Dragon 1/35 M1A1 AIM Build log

Ktkrow,

Looking good, man! The painting and weathering looks really good for a guy coming into a hobby which is, for all intents and purposes, brand new (with the new materials and paints, methods, etc). It may not have been necessary to weather the insides of the lower hull, as they'll be hidden anyway, but it makes for good practice and experience with the unfamiliar paints.

Tamiya is notoriously difficult to drybrush, and even to brush-paint, due to its formula---it's actually a lacquer-acrylic blend, which makes it wonderful for airbrushing (I use it almost exclusively) but too quick-drying for other purposes. You CAN brush paint small parts with it, even things like tires/road wheels, details, etc,--but if you want to brush paint with it on a bigger piece, you MUST add thinner to it and keep it "wet".

As far as drybrushing, here's what I do. Go to a craft chain store, like A.C.Moore's or MIchael's, and get yourself about $20.00 worth of "light" colors of their regular "craft" acrylics---light tan, light brown, light olive green, light gray---and use those for drybrushing. MUCH cheaper, and just as effective as using dedicated hobby paints. If you have a god eye for color, you can mix just about any color you need. You can also get yourself some "essentials"--Black, White, "Dirt" colors, etc---and use those to paint small pieces when needed. While you're there, stock up on some essential oil weathering colors too--black, raw umber, ochre, white. They're much cheaper than dedicated modeling products. I just use plain ol Low Odor mineral spirits to do washes and filters with them.

I DO recommend using dedicated thinners for things like spraying certain paints (like Tamiya). I think that you get a more predicable behavior from the paints when you use them.

Thank you all for your patience.  Took me a while to get to creating a photobucket account and getting the pics loaded.  I had a very busy couple of weeks, but I have made a little progress.

Box Art (I think this is the traditional start)

Here is the beginnings of some pre-shading on the hull underside and road wheels/arms:

After preshading, I tried some dry brushing and then filled in with the airbrush.  I wanted to accent the seams and bolts, but also give it a dirty appearance.  I am not sure yet if this was necessary, as I intend to do some additional weathering later, but it definitely gave me the base effect I wanted (for the most part J ).  Also, I found that dry-brushing with the Tamaya acrylics was very difficult (I’ve seen many threads on this) without some thinning. Even then it was difficult.

A little over-spray toned it down so that this effect wasn't too over-pronounced.

YES.  The tension adjustment arm moves!  These pieces were very small and difficult to glue without freezing the adjustable arm in place.  The instruction sheet offers nothing in regard to this part of the assembly.

At this point, before going any further on the road wheels and track assembly, I wanted to get the engine compartment fitted and set, so I am departing from the instructions to the customization of the lower hull.  I am quickly learning new things with custom resin pieces. Maybe some of you can relate, but because of the additional cost of things like this, and never having departed from the box instructions in the past, I was really nervous at first, however, I decided to shake the fear of the unknown and plow forward, good or bad.

I found some fit issues, of course and started chipping away  to get the engine compartment down into the hull and get the deck plates to sit correctly.

Note the gap on the left back deck.

I had to shave the engine base paper thin, and still had to shave/angle down the top left and right of this piece to get the right fit. I also cut out the right side wall and replaced it with the resin piece that came with the engine kit. 

I also started pre-shading the engine components and hope to glue and detail very soon.

Stay tuned!!!

Thank you all for the encouragement, feedback and tips.

@Rob, I did study the instructions at length, and noticed the several points where parts are optional.

Most of it I can do from memory (I crewed) but it was pre-"AIM" back just before the first gulf war. Fr example, we tested one of the first APU prototypes that hung off the right rear deck. This was a poor design but we were happy to have them when our batteries died. I never even saw the bustle rack mounted APU until I saw it in a model.

I guess I didn't think of time period, but I definitely want it to be Army. I did find a great site that has tons of photos of an Army M1 from desert storm I am using for reference as its a pretty good walk around gallery.

http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/rob_mccune/m1a1/index.php?Page=1

sorry I haven posted pics yet. The ones I took, are all in my iCloud, and I don't seem to be able to post them from my iPad. So I'm going to send them to my email and post them from a PC sometime tomorrow. 

I also can't set tags from the iPad. iPad weirdness I guess. 

Again, thanks to all!!!

Rob offers great advice---take this build slowly and do your research, and don't be afraid to ask questions of the expert members here, many of whom have crewed similar tanks or served beside them.

A couple of things to remember since you are just returning to model building: Dragon's instructions are notoriously confusing and often wrong. Many Dragon kits include optional parts for other variants; just because it is in the box doesn't necessarily mean it is for that kit.

As for the AIM kit, there are differences between an Army tank and a Marine tank or an Australian tank. They all use the AIM (fancy acronym for a rebuilt tank) but in slightly different configurations. Also determine what time period you want to build the kit to represent. A lot of changes occurred between the start of OIF and the end of ground combat operations. Better to ask about a part first than it is to have to cut it off because your version didn't use it.

Looking forward to it. Commence modeling.