kapteenipirk Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 (edited) Now with the Majority of the Soviet WWII figures complete, it's time to move on to the first piece of armor to go along with them. As the title would imply, im going to do some slight semi fictional upgrades/changes to this vehicle. Not only to make it a little more my own/interesting, but to also give the vehicle some more potential. All of the upgrades are one's that where actually planned to be implemented into the T-35, T-28 or both. As weird as it may sound, i think the T-35 has kinda always been one of my personal favorites. In it's own way it is a pretty magnificent beast to behold, with it's huge size and the 5 turrets that sprout guns in every which direction. And you can't help but imagine what a vehicle like this would be like in a more ideal situation, blowing up German tanks left and right while showering nearby enemy troops with machinegun fire. But... one also can't help but think about this vehicle the same way as David Fletcher. It may be a terrifying sight, but pretty-much absolutely useless otherwise. I think it's pretty-safe to say the T-35 was probably designed with a more WWI mindset, and given the limitations of technology and the sheer size of the thing, there was no hope for it to ever succeed in a WWII environment. Too big, too slow, with too little armor. And however decided to add that tiny 76mm gun to the tanks main turret, had to have taken one too many shot's It was however not mechanically unreliable as such, it's just that they ran them for far too long and didn't service them as often as was recommended. Hence, the transmission gave way a lot of the time, leading to an even worse service record. So, what kind of upgrades are you talking about. 1. I will be adding a slightly fictional overall white winter camo with some custom marking/inscriptions. 2. I will change that 76mm potato launcher with the 57mm Zis-4 gun. This was something that was planned to be added to the T28 and may have even been planned for the T-35 3. This is not going to show externally or internally, but one of the actual planned upgrades, was a more powerful engine, and mine will be receiving that. 4. Oh, and almost forgot to mention, but ill likely add some stowage stuff from the Tamiya Allied vehicles accessory set. Im still in the process of creating a full on story/history around this particular vehicle, but i will try my hardest to make this all "fit in" is as much as possible. I already began the process for this during my 3 week summer cabin trip, hence the change of tables/backgrounds. For one of the first times, im not actually all that concerned about all the PE parts, and am actually looking forward too seeing how they will turn out. But... looking forward to it or not... it's probably still going to be a pain. With this kit, you also get a "clear" version of that large sprue. Im guessing it's mainly so you can display all the suspension bogies even after the tank is complete. I just threw it to the side as it was making the box pretty tight. While im not a big fan of plastic tracks, im thankful they are at-least of the link and length variety, instead of individual bits. The coat of white on this didn't exactly go to plan, more of the Tamiya Nato green underneath was supposed to show up, but i ran out of white primer. Instead i had to use some matt white which gave a coat that forced me to turn this almost blank white. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't mean i basically wasted 20 bucks worth of Tamiya paint (the plastic was already green btw). But never mind, im sure it will still look nice and dandy once it's complete . Just need to change the plan a little. While i was there i got a bit of the hand-painting process complete, but there is still work to be done in that area. Just yesterday i decided that the first thing i should do here back home, is 3D-model/print the new gun for the main turret. Some slight sanding later, and i think it looks pretty good and feels pretty smooth. Dry-fitting also went pretty nicely. And that is where we are now. Next up is some more painting, but im sure that by tomorrow, construction will commence. Overall, should make for a very fun project Edited October 30, 2022 by kapteenipirk 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ned Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 This is in the wrong category, it belongs under Maritime Modelling How many knots could it do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 1 hour ago, Ned said: This is in the wrong category, it belongs under Maritime Modelling How many knots could it do? It might as-well fit that category, as the Soviets could have used more battleships, that's for sure . Tough she couldn't keep up with a battleship (30 kph compared to the 44 kph of the Gangut class) Plus, you'd probably need a navy captain to command one of these, as how else are you going to effectively coordinate 10 crew and 5 turrets. The first and second phases of the hand painting process are done. First stage was painting all the wheel rubbers, MG's, cooling fan and such. Second phase was going over every single sprue and the majority of the part and adding some Revell 39 to bring back some of that green, and to add some wear and tear to the paint-job. Next up, i gotta repeat the same weathering process with some other paints, mainly steel to add some wear and tear, some brown to add a bit of dirtiness, and perhaps some dark grey here and there. Oh, and some black to add some exhaust stains and such. And wouldn't hurt to throw in a bit of rust in there as-well. It's all gonna happen the same way, with Revell paint's just dry-brushed on. