Why on Earth would you scratchbuild an M113 in 1:35 scale?

[Guest]

Following the second coat of primer, I masked off the edges where I would be spraying the outside of the model:

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It doesn’t need to go all the way around, because when spraying the sides, as long as you’re not aiming your airbrush into the model, you’ll be OK

That done, I sprayed Vallejo Model Air olive drab onto the exterior surfaces:

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The wheels aren’t done overly neatly on this side, because that will be facing the ground anyway After it had dried, I mixed some sand-coloured paint into the OD and added lighter patches in the centres of panels on the front and rear:

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Now to tackle the interior …

[Guest]

Details have now been painted in their basic colours:

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I put olive drab onto the engine block, with brown rusted exhausts, gun metal on the transmission and other details in white, black and aluminium. Pretty much, this was guesswork, because I couldn’t find any good references about the real M113’s engine, other than a few poor-quality shots of the engine and black-and-white photos in a book.

In addition, I applied a wash of really old (1970s) Humbrol Subframe Grey enamel paint over the white parts, to give some shading.

The next step will be to add dirt, oil stains, etc. to the model, and only then the stains from the explosion. I figure it will be best to add these in the order they would have happened in real life too.

[Andy the Sheep]

The interior of these M113s was painted white (the more familiar green finish came once the M113A1 was already in production), so are the light areas white paint, or perhaps bare aluminium, or even aluminium oxide resulting from a fire? Are the dark bits on the interior scorched paint? If not, what else might have caused them to be that dark? Speculation would be appreciated :smiling3:

Sorry for being so late, Jakko but I will try to give a possible answer to those dark interiors: my guess is that before exploding, the M113 interior was engulfed by the thick and greasy smoke of burining fuel, plastic and mechanical fluids and smoke, being hotter than air, wuold have filled the upper part of the troops area first, thus the almost neat separation between the darker and the whiter areas; the final explosion gave the last touch.

Sherflock Holmes

[adt70hk]

Looking very good Jakko. Wouldn't know where to start with this sort of thing.

ATB

Andrew

[grumpa]

WOW!...Such dedication! Absolutely mind boggling attention to and fabrication of such minute detail is....I can't find the words.

Bravo!

Jim

[Gary MacKenzie]

Missing is the trim vane, which should sit on the bow. Someone promised he would mail me one, but hasn’t so far

PM me your address and i will send one i have in spares

[Guest]

my guess is that before exploding, the M113 interior was engulfed by the thick and greasy smoke

That does sound like a plausible theory … let’s see if I can shoot holes in it M113s are made of aluminium, which melts when there’s a major fire, so there would likely be pools of re-solidified aluminium visible, probably from the roof because that has disappeared entirely. A thick layer of soot would also require the vehicle to have been on fire for at least some time before it exploded, which means somebody wold have had to throw a satchel charge into a vehicle that was already obviously destroyed by a fire.

Hmm … not sure … but it’s as plausible as any other idea I’ve been able to come up with I think I’ll airbrush the upper sides black with dark grey and brown bits to represent soot etc., and leave the exact cause open to the viewer’s speculation

Looking very good Jakko. Wouldn't know where to start with this sort of thing.

Thanks, and starting is actually the easy bit, I must say in retrospect. The hull is simple, it’s all those little details you only discover once you’ve gotten somewhere that make this difficult.

WOW!...Such dedication! Absolutely mind boggling attention to and fabrication of such minute detail is....I can't find the words.

Thank you

PM me your address and i will send one i have in spares

Thanks for the offer, but someone else supplied me with one today already (Not the person who originally said he would, but another who came to the rescue.)

[Guest]

Next, I dirtied up the engine compartment with a black wash (Tamiya Flat Black plus water) and spots of more black while the wash was still wet:

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On the base, I added all sorts of junk:

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This consists of stuff like AFV Club ammo boxes; bent and twisted pieces of plastic card, aluminium plate and pipe, copper wire, paper; some equipment from the spares box; and assorted other junk. It’s not really meant to represent anything in particular (except the ammo boxes and stuff), but is just more gizmology to suggest crap thrown out of the exploded vehicle. I only painted the ammo boxes, because the plan was to not have them entirely covered by burns.

Those burns I sprayed with my airbrush:

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I began with pure matt black (more Tamiya), then mixed in dark grey to spray spots and swirls, added in medium grey for more and smaller spots, and finally some khaki for even smaller ones. Again, the idea is to suggest the aftermath of a major fire, which I think worked fairly well, but still needs some work. I’m thinking of washes and drybrushing to enhance the effecf, but not sure yet how, exactly.

[outrunner]

That looks very good, doubt if I have the imagination to tackle something like that.

Andy.

[Guest]

Thanks The imagination mainly comes in in trying to make sense of one black-and-white photograph, I think. I really wish I had been able to find more photos of this, or even of similarly destroyed M113s, but I can’t even find anything relating to the place where the action is supposed to have happened.

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
All your research, skill and dedication has really paid off. This is very impressive modelling.
Jim

[Guest]

Thank you, though I don’t think it reaches the level of others I see around here

But I’m glad I’m nearing the end. All it needs is the finishing touches and I can finally call this done. With, hopefully, one or two days to spare for the deadline of this Saturday …

[rtfoe]

Hi Jakko, scratchery looks good. It's even harder to do scratchwork on destroyed parts as the different materials behave differently to the destruction.
Looking forward to more.

Cheers,
Richard

[Graeme C.]

The scratch building is impressive Jakko, building a destroyed vehicle is harder than an intact.

[Guest]

Thanks guys Funny thing is, part of the reason I decided to model this was because I figured an M113 would be fairly easy …