Thanks guys. I feel like I've passed a milestone here, actually goning start to finish on a model, no breaks to "recover", no "time outs", all done in one shot. Credit goes to the Tamiya crew for their superb engineering, for boxing a superb kit.

Now maybe to finish the Magach?

WOW! That is phenominal, Russ! All that filtering work really gave it some serious life!

That looks real!

Ohhhhhhh, that's some sharp work! Love how she turned out. 

She looks ready to storm Berlin!!! 

All done! I have to say, it's been while since I really finished something, and part of why I went all the way on this one may be that it's such a good kit. I never had the desire to set it aside and come back to it like I do with so many other projects.

So, pics taken outdoors with a litght cloud cover, with a couple on an old Verlinden dio base that I use for generic European shots.

IMG_0475 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0476 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0477 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0478 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0480 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0482 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Thanks all! In case I haven't said so recently, this is a really good kit, a real pleasure to build.

Karl, thanks! I still need to brighten the guide horns some more , and darken the inside of the links where there is no contact with the road wheels or drive sprocket.

Almost there though.

Russ,

Tremendous work on this! Your weathering and paint tones are spot-on! The finsih is quite impressive! This is one great-looking model; much nice and more correct than the old Dragon kit.

Make sure you silver those guide horns.

 Ok, I step away from the forum a few days and you have this finished when I get back.

Well, that's a good thing.

Overall I'd say this project turned out really nice.

I just love the color you used to finish those tracks.

I like the white stripe and markings. Kind of breaks things up and makes it appear more interesting.

Thanks G. I'm happy with this one myself.

She's looking fine!!! 

I've been pretty busy on this one, snatching an hour or two here and there, and have managed to get almost finished. I still need to add a couple of small rust stains at the turret ring drains, the radio antenna once I determine its length, and maybe tow cables.

I used the kit decals for the turret and hull numbers, and unot marking, but the film was thick enough that my texturing was subdued under decals, so I had to re-texture with a mix of Vallejo acrylic paint and putty, then using a brush and more Vallejo paint, go over all the white as it was not opaque. After a shot of flat, weathering was begun, using off-the-shelf products from Vallejo and Mig, followed by my mixture of alcohol and Tamiya acrylic tans.

Almost done:

IMG_0463 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0465 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0462 - Copy by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0460 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Thanks for looking!

Thanks.

That's making a very realistic scale apperance

I did some more blending of the oils, then after a fat (Testors Dullcote) and then did some highlighting with acrylics. So far:

IMG_0455 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0456 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

It's a balancing act, for sure.

Looks cool, I like the idea of using more blue in the shadowed areas. 

I've been following Karl and other's  tutorials on this but I still tend to leave them either too heavy or wipe so much away I might not as well even put them on. 

They are big things, aren't they....  

So I decided to try oils again, but not the way I did (unsuccessfully) with the Magach7 recently. This time I experimented first, using a hunk of an old Dragon T72 hull, painted with the same Krylon green, and different mixes of the oils I wanted to use, first pic. I then did the IS turret, and took a pic on the un-treated hull, for contrast. Third pic is a hull shot. I'm using alighter blend on upper, well-lit surfaces, and adding more blue on the shaded or lower areas. I'm also keeping the use of white spirit to an absolute minimum this time, in order to protect the base coat. So far, so good.

The pics:

IMG_0448 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0450 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0453 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

She looks good in green.

Oh wow Pawel she's in beautiful condition and the running one, that would be amazing to see an actual IS-II operating!

Pawel

Hello Russ!

Lookin' good! This tank is kinda special for me because there are a couple of them in my home town. One in a museum I used to visit with my grandpa and my pops:

There's is also a second on they have in running condition(!) at the military school:

Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

 

That is sweet. My favorite Russian tank. Brute of an armored vehicle with that 122mm

Hello Russ!

Lookin' good! This tank is kinda special for me because there are a couple of them in my home town. One in a museum I used to visit with my grandpa and my pops:

There's is also a second on they have in running condition(!) at the military school:

Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

Base coat's on, Krylon "camo green".

IMG_0446 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0447 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

She's coming along great! 

Thank you Toshi. Lotso' fun here, for sure. I really like this kind of modeling, almost dreading paint....

Anyway, here's some casting marks, made from sprue markings.

IMG_0442 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0443 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Still too windy here to paint, so I started back-dating the glacis on an old Tamiya T-72 the other day, and looking for some good plan views of the turret so I could "correct" the kit part. Oops.....

Thank you for sharing.  You're doing a great job!

Toshi

Thanks, Pawel, and good, if grisly, info!

Way to go, Russ!

Those Russian tanks really do have some spots on their castings that just look terrible. Then again they wern't buildt for good looks, just to kill some Germans!

Once I was talking to a SS anti-tank unit veteran and he told me: People think it's propaganda, because we report three tanks destroyed, where the Russians only report one destroyed. But in fact it was like that - he said: We knock out a tank one day, they tow it back in the night, weld over the hole, mop up the bloody mess inside, new crew and next day the tank is back on the line, where we knock it out again, repeat. This way we knock it out N times, and they lost only one!

Anyhow - good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

A guy on another forum pointed me towards some crazy reference pics, mainly showing some horrible casting lugs and nasty welds on what appear to be late-build tanks, but also some small details on the hull that I missed, such as turret ring drain holes and a huge weld bead and drain hole on the driver's splash guard, so I added those. I also added some rivets on the front fender mounts, then went on to the turret. I deepened the torch cuts where the casting lugs were removed and did some texturing on the TC's cupola and thinned the front of the mantlet rain cover. Geting close to paint!

IMG_0441 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0440 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0438 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_0439 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

More later!