SU-76m from Miniart

[Maddoxx77]

Next up on the bench is this rather beautyfull kit from miniart. The SU-76m

The kit comes with 5 figures, a fair amount of PE

Lot's of decal options

And teeny tiny tracklinks yeeeey! 

having a first look at the sprues i'm seeing a lot of small parts but very little flash. The plastic feels a tad bit soft. The overall detail on the parts is great! 

I wanted to build an open interior vehicle for a while now and this kit came at a bargain price so i picked it up real cheap. 

Also, this will be my first experience with miniart. Can't wait to kick this one off.

 

Feel free to tag along. Bring beer and snacks, grab a chair and enjoy the ride.

 

I expext this to be a slow build though. I'm having very little spare time at the moment due to work, school and next week we are starting a complete renovation in our bathroom. However, if i can find some time on the bench, i'll keep you guys posted as always. 

 

Cheers! 👍👍👍

 

[Hamden]

 

Beer and snacks ordered please carry on in your own time

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this one

 

     Stay safe         Roger

[Keeff]

Chair reserved and the kettle is on! 

 

Looking forward to another build journey .... 

 

Keith 😁 

[Maddoxx77]

13 hours ago, Hamden said:

 

Beer and snacks ordered please carry on in your own time

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this one

 

     Stay safe         Roger

 

7 hours ago, Keeff said:

Chair reserved and the kettle is on! 

 

Looking forward to another build journey .... 

 

Keith 😁 

Great to have you tagging along! 

[Geo1966]

I have the Tamiya version in the stash, so will be interested to see what you do with this one.

 

George

[Bullbasket]

What I don't understand, is when do you get the chance to clean your work area. By the time I've finished a project, the bench is absolutely stuffed with sh rubbish such as bits of plasticard, sprues, decal sheets, etched brass sheets, as well as all of the accumulated dust, and the ever present spider's webs. I have to clear this up before I can move onto the next build. You must have an army of cleaning smurfs who do it for you over night

This should be an interesting build. You'll be able to go to town with the weathering. Following along.

 

John. 

[edjbartos]

Nice one Maddoxx, I'm certainly going to follow along with this one, looks like a really interesting kit, good luck with the build...

 

Ed

[LankyPanky]

The mini art plastic is a bit softer, the quick drying tamiya stuff tends to help with this

 

JC

[sardaukar]

the carpet monster must've ate my cleaning smurfs. 

 

that's a nice looking kit.

[Muchmirth]

Wow you build rate is enormous Maddox. How many are up to now four nearly five months into they year.

 Really like the look of this though I had looked at it online a couple times and quite fancy it myself. 
Good luck!

Paul

[echen]

1 hour ago, sardaukar said:

the carpet monster must've ate my cleaning smurfs. 

I think that was after he dined on mine!

[Maddoxx77]

3 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

What I don't understand, is when do you get the chance to clean your work area. By the time I've finished a project, the bench is absolutely stuffed with sh rubbish such as bits of plasticard, sprues, decal sheets, etched brass sheets, as well as all of the accumulated dust, and the ever present spider's webs. I have to clear this up before I can move onto the next build. You must have an army of cleaning smurfs who do it for you over night

This should be an interesting build. You'll be able to go to town with the weathering. Following along.

 

John. 

I like to think i work quite clean. After each building / painting session i clean my bench. So when a build is finished there is not much to clean. Just a whipe with some thinner and some cleaning product, empty the bin and it's a go for the next one.

I would like me some cleaning smurfs though 😁

[Maddoxx77]

yesterday i started working on one of the figures and after a painfull session i decided that i won't use the figures that came with the kit. The fit is poor, lot's of gaps to fill and the detail is very shallow. Also the construction of the tank caps was a pain.

Instead i ordered some resin figures.

I think these guys will add a bit more life to the model. 

[echen]

Those figures look really good. I got some 1/72 Preiser figures for my  German soft skinned vehicles. Have not started them yet but the detail looks fine and there are separate weapons, trenching tools, gas mask cases etc.

[Maddoxx77]

28 minutes ago, echen said:

Those figures look really good. I got some 1/72 Preiser figures for my  German soft skinned vehicles. Have not started them yet but the detail looks fine and there are separate weapons, trenching tools, gas mask cases etc.

Nice! I found that it really pays off investing in good figures. It's not that all kit figures are bad, like the one that came with the gecko kit was decent. The new Tamiya figures are also good. It was just that these miniart figures need so much work to make them look somewhat decent that i rather buy some aftermarket figures instead. 

