Meng FT-17 French Light Tank Riveted Turret

Bill, Great job on the base. I like how you handled the sand bags and the 2nd color wood choice seems to be in keeping with the "breakage" shown,.

 If I may be so bold, to suggest that some earth/dirt clumps and staining on portions of the wood ; may help convey the idea they were in close contact with the dirt of the trench before being broken/shattered. Also, the ends of the wood would be new wood color(s) as they are broken./split apart.

  All that said, should your plans already have covered this and doubtless other further enhancements, I apologize and will go sit in a corner until allowed the come back out to view the post.  

ps the tank is no slouch either   

Thanks Mustang!

Karl

Ixion

Cue The Lego Movie theme song; "Everything is Awesome".

But you've thrown me a curve here, why wash the wood grain with Gunmetal? Doesn't that give it a metallic sheen, especially in a groove that would normally be in shadow? 

Totally cool beans, Bill! I love the idea of a trench!

One these days I'll brave dioramas and figure painting. Great work!

More progress on the base to report. I applied some weathering to the sand bags in the form of some black artist pastels and some dry brushing to create some shadows and highlights.

For the wood braces/planks, things turned out a little more interestingly. I originally started out planning to finish them as relatively 'new' wood and applied a wash of MM enamel Leather over the previous paint base color. This worked out fine by themselves but when I placed them on the base I didn't like the tonal contrast, so I switched gears and decided to go aged wood instead. Rather than strip it and start over, I decided to keep what I'd already done and build on it instead. So I applied another wash, this time using MM enamel Gunmetal, and then dry brushed some MM enamel Light Gray to bring out the wood grain pattern. Some strategic use of black artist pastels also helped add some definition here and there.

I'm fairly happy with the direction this one's heading in so far especially since it's sort of uncharted territory as I don't usually do bases for my builds.

Thanks Steve! Bombs away!

Rob

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 Looks good enough to bomb......

                         Mighty fine Bill.

After giving it some thought I decided to go ahead and continue work on the base area first before I start weathering the vehicle. This way I can treat them all as elements of the same end result more or less instead of working on them independently. To that end, I turned to Step 21 which deals with the trench details (sandbags, wooden frames/braces, etc.)

The sandbags that go in along the top edge consist of 5 different pieces, 4 of which you can assemble together to create one large unit with the 5th piece, K4, needing to be dealt with separately. I had to enlarge a couple of the slot openings in this area to take the tabs on the underside of the sandbags but nothing major. I also cleaned up and test fit all of the L sprue parts that make up the frames/braces for the trench to see how they would all play together.

In Step 20, the instructions would have you add the angled frame plates of the base individually but I found it easier to attach them separately to create a single frame as some sanding/putty was needed at the joins to create a seamless result. I also had to sand down a couple of the tabs as they were slightly too wide to fit the slots in the base frames.

So with that done, it was time to give the airbrush a workout to 'block in' the colors I needed for the trench detail elements. I used Testors Model Master enamel Afrika Grunbraun for the canvas on the sand bags and used my 50/50 custom mix of Dunkelgelb/Light Gray for the wood frames/braces. That may seem like an odd choice but it's just a foundational color that's going to undergo some significant changes before its all said and done! While I was at it, I also applied some MM enamel Flat Black to the base frame.

This will all get a chance to cure before moving on to the next steps but it is moving ahead!

Bish

I would not have thought of schemes like this in WW1. Its rather forward thinking, I am sure I am not the only one who see's the similarity to the late war German schemes.

I would not have thought of schemes like this in WW1. Its rather forward thinking, I am sure I am not the only one who see's the similarity to the late war German schemes.

Thanks Mustang!

Rob

Bish

Looking great there Bill. Is this a WW1 scheme or later.

I recall reading some where that these were still is use in the late 40's by Egypt during the Arad Israeli war, not sure if that's true or not though.

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This is gonna get intense! Can't wait for you to bring it home with the weathering. Awesome paintwork Bill.