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 Stage 3 has now been completed and quite a few of the parts have some steel (Revell 91) added in small amounts here and there. Not exactly the most visible of changes, but it's there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ned Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 You have an interesting build method. I've never seen so much painting done on the sprues before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 Alright, the final stage of the pre-painting phase is complete, and now it's time start construction. Added in some Revell 82 to act as dirt/mud residue, and a small amount of Revell 83 to act as rust. I gotta say, i think the paint job so far has turned out even better than i imagined, was kinda afraid the added layers on top of the white would feel a little too "added in" and wouldn't blend in all that well. I think i also did a fair job of making sure the wear and tear is fairly random, to make it feel more natural, rather than pre-planned and deliberate. The exhaust stains and other small weathering related stuff i think is best achieved after the vehicle is mostly complete (without the turrets in the way) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 32 minutes ago, Ned said: You have an interesting build method. I've never seen so much painting done on the sprues before. Perhaps just a bit backwards compared to how one would normally do it , but that's just the way ive always done it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 22, 2022 Author Share Posted October 22, 2022 (edited) Time for the first build update. I decided to start by gluing the hull together instead of starting with the suspension bogies. Had to punch some holes first. And for those how are wondering what i use for that... ... i know, perhaps a little primitive, but it's served me well for years. As for the gluing, it's nice not to need another tape mummy to keep everything together. Just a couple strips of tape, and even those barely hung on as they just stripped off all the paint-dust in that area. But then there was this.. ... I guess they are a couple pixels more towards the top... Next up was the suspension bogies. As someone how doesn't really like repetition in a lot of things... why do i keep doing this to myself... Other than that little personal gripe, all is well, as everything went together really well Even despite all the layers of paint slightly messing with the tolerances... Basically, so far so good Edited October 22, 2022 by kapteenipirk 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 22, 2022 Author Share Posted October 22, 2022 Time for the second build update. First of the PE bits just went up, and it went surprisingly well. Also got to have a splendid time with some microscopic wing-nuts/fasteners for the pop-up headlamps. Only thing left is a nice turbo and a proper back-wing and we could call it a sport's tank, and put some turbo-badges on the sides . Went a little out of sync with the instructions again. Felt that adding those PE flaps would be a little easier to do before those struts where put in place. Oh, and that green circle is me accidentally flipping over the paint-can lid ... perfect aim tough... And before we close that area, here's a closeup of the cooling fan. And here is where we are now with the overall build. Again, things are going well . Only slight problem is the drivers hatch that has slight "bump" on it now, but never mind that, it just adds a little character . 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
echen Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 10 minutes ago, kapteenipirk said: things are going well Very much so! TBH I'm having problems seeing the problem with the bump on the drivers hatch. But when we know there's an issue on one of our builds it sticks out like a sore thumb every time we look at it. Maybe it's just that we're our own worse critics? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 22, 2022 Author Share Posted October 22, 2022 55 minutes ago, echen said: Very much so! TBH I'm having problems seeing the problem with the bump on the drivers hatch. But when we know there's an issue on one of our builds it sticks out like a sore thumb every time we look at it. Maybe it's just that we're our own worse critics? Thanks. It's certainly easy to fixate and get lost in ones own mistakes and think of them as the end of the world 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 22, 2022 Author Share Posted October 22, 2022 Time for the third build update. And the time for me to keep a brake and eat something. During this time i noticed i had done an error. It didn't really seem weird, until i started to put the tracks together. Turns out i managed to place to large PE bits very incorrectly. Thankfully i was still able to snap em off and put them back the right way. Putting the tracks together wasn't the easiest of things, but by the second track, i managed to get it about right. The other one is a little lumpy and bumpy and with little gaps, but it's nothing too bad. The instruction said to put the big fenders on before the tracks are put together, and it was certainly a little difficult with the tracks in the way, but i think it's pretty safe to say it would have been a lot worse the other way around... ... so much so that i think it would have been next to impossible to get some of the smaller track bits/segments in place. While i may have wanted to keep a brake earlier, i had to get this far for one reason, the side skirts... They connect to/need to align with, the guide-wheels, the dividing walls and the suspension bogies... basically everything that was attached to the side of the hull. Basically i had to have everything be semi dry only, or otherwise i wouldn't have been able to adjust the bits anymore. And i can happily report that it all lined up pretty nicely, but some manual poking was definitely needed. And here we run into another small gripe. Thanks to my pre-painting process, the wear and tear in certain places looks a little disconnected. But, a bit of natural "randomness" and inconsistency is what i wanted anyways, so it's fine... Tough i will likely do the weathering part of the paint process after the build is done, on future projects. Before, when i didn't have any of this wear and tear on my models, it was easier to get every bit to match up with this kind of painting process. Overall, im already super happy with the results , as i took a bit of a leap of faith with all this weathering/painting related stuff. A lot of new/semi new techniques/semi experimentation for me, that's for sure. But with the success in the figure side of things (another semi leap of faith), i had to make my vehicles look extra good as-well. And not to even mention all these PE bits, a thing that not too long ago, i would rather have avoided all together. It really does look like joining the forums really was the kick in the rear-end i needed, to get my standards up. Oh, and today i am officially 26 years old... so i guess to me. Didn't even remember it was a thing until my mom called me. Shows you how good my memory is... 