IDF group build 2019/2020

Installment Three - More Assembly

Fixed well enough-

Main gun -

I drilled the hole as seen below with my modeling knife...; and, no, I didn’t assemble the main gun to the cupola area...

Main body-

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Nice progress on that, interesting that the hole for the turret is solid.

I have been adding "stuff" to my hull and it seems to not make a dent in the sprue count LOL

Mach1 welcome

Theuns

Thank you, Theuns. The copyright on the plastic was dated in the sixties. I don’t have to deal with an overload of pieces; but yours probably is better quality.  

By the way, what color will you use to prime your tank?

I saw a vid of a guy building this model of mine and he sprayed the whole thing black, then white over the areas he wanted to lighten up. The IDF grey then went over it with the black and white being the preshading basically.

I usually preshade only the areas I want dark but in this case there are ao many little areas one might have a hard to time to shade I will follow his idea.

I will use a grey on the sudae and bottom instead of the white to modlate the paint a little more.

As for weathering, I will do some light paint chipping and very light rust and maybe some streaking of the dust but I still need to figure out most of these things as I go.

Theuns

As an interesting sidenote, I was visiting someone is a nearby hanger to where I work and saw he was working on a super cub. He told me it actually was an ex Israeli L-21 that served in the IAF :-)

Theuns

     Sweet!  Actually, the last model I completed was a Piper L4 Cub, not Israeli, though. An IAF Cub would probably make for a nice model!

     For priming generally, I‘ve got a Flat Light Aircraft Gray, but I’ve got to figure out preshading (what precise areas to preshade for one thing). 

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Installment 4 - Turret rails! 

My kit didn’t provide pieces for the turret rails (Is that the correct name for them?). So, I scratchbuilt some rails out of metal (.025 music wire). Maybe they’re not perfect; but they’ve got to be better than the plastic extensions that had been molded onto the turret which I cut and sanded down. Here are some pics:

Those look way more convincing than the plastic rails I am sure ;-)

My project is still in the box the way I left it over the weekend....I come hyome when the light is not  good anymore and after a whole day of "real work" models are not high up on my wish list LOL

I cant build fine detail with artificial light anymore so tend to wait till weekends to build.

As for the pre shading, I think the idea of doing the whole thing in black ad then white highlights is because it will be very hard to try and preshade only the "reccesses" being so deep in some areas without getting loads of paint in the wrong places, highlighting the areas you want light seems easier

Sone buildes do this on aircraft but I find it easy to access aircraft areas I want to shade. This tank on the other hand is more tricky so will do it in reverse order.

There are loads of vids on the interweb showing this "black base" idea.

Theuns

Thx, Theuns. :)

Work....Why can’t folks get paid for every model built? 

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Installment Five - Turret Rail Assembly / Primer

So, I put on the turret rails (pictures three and four); and I went ahead with preshading the way you said - black first, then white (rather, in my case, that gray I had).  I did a little work by hand, too. 

Here are the pictures:

I got primer on and then a black basecoat over all , this will be lightened in some areas to give "shade" effect when the colour goes on.

IMG_20190912_161148 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

IMG_20190912_173806 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

This is my "day job" since I cant build models for a living LOL

IMG_20190911_090523 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

IMG_20190910_113952 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Theuns

What kind of plane is that one? 

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Do you think I used too much gray and covered up too much preshading on my model? 

The wing is a topwing of a Pitts S2b I am completing today if the weather is good and the plane being masked is a Super Decthlon I hope to have flying very soon.

Theuns

Comin’ along, Theuns! Lighting sure does things. :)

I did mess up the turret by trying chipping of the paint, will have to repaint the turret and maybe just go for a factory new tank. 

This time Im hapy with the colour. I ysed my Tamiya buff and added about 25% humbrol green 155. Ths gave a nice sand with a subttle green heu to it in shade and a grey /sand in sunlight.

IMG_20190914_122247 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

IMG_20190914_122307 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

IMG_20190914_120702 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Theuns

Looking at loads of magach pix I tried my habd at doing the dust weathering using a mix of different chalk pastles and the "wear surface" I used a graphite pencle to look like bare steel.

The tracks I had to tie together with cotton thread as onlt one set of the pins reached the holes but kept comming off, lucky the sideskirts will hide this

IMG_20190915_150253 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

IMG_20190915_150204 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

IMG_20190915_144505 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Theuns

Good paint job on the tank, Theuns.

Thanx, pity you cant really get the effect of the modulation where the green has 'faded" into a green/brown as my camera in direct sunlight makes it all to bright.

When I mixed the green, I used tamiya buff and added hunbrol green with a little grey aswell.

I sprayed the bottom of the tank with this mox that looked nce and green, I planned to lighten to top sides with some white but I saw that the paint has settled a little into a lighter green/brown shade....dumb luck LOL

I have seen that faded green had a slight brown heu to it and it just happen to work out well.The tonal differences are ther but seems to blend well as it is the same basic paint

Theuns

That looks really nice, it is interesting to see that the Merkava has a mush "cleaner" hull than my Megach that has bobs and bits/boxes welded on all over the place....clearly a retro fit :-)

I have almost completed my tank, I dusted the hull and turret with my chalk pastels and it now really looks "used" maybe a little to much as some of the nice paint modulation has been lost in places but I am learning still LOL

Theuns

Some good progress here. My Merkva is also progressing nicely, turett is done the wheels are instaled. Unfortunately, about 10 days ago my computer decided that it is beyond outdated and packed it in. It does not recognize the wi fi or the cammera. So I bought a new computer but it will not be here for another week or so. So the WIP pics will be posted with much delay.

 Cheers...

Hi, all; and thank you, Greysnake! I’m finally gonna post installment six.

Installment 6-

Got milk?

Chocolate milk that is...; for my tank ended up a chocolate milk-like color which in other lighting struck me as somewhat pinkish; but, hey, Testors Flat Tan was what the instructions recommended. 

So, what do y’all think? What‘s next? Can anyone tell me how to get a paint color like the color in the illustration below? (I prefer enamels and I would prefer not to mix, but I may have to compromise somewhere...so, I invite all options.)

I think it looks good. After I scanned through your post I looked at MM paint chips. I'd forgotten what you tried, but I came up with....Flat Tan. It's probably a good base to start building up lighter areas against, mixing with drop or two of EDIT: light gray at a time.

Thanks, GM. :) The paint seems, though, to have a pink undertone. 

I dont think a pink undertone is a bad thing, paint in the desert fades into totally odd colours. Here in South Africa green fades into a strange brown tone.

What you can try maybe is a filter to alter the tone a little but still leave the basic colour. I did this with very thined water colour , look at the slight difference between the front (filtered) panel of the LH side skirt and the rest of it/

Academy 1/35 Magach 7 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Academy 1/35 Magach 7 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

To me it looks like a repainted or replaces part that has weathered at a different rate.

Academy 1/35 Magach 7 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Academy 1/35 Magach 7 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Academy 1/35 Magach 7 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Academy 1/35 Magach 7 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Academy 1/35 Magach 7 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Academy 1/35 Magach 7 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Academy 1/35 Magach 7 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Im caling this one dune, was a fun build, came out better than I expected.

Theuns

Good job, Thuens! Congrats! 

Thanx :-)

Nice work on the Merkava, I see you also got the same effect of the colour changing from a grey to grey/green as the light changes :-)

Theuns

Thanks, Greysnake. :)

You’ve done a great job!