Just a quick little update albeit an important one. Tracks received their base coat treatment by airbrushing some MM enamel Burnt Umber over the black plastic and will get some additional detailing/weathering attention later on. That doesn't mean they aren't still useful as it was time to go ahead and permanently fix the suspension elements in place to the hull. It was necessary to scrape some paint that had accumulated inside the drive sprocket and final drive mount holes as well as the mount pins themselves as the fit was too tight otherwise...something I had thought to prevent by masking those areas off with blue tack but forgot to do until it was too late. Liquid glue did the trick for those areas along with some CA for the metal struts at the front of the hull. The track runs were dry fit once more to ensure I had a level set top and bottom for the suspensions on both sides.

As you can see, having the tracks on totally changes the visual perception of the camo pattern as well, so that works out nicely. Just for fun, I also checked to see how it would look on the kit's dio base.

I'll let the suspension set up nice and solid before the next steps deal with the remaining details prior to getting the weathering process started.

Got the rest of the camo pattern on today with the red-brown portions. Same drill as with the green, I used the blue-tack approach to mask off the appropriate areas first.

Out with the airbrush and a mix of 50-50 MM enamel Military Brown and Leather did the trick in no time.

After doing some light touch-ups here and there with the base coat, I sprayed a mist/filter coat of heavily thinned base coat color to tie the scheme all together and fade the scheme a bit.

Once the tracks are on it will help break up the pattern some as well and provide some additional visual contrast.

First stage in applying the camo pattern is complete! I'm using the kit's finishing guide for an American tank at Verdun in October 1918 that sports a hard-edged three-tone scheme, so the first order of business was marking out the green areas. I used some 'worms' of poster blue tack putty rolled out and pressed down with a wooden toothpick to create the masks.

Some Model Master enamel Khaki was airbrushed at low pressure using a fine detail tip. After sitting for a couple of hours to touch dry, I removed the blue-tack to see how it turned out.

So far, so good, just some tiny areas that might need touch-up later on. Next up will be the red-brown portion.

Thanks Mike! I agree it feels a little odd not working on a German tank but it's just a momentary diversion!

As always it is great to watch a master at work. Still.....strange its not German.....but looks great

Rounds Complete!!

I've started in on the painting process and the first order of business was laying down a primer coat of Testors Model Master enamel Italian Dark Brown via airbrush.

I let that set up overnight and then, since I'm applying a three tone camo and the yellow part of the pattern seems to be the most dominant, I applied the yellow portion as a base coat to work off of. I used a 50-50 mix of MM enamel Dunkelgelb/Light Gray as it will not doubt darken during the weathering process.

This will get the chance to set up just like the primer as I don't want to take any chances with paint lifting when I mask off the areas for the brown and green areas of the scheme. In the meantime, I decided to give the kit-included base a try. It assembles pretty easily and has a nice cross brace at the bottom that helps hold everything together and give it some rigidity. I did have to employ small amounts of putty in a couple of spots on some of the joins and of course sanding was called for to smooth everything down on all four sides but nothing major.

Since I had the airbrush out, I decided to also paint the base. A primer coat of Italian Dark Brown came first, then some highlights using MM enamel Afrikabraun, and an overall filter/mist coat of MM enamel Raw Sienna. It's a little hard for the camera to pick up all the subtleties but it produced a nice starting point to work from that will get further refinement with pigments and dry brushing later on. I will admit to a sudden craving for chocolate cake though...can't imagine why!

That's where things stand at the moment, next up of course will be getting that camo pattern on the vehicle and then finalizing the suspension installation.

Sorry to tempt you Rob! I applaud you for your discipline in sticking with the RPM kit...maybe for Christmas you can get yourself a little treat...these Riveted Turret kits often go for substantially less than the full interior kits if you catch a sale just right. Thanks for the comments and support on this build.

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Thanks Sprue! I'm very impressed with what Meng came up with in terms of both fit/engineering and quality of detail on this kit.

Progress flowing together nicely. The suspension sub-assemblies looked a little gnarly but handled well 

This and the weathering is what separates the men from the boyz here. Looking forward to this part.

Thanks Bish! Now the fun begins in the painting department.

Really coming to life now Bill, looking great.

Duster

Mustang