LA: She's lookin' good! Again, kudos to you for taking a rough kit and building a gem out of her. 

Zvezda: Beautiful! She looks a slightly worn dusty vetern of many battles! 

BTW: Got to meet Sailing Dutchman at our club show Sat. and look at some of his cool stuff. We both won an award! 

BTW: My apologies for not posting anything for the better part of forever. Melting down the kit's ammo threw me for a loop and I've been working with the brass turned shells making replacement buckles and straps.

Most of the ammo in the turret won't be very visible so I decided to cheat and just make some fake shells out of sprue to put behind the brass ones.

Finally we get a pic! Jeez. Lol. That looks great Gamera. I really like the weathering. Just enough. What did you use for the pin wash around the rivets? Looks good 

Griffin: Thanks! It's just Flory dark dirt wash. You put it on and then wipe the excess off with a damp cotton swab. The more you scrub the more you take off, if you take off too much you can just put down another wash. 

Geez Gamera, your "cheat" shells look better than the "best" I could pull off.  LOL.

Seriously, I don't think anyone would give you a hard time for that short-cut, and if it helps to get you back to working on the kit, so much the better!  I totally get how the shell issue could cause you to want to put this kit on the back burner for a while.

I forgot how detailed that kit is.  From what I see in the pics you just posted, you are doing a fantastic job!

Thanks Dwayne! This has been the easy part, wait till I get to the engine and the zillion teeny PE parts on the hull and fenders... 

Personally I think the sprue shells look horrible but there's no way to see them though the commander's hatch with the turret together. With a flashlight you can see the shadows so I did want to put something in there!

Hopefully with those out of the way I can get back in gear. I can't believe we're down to two and a half months left to go. 

Товарищи, новый штурмовик готов служить Сталину и родине!

I have finished my diorama. Following is my progress over the past week in preparation for the IPMS show.

To build the trees I cut a piece of 3/8"x3/8" balsa 6"-9" long:

Then carved and sanded them down to shape and inserted a pin:

After that, I used a wire brush to scribe the bark, and use Tamiya black and brown panel liner to color it.

Holes were made with a pin, and plumosa fern fronds were glued in.

I then cut and stained pieces from 1/4"x6"x36" popler for the border:

After sanding I found they were a little small, so I removed 1/4" from the front of the base:

I then went on to build the crew from the Dragon Russian Tank Crew kit. The kit had only two full figures, so I used the legs from two Tamiya american crewmen. The americans however used a different boot so I carved the legs down to replicate this:

Unfortunatly, I forgot to take pictures of the painted crew, but I used the article in the Kursk edition as reference. I will atempt to open the top and get some pictures, but this may take awhile.

After the wood was nailed around the foam, there was a gap which I filled with sculptamold:

Next, I used Woodland Scenics earth undercoat to paint the plaster brown to mostly match the base, and glued some pieces of plaster in the ditch for rocks:

I added some static grass and bushes made from a glob of scenic glue rolled in corse foliage and cated in hairspay to get it to stick together:

I then covered everything in a 1/2 mm coat of Krycell extra and airbrushed their adhesive from 12"-18". The tank was given a similar treatment and put on the base.

Sorry for the missing pictures and the poor quality, but I was in a rush and most of the work was done in th wee hours of the morning. If there is anything you would like to see that I missed I will gladly post pictures of it.

I was wondering where you were going with that base Dutch but now I get it! That looks terrific! The snow / ice effects came out great. 

Thanks for walking us though your diorama Dutchman. Again, the snow and ice looks fantastic!!! 

Hey Dutch, that diorama looks excellent!!  Thanks for the walk through.  Very helpful for those of us who have yet to try doing a dio.  Snow effects came out really well.  Good luck at the show.

Let me know which picture you would like for the completed kit post on the GB front page.  Thanks for being part of the GB! 

I would like the last picture.

Sailing_Dutchman

I would like the last picture.

 

Alright, calling the Su-122 DONE!  I decided to forego adding a figure, and just added some weathering instead.  I realize I may have gone a little overboard on the red clay look, but overall I’m pleased with it.

That looks great. I love the clay look. What a brute of a machine. Really well done. 

AA: Cool! Nice work there!!!

AA, really nice job on that SU-122.  Looks the brute that they were, and I don't think you overdid the clay look. 

Let me know which photo you would like on the completed kit post on the front page.

Have not tried a Zvezda kit, so can't comment.  Thanks for being part of the GB!!

Armor_Aficionado

ManCity, use the middle photo, the right front quarter view. Thanks!

 

AA, great job on the Su 122 there. The weathering suits the build, looks seriously mean and like it has been through a bit of action.

And I haven't got any Zvezda kits either, but FSM did a review of the Armata in September 2017: http://www.finescale.com/product-info/kit-reviews/2017/07/zvezda-t-14-armata-build-review

I have been working on the SU 122's baby brother, just haven't posted for a bit.

I started the weathering behind the running gear before putting it on. I used a mix of plaster, dirt, pigment and some static 'dead grass' and slathered it on:

Added a few different colours to get a bit of variation, but it sort of all blended in together:

Then the wheels went on and the top run of tracks were put on:

Next the fenders went on, I managed to knock off one of the brass panels, I can't get brass and plastic to bond particularly well...

And did a bit of weathering in the fighting compartment too:

So it moves slowly and surely along....

LA: She's looking great, love the mud and dirt in the fighting compartment. 

AA: I've build a few of Zvezda's really old kits and they were kinda on the rough side. From what I've heard their new stuff is really good though, don't own any so this is all second-hand. 

LA, the weathering is looking good.  The fight compartment really looks good with the dirt.  That kit is coming along nicely.

Nice job on the Su 122 A_A. It does look good.

Your weathering looks good Piers, I particularly like the mud on the hull. Do you have any issues with plaster sticking to plastic ?

Cheers

Tony

Thanks Guys

Tony, the plaster mix is applied over the paint and seems to bond pretty well. There has been a coat of clear over it since then keeping it a bit stable. More mud to go on once it is all together.

Next job was to paint the rounds, the Alan casting is so off they do not bear close scrutiny, fortunately they will be a bit hard to see past everything in there. I tried to do the brass in gold and silver, but I reckon it is a bit dark.

Then they were stuck in with white glue:

Next the gun was glued on, using the shield as a locating guide:

Turned out I didn't do it too well, because afterwards the shield was off by a whole millimetre, looked rubbish. So rip it off and hack the crap out of the mounting area to shift it across...

LA: Super nice job there on the ammo. Mine I painted (before I melted them) looked horrible. Kudos sir!!! 

Hope you got the shield in shape. Gosh I hate having to pull something apart and rebuild it like that... 

I think the ammo looks pretty good.

Hope you get the shield and gun sorted out.  You have done some really good work on this kit!

So I stuck the gun back on after carving off a bit of the body so it fitted in the right place. I added in a bit of stowage.

Then I glued on the shields, using rubber bands and tape to hold it in place. it fitted really well and all seemed good until I tried to take the tape off and half the number came off too...

So two steps forward one step back...

Great to see everything lined up and in place LA! 

As to the ripped decal: 

Lemme tell you a secret...... 

Just hang a stowed tarp or camo net over the rail in the back covering it up. Problem solved and anyone looking at it will be like 'wow, look at the added detail there.' 

Good to see the shield and gun in place.  The kit is looking really good.

I like Gamera's suggestion.   Kind of like using mud to hide a nasty seam that you can't fix.  (not that I would ever do that )