Tamiya T 34/85 W.I.P. (Updated 8/29/12 FINISHED)
My mom gave me a hobby shop gift card for my 26th birthday recently so I grabbed Tamiya's T 34/85 kit since I had never done any Soviet armor before. I plan to do a version from January 1944 with a whitewash so without further adieu lets get started...
Being an older offering (the mold dates back to 1985 or earlier if I'm not mistaken), the lower hull has numerous holes and slots for motorization. Before any other work was done the first step was to plug the holes with sheet styrene and Bondo spot & glazing putty.
There was a slot on either side near the transmission cover on both sides. A backing of .020 styrene formed a base folloed by L shaped plugs of .060 jammed in the hole and carved as needed. Bondo covered the rest in a couple of applications. I decided not to continue the strip with the bolts on it all the way around because once the tracks are on you can't really see up in there as well as I plan on making the bottom pretty muddy when it comes time for weathering which will hide the fact it's not compltete.
When the upper and lower hulls are joined there is a cavernous space left behind. I cut strips of Plastruct .020 sheet to plug the holes with even more Bondo.
Lastly everything on the bottom was primed to see how it all fit together. All I was worried about was getting the seams filled decently but not perfect since like I said earlier you can't really see this area with the tracks installed and I plan on making a muddy bottom so my textured medium will cleverly hide divots and foul-ups.