These figures are full resin 3d printed and the detail is so good. They are a pleasure to paint. 

[Muchmirth]

Its a real shame with mini art figures as their box art is quite enticing and their poses are more dynamic than other brands but they are sooo terrible! I rant on and on about this all the time (sorry if anyone is a fan of them) but kinda annoys me. Did you get massive seam lines running down the sides of their faces (the worst place to get a seam line) with the ones from your box Maddox?

Edited April 21, 2023 by Muchmirth
Typo

[Muchmirth]

Also I agree with you on the tamiya and gecko figures. They are pretty decent. 

[Maddoxx77]

4 hours ago, Muchmirth said:

Its a real shame with mini art figures as their box art is quite enticing and their poses are more dynamic than other brands but they are sooo terrible! I rant on and on about this all the time (sorry if anyone is a fan of them) but kinda annoys me. Did you get massive seam lines running down the sides of their faces (the worst place to get a seam line) with the ones from your box Maddox?

Yes i got the seamlines across the face but for me the most annoying thing is the poor fit of the parts. To get the arms of the commander in a decent position with the binoculars in front of the face i had to butcher the whole thing and use epoxy putty to get the pose correct. In this case i couldn't be bothered.

My expirience with these resin figures ( from a certain webshop in the far east ) are crisp in all of the details, faces are just beautifull sharp with great expressions. 

[Keeff]

The figures look good Maddox ... nice realistic poses. 👌 

 

It's such a shame when you get a good kit with figures that are poor .... somewhat of a let down. 

 

I'm sure you'll soon have the replacements knocked into shape! 

 

Keith 😁 

[Muchmirth]

1 hour ago, Maddoxx77 said:

Yes i got the seamlines across the face but for me the most annoying thing is the poor fit of the parts. To get the arms of the commander in a decent position with the binoculars in front of the face i had to butcher the whole thing and use epoxy putty to get the pose correct. In this case i couldn't be bothered.

My expirience with these resin figures ( from a certain webshop in the far east ) are crisp in all of the details, faces are just beautifull sharp with great expressions. 

Couldn’t agree more!… I too use that certain Far Eastern website for the more pocket friendly resin (knock offs) figures. I’ve eyed the ones you’ve picked a couple times.

[Maddoxx77]

3 hours ago, Keeff said:

The figures look good Maddox ... nice realistic poses. 👌 

 

It's such a shame when you get a good kit with figures that are poor .... somewhat of a let down. 

 

I'm sure you'll soon have the replacements knocked into shape! 

 

Keith 😁 

I have to say i would have bought the model without the figures. Sometimes they are a nice addition. In this case my skills are just too limited to make them look good.

[Maddoxx77]

First real update from the workbench.

Today i started with the lower hull, assembly of the swingarms and the axles for the return rollers. The towhooks on the front with the PE lids was tiny but doable.

The fit of the swingarms needed some work. It seems like the parts weren't ment for eachother so i had to scrape out the holes a bit and then dryfit the swingarm to check the correct fit and angle. The are glued in place with just a tiny drop of extra thin so i could fix all the axles in the correct angle.

 

First impressions of the kit: very soft plastic so i have to be carefull with cleaning.

No numbers on the sprues so i have to go back and forth in the description to check the correct parts with the numbers.

Never encountered this way before but i have to keep my head in the game, constantly crosschecking parts and numbers.

Next up, the start of the upper hull. Lot's of PE and tiny parts. Fun times 😁

[Maddoxx77]

Last update for today.

I finished all the tooling on the hull plate.

Looks decent. 

Nice that miniart gives you the option to use PE or glue the tools direct in to place with the molded clamps. I wanted to use the PE so i had to scrape all the tools clean. I took my time and i'm happy with the result. I left some tools out, i like how that looks. 

 

Now it's time for a shower and a shave and then it's off to a dinerdate with the fam.

 

Cheers all! 🍻👍👍👍

[echen]

2 hours ago, Maddoxx77 said:

No numbers on the sprues so i have to go back and forth in the description to check the correct parts with the numbers.

Sounds like quite a puzzle.

 

21 minutes ago, Maddoxx77 said:

I finished all the tooling on the hull plate.

Looks decent. 

I'd say looks a lot better than just decent. Nice tidy building.

[edjbartos]

A really nice start Maddoxx, it's looking good, I too can't believe that there are no numbers on the sprues, how strange. I wonder how old this kit is as all the one's that I have done are all numbered ok. Weird! Keep going it's looking very nice...

 

Ed