Bandai, 1/48 Matilda Mk II

[gamevender]

It's done. The "in progress" stream can be found over in the, well, "In Progress" topics. It is basically OOTB, with the only changes made were "busying up" the basic kit supplied interior and opening up the drivers little armoured hatch in the glacis plate. I could have wired the smoke projectors or put the fuel line on the spare tank, but like I said, it's OOTB. I built it mostly to test out doing the Malta "pseudo rock wall" camo pattern. The figure is from the Tamiya Humber a/c kit as the Bandai kit, which I got from a vender at a show, did not have the crew figures. Anyhoo, done and done. 

 

[IanC]

Very nice job. Just needs a little diorama base with a stone wall behind - the tank would disappear!😄

[Milan Mynar]

Very nice building and paintwork.

[Nenad Ilijic]

Great work. That stone wall camo requires a lot o patience I would say.

 

Nenad

[sardaukar]

I never knew Bandai did 1/48 kits, Great job on a challenging camo.

[noelh]

On 6/20/2022 at 8:48 PM, sardaukar said:

I never knew Bandai did 1/48 kits, Great job on a challenging camo.

They did back in 70s, 80s. They had a great range and very affordable compared to 1/35th. I built  a lot of them. Great  for dioramas.

I wish someone would bring them  back.

Edited June 23, 2022 by noelh

[sardaukar]

2 hours ago, noelh said:

They did back in 70s, 80s. They had a great range and very affordable compared to 1/35th. I built  a lot of them. Great  for dioramas.

I wish someone would bring them  back.

 

I actually think that 1/48 is the sweet spot but there isn't the choice yet.

[APA]

Excellent job especially considering the scale 👌

 

So how did you do the camo scheme? 

 

Andrew 

[gamevender]

I painted the whole tank "Middlestone". Then using photos as a rough guide, I lightly drew the lines with a pencil. I worked on one 'face' at a time, right, left, front back, top and did the turret separately. Then, using a thin brush I went over the lines with a very dark acrylic green paint I have called 'Russian Green'. I also did this one face at a time to avoid putting my fingers into wet paint as I went along. I had to periodically stop and clean the brush and/or thin the paint as both tended to dry out and clump after a while. 

[Toryu]

On 24/06/2022 at 00:26, noelh said:

They did back in 70s, 80s. They had a great range and very affordable compared to 1/35th.

 

And they had many nice figures and accessories, too - it was a great range of models. I built a few dioramas in the late seventies. Always wanted to have a British desert tank group with that great Matilda. Yours looks lovely!

[Bertie McBoatface]

That's very eye-catching (on a plain background at least). Nice work.

[Harold55]

On 6/23/2022 at 5:26 PM, noelh said:

They did back in 70s, 80s. They had a great range and very affordable compared to 1/35th. I built  a lot of them. Great  for dioramas.

I wish someone would bring them  back.

Regarding Bandi 1/48 armour kits I agree that these should be reissued by someone.  They were great kits as this post's example points out.  Tamiya seems to have done well with 1/48 armour so we know there is a market out there.  The only downside is they use rubber tracks vs. the link and length method Tamiya uses, which looks much better.  If reissued that would be my only change to recommend.  Alternatively someone could issue aftermarket tracks for these Bandai kits.