]

13 hours ago, Modelholic said:

It's got it's good points.

And they're all razor sharp!

Tom

 

I have really big hands. They span ten inches and my fingers, pressed on a ruler are nearly an inch wide. Great for piano and guitar, not so good for pingin' PE! Or for MiniArt kits TBH. I'm now sick and tired of this particular pinger and wish it finished above all; above neatness, above accuracy, and most of all above perfectionism. It's nearly there and soon I'll be into the final painting phase. That will revive my interest because I have not just a cunning plan, but a vision of how it's to look. 

 

Should I tell you now and risk sharing my disappointment if it doesn't work out? Or do it and then make up a narrative that neatly ends at whatever the thing looks like when I'm done? Well, the cunning plan came to me while modelling and listening to music. It struck me that a classic Airfix or Revell kit is a bit of a folk song, anyone can sing it, it's not too technical, doesn't need many instruments, but its catchy and sticks in the mind. A Tamiya kit? A pop song I think. It's also capable of being sung by anyone, but there's an awful lot of clever composition involved behind the scenes. Even if the results are rather predictable at times everyone seems to rave about the latest one for a while. A MiniArt kit reminds me of the music of Mozart (or possibly jazz?). They miss no opportunity to include some extra twiddly bits! You need an orchestra of tools and skills, much rehearsal, and if you don't understand the musical score, it will never come together. This train of thought would benefit from the ideas of everyone else ...

 

Anyway it led me to what I hope will be my new style of modelling. I'm calling it Grand Opera and getting there via Spinal Tap. The idea is to turn everything up to at least eleven. In painting, I want supersaturated colours and exaggerated shadows and highlights. High contrast is vital and not just in colours - I want highly contrasting textures too. And contrasting methods of application - washes, drybrush, stippling, glazes, wet blends, hatching, everything that the fantasy figure painters use.

 

Weathering will be similarly exaggerated with everything looking rather Mad Maxian - mud, dust, chipping (I love chips more than I love Daddy), bootprints, leaks and rain marks and everything that Uncle Nightshift does so subtly (!), done in a pointedly unsubtle way.

 

Assembly will be tackled with similar abandon, I'll drop the flaps on a Spitfire, show an engine change on a Vulcan with a Blue steel loaded at the same time. Anything to add complexity and interest. The AEC is as open as I can make it to reveal the insides. I'll pile stowage onto it and pointless tarps if I'm in the mood. A few extra weapons and a few figures and always a dramatic base. I'm not going to bother if some parts are overscale, or anachronistic. 

 

I won't win any competitions this way but my stuff won't disappear into a sea of 'accurate' 'realistic' dare I say similar and therefore boring models on my shelves. I don't want this armored car to quietly hum some ambient 'lift music' from my display cabinet "_{I'm an armoured car. I'm an armoured car and that's all I am. Pity me. If you can find me that is."}

 

I want this model to belt out a Mozartian aria, "I'm a pinging great armoured car! I'm a car! An armoured car! I'm big! Big! Heavy! I'm a big heavy dangerous armoured car!! Look on me and burn your eyes! I'm here! Look at me!"

 

It's not a realistic approach.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Last night:

 

 

Remember those big fingers? I looked at this diagram and thought "Not a pinging chance!" I'll find something else for that spot.

 

 

I got the fenders on and stuck the engine covers on in an open position. I'm not wasting my bright blue and red pieces in there.

 

 

I put the driver's hatch in with blutac thinking about unifying all of the exterior paint with the airbrush. Then burst out laughing and removed it again. I'll brush paint instead. Less fiddling with masking and more fun with colour.

 

 

Were the hatches equipped with a stay to keep them open? They are on mine - two sticks jammed into the securing brackets are not only a contrasting material, in a contrasting colour, but we've all seen it done so in this case it's actually realistic as well. 😁

 

 

I like the three stowage boxes on the turret (for the three crew) so much that I added a fourth. And now I'll populate those long empty fenders with as much stowage as I can find. This vehicle is the strangest shape already so let's work that up to the point of crazy.

 

 

That was the end of last night's work. Almost all of the official pieces (that I could see with the naked eye) are fitted. Now the real fun begins. Unfortunately, I've missed opportunities to work the insides in a Grand Operatic manner, but never mind. There will always be another one to play with.

 

[ProfSparks]

Loving the music analogy 

 

🤓👍

[Bullbasket]

Oh, it's an armoured car!! If it hadn't have been for Wolfgang Amadeus, I'd never have known. 

Taking shape now Bertie and looking like a true thoroughbred. Nice work.

 

John.

[Bertie McBoatface]

 

Let's turn the stowage volume up to 11. 

 

I found these plastic tarps in my stowage spares box. They are pretty crude but will save me time and a bit of theatrical painting might do the trick

 

 

Yep. Bent after softening in a candle flame, and snuggled up together, I think they will do nicely.

 

 

The shackles with the separate pins are pretty cool. I'll try to clean up the sprue scarring before I paint but this is a huge enlargement. They look better in the real world.

 

I used kite string that I found in the park, soaked in clear nail varnish, for the wire tow rope.

 

 

Another glamour shot of my wheels...

 

 

Apart from the wheels and the turret, everything else is stuck in place.

 

 

This may be a painting nightmare. 

 

I see it more of a challenge. Can I adapt the 'slapchop' technique to armour modelling? I'll show you next time.

 

[Modelholic]

Good work with the tarps they look...right!

May I inquire what kit they're from?

I'd throw a couple more jerry cans somewhere if I had them. 

Tom

[Bullbasket]

That's moving along nicely Bertie. I really like the wheels/tyres combination. They've weathered up well.

 

John.

[ColonelKrypton]

2 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

I used kite string that I found in the park, soaked in clear nail varnish, for the wire tow rope.

 

What an interesting idea.  I have tried a lot of different things to make wire rope for models but I had never thought of or considered that particular combination; you are a bit of scratchbuilder at heart.

 

Friends and family think I am a bit loopy at times as I carefully eye, size up, and set aside the wrappings, boxes, ribbons, and string that they come wrapped in wondering what I can make out of them.

 

I am off to search for gather some bits of string and what not to try out a couple of ideas. Perhaps I will stubble or trip over some kite string when I am out chasing squirrels and rabbits later on

 

The tarps really look the part. They look like they were meant to be right where they are.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

2 hours ago, Modelholic said:

if I had them...

...so would I. 

 

I've no idea but since I have two sprues of them I think it's likely an accessory set

[edjbartos]

Very nice Bertie, It's all coming together rather splendidly. I do like the look of the wheels, very nice...

 

Ed

[Ned]

I lolled at 'slapchop', so thanks for that Bertie. I started to watch a video on YT the other day but the rabid excitement of the presenter was too much. But, now I think that it might just've been you, hopped up on cans of Monster energy drink.