Chieftain Tank in Berlin Brigade Cammo....Berlin 1980's

[Guest]

Brilliant!!!! nothing else needed to be said :bravo:

[Guest]

This is awesome, Ron. The paint scheme (and your execution of the paint job by brush!), the excellent diorama, and all the little details really bring this to life. It looks like the real deal in some the photo! Easy 5 ***** big ones.

[spanner570]

Thanks John, Chris, Andrew, cobra69 and Alex for you great comments on my Chieftain Tank.

Sorry for the late reply to your posts gents, but I'm playing catch up......again!

Cheers,

Ron

[saguy]

:beer: ... cheers mate ... top class work as per normal ...rgds Lindsey.

I am also very keen to see yr painting technique used ...i am a brush user (in fact i only own one brush) so anything that i can glean from other brush user's will be muchos appreciated.

[Guest]

Just come across this, what an absolute cracker, the camo on this is spot on! Well built Ron I agree with the 5*

[Guest]

The master at work great stuff big 5 easy.

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk 2

[spanner570]

Thanks for the great comments boys, nice to see this resurrected from the archives of S.M.!!

It was a pig to paint free hand with a brush.....How you A.B. wallahs would manage such a cammo scheme with all the masking required, leaves me bog eyed with admiration!

Cheers,

Ron

[Guest]

I just clocked this one now Ron. You know - a lot of time i have to look twice and then im not sure. They look so real to me and then i see the wider shots and it confirms that close up your work is stunning mate.

Andy

[spanner570]

Thanks Andy, always good to read your posts.

I must confess to being well chuffed with the end result........Mind you, it was a bit embarrassing to be told it was The Berlin Brigade cammo and not NATO as, in my ignorance, I thought it was, and went and typed it into my intro thread!!

All part of the learning curve...

Cheers,

Ron

[Alan 45]

Hello chaps, not much armour about at the minute, so to balance it up....A couple of weeks or so ago, I was given this Tamiya 1/35 Chieftain Mk 1/2/3/5 (take your pick!) by number 2 son for my birthday, so I wanted to do something special to it by way of a thank you...... Don't tell him about the flaws in the model, he won't know any more than I did!

I found this amazing paint job on 'tinternet, I didn't even know it existed. I just had to have a stab at it! It was first tried out by the Western Powers in 1982 during the Cold War and was in general use after that year. The painting was done 'In the field', is very sharp edged and not very fussily applied either! It is very much like the 'Dazzle' scheme found on WW1 warships (There's a challenge for the WW1 build) and was found to be very effective!?

For a suitable backdrop I had a look on the web for images of 'The Berlin Wall' and from various pictures on there I scratch built a section of that dreadful structure from a single piece of polystyrene sheet, as is the cobbled road and pavement. The detail is done with my scalpel,and a blunt pencil. The runny mortar joints were done using a bit of card and a sloppy mix of polyfilla and allowed to run down where it liked, then the whole wall was painted with cheapo children's watercolours. The barbed wire on the top of the wall is the copper wire from a bit of electric cable.

The tank is all brush painted completely free hand ( no masking tape) with Vallejo Model Colour acrylics and the details with Humbrol Enamels.

Having seen close up the tanks at Cosford, no more will I worry about the paint finish and general appearance on these monsters. Talk about rough...

Due to it only rumbling around streets and the like, I have kept the weathering to a minimum, just giving the skirts bottoms a dusty, rained on sort of look, likewise with the tracks and I did a bit of work on the exhausts. I then gave the whole model a light dusting with a bit of grey dry powder tile adhesive...Then blew on it!

As this was a pure tank painting exercise, I have omitted the crew.

I make no excuses for the numerous pictures 'cos I'm well chuffed with the result. It was by far the most difficult and complicated model painting I have ever attempted....even harder than Major Wick's Bf109 stipple, and I just want to show everyone! Sorry if that's over the top but "Aam shmokin'!!!.....

I have a few pictures of the painting stages if anyone would like a more detailed description of how I managed it. If so, I will do a quick separate 'mini' thread to compliment this one.

So here is the finished tank for your viewing. I hope you like it.....FREEDOM FOR BERLIN!

Cheer all,

Ron

NO WAY is that a model!!! you have realy captured the beauty of this kit , when I was looking for inspiration for my my build last night I actually thought this was the real thing !

absolutely fantastic

[takeslousyphotos]

Stupendous Ron ............ First of all I thought they were photos of a real one parked up against the damn wall (I have a chunk of that in storage) ....... I am absolutely in awe of this one matey.

Peter

[spanner570]

Thanks boys for the great comments on this....

Alan, it was a nice surprise to see it amongst the posts after a fair time in the S.M. vaults!

It was a tough paint job and I was glad to put the brush away. Making the cobbled road near saw me off too!

Thanks for your comments on my Berlin wall, Peter.

I did give out duff gen on this. The cammo pattern was used by the Berlin Brigade only - not as I thought Nato.

Thanks again for your comments.

Ron

[Alan 45]

your welcome Ron it realy is a fantastic build and has given me an idea as well

[Guest]

That looks so awesome!

[Wong Ryan]

very nicely executed !!! two thumbs up ....