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ned Posted October 23, 2022 Share Posted October 23, 2022 A late Happy Birthday! The beast is coming together nicely now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 23, 2022 Author Share Posted October 23, 2022 8 hours ago, Ned said: A late Happy Birthday! The beast is coming together nicely now. Cheers. And i can now happily announce that the build part of the project is complete. It was certainly quite a bit of fun overall, and the kit is very nice... tough there where a couple gripes on the later stages. For one, building the AA machine-gun was a pain, as the hole in the PE mounting spot was way too small, and the mounting ring that is supposed to allow the gun to elevate... it doesn't really work. Another would be the ball mounted MG's, there wasn't really any hope of getting them to swivel about either. Probably part of the problem was my coat of paint messing with the tolerances... but how knows. It doesn't really matter anyways as there isn't really any point in having them pose-able. Second gripe comes in form of a step in the instructions. While my earlier mess-up with the PE bit was my own mistake, there is a step that could easily go slightly wrong if your not the kind of sort to do a bunch of dry-fitting. On the last stage of the construction process, where it asks you to build the "superstructure" between all the turrets, it doesn't tell you at all, that which way it's supposed to go in. You might think it's mirrored, but it's not. Meaning that if you don't check the alignment of it, the PE panels on top, and the bottles on the side, could face the wrong way. All i need to do now, is finish off the painting portion, install a couple decals, and create some 3D-printed stencils for the custom inscription... basically just "the battleship" or just "battleship" in Cyrillic (and in Russian of-course). Just have to hope Fusion 360 has a suitable font for that. It is very likely that the next time you'll be seeing this, it will be fully complete. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 30, 2022 Author Share Posted October 30, 2022 Time for one last update. Long story short, the vehicle is now 100% complete and ready to be shown off As i was kinda expecting, the final stages weren't so quick and easy as i had thought. It also didn't help that i had a horrible headache and managed to somehow get a fever, even tough i hadn't left my house in over a week... So, first thing was to finish off the painting portion by adding some extra weathering, and sort of connecting a few dots to make some of the areas match up better. Oh, before that i had to assemble the PE ladders on the sides of the tank, as i had forgotten to assemble them earlier. After the painting was complete, came the stenciling... and ooooh boy ... I managed to find a suitable font (the one the internet seems to have a pathological hatred for believe it or not . The thing with Cyrillic letters is, that 85 - 90% of font's look exactly the same with them) in Fusion 360 and managed to do the stencils... but after that things kinda fell apart. I first tried to paint the text on , but that went badly wrong and a bunch of it "leaked". To make sure i could at-least paint the area over a little better, i cleaned off as much i could with a paper towel... ... creating this smudged area. I thought that just applying some white spraypaint over the area would magically fix it... ... and whadda you know... as i already predicted, this paint texture is the kind, that cannot be fixed/replicated if damaged too badly... But not to worry, i found the perfect fix for that. Another thing that i managed to mess up during this, is one of the red-star decals. I accidentally touched it with the masking tape and now it is a permanent part of the tape. But, i managed to fix that as-well, so all is still good. The other healthy decal got relocated to a new spot. it's a good thing i had these extra decals saved for the MBV-2. They come from a Trumpeter FW-200 that had an option for a plane that had some Soviet markings. In this pick you can also see the two stencils used to create the custom inscriptions. with only a single layer of material, a whopping 4 minute print. After that little escapade i did up a couple stowage items and added some hit marks by first creating a little mark with a Thumbtack, and then slowly and carefully removing some material around that. Then it was just a matter of filling them with some color using a pencil. And that's it for this side of the project. I'll try and show off the finished product in the near future, but first ive gotta do a... few... other things . 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColonelKrypton Posted October 30, 2022 Share Posted October 30, 2022 (edited) An interesting subject and build. I will patiently wait for pictures of your finished T-35 I like that emoticon as I always seem to be always too cheers, Graham Edited October 30, 2022 by ColonelKrypton tinger frouble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapteenipirk Posted October 30, 2022 Author Share Posted October 30, 2022 2 hours ago, ColonelKrypton said: An interesting subject and build. I will patiently wait for pictures of your finished T-35 I like that emoticon as I always seem to be always too cheers, Graham Thanks. I mean, is just a perfect representation of what i believe is likely to go trough most modellers heads all day (at-least mine anyways). Just moving from project to project, sometimes taking them to their natural conclusion, sometimes dropping them mid process to go for yet another project, and before that current/other project is complete, they are already thinking of at-least a dozen other projects... And the cycle continues and the stash keeps building up... and yet, somehow we still manage to get actual work done 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColonelKrypton Posted October 30, 2022 Share Posted October 30, 2022 26 minutes ago, kapteenipirk said: Just moving from project to project, sometimes taking them to their natural conclusion, sometimes dropping them mid process to go for yet another project, and before that current/other project is complete, they are already thinking of at-least a dozen other projects... And the cycle continues and the stash keeps building up... and yet, somehow we still manage to get actual work done Indeed - and the cycle just keeps repeating, keeps repeating, keeps ........ cheers, Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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