Medium Tank M3 from MiniArt — not a Sherman for once!

[GerryW]

Certainly looking the business now :thumb2:

[Tim Marlow]

Looking lovely and crisp under the paint Jakko.

[Guest]

Thanks. Now it gets tricky because I want this to look like a fairly new tank, so I’m having to work out how much fading and weathering to add.

[Guest]

Today, I sprayed lighter patches onto the various panels, and then removed the masking tape:

[ATTACH]418599[/ATTACH][ATTACH]418600[/ATTACH]

I used a mixture of Vallejo field drab and olive drab for the highlights, mixed lighter (more field drab) for the upper surfaces and other bits that catch the most light.

Getting the tape off was interesting. Much was easy enough, but things like the little vision port on the left front were tricky. I had to find tweezers with a bend in them to even reach this, and then had to fix them with some pliers to make sure I could actually grab the tape

The paper masking for the rear deck worked very well:

[ATTACH]418601[/ATTACH]

A little touch-up needed, but nothing major, and the mesh is very nicely white on one side and OD on the other, as I intended/hoped

[Guest]

After the paint was dry, I applied an overall wash from thinned-down GW Devlan Mud (a transparent darkish colour) over the whole model. Today, I then drybrushed the whole model with Revell yellow olive first, followed by light olive.

[ATTACH]418652[/ATTACH]

The wash shaded the details and the drybrushing highlighted it, so after I paint some details, the model should be pretty much ready for decals.

[Nicko]

Looks great Jakko - thanks for sharing the painting process too..

Nick

[Guest]

Thanks

[scottie3158]

Jakko,
All looking good mate nice modulation on the paint.

[Isitme]

Jakko,
I will put a photo on here of my own jig for bending those tie downs. a total pain in the rear compartment.
Mike.

[Guest]

That might help, if I ever decide to try them again instead of the much easier scratchbuilding Someone else recommended using tweezers to press the thing down over a bit of plastic strip, but that had already failed for me before he even mentioned it.

[Guest]

I’ve painted the wheels (dark grey with a black wash) and attached the bogies to the tank, and then applied decals:

[ATTACH]418978[/ATTACH][ATTACH]418979[/ATTACH]

These are not the markings that came with the kit. MiniArt supplies early American roundels of a blue disc with a white star and a red dot in the centre, but the reverse was also in use. Takom’s counterpart does have those, so with thanks to a fellow modeller, I got the full set of markings for that particular tank from that kit.

The Takom decals were quite stiff and didn’t respond well to Micro Sol. This wasn’t a major issue, except for the star on the turret top, that needs to go over the bend in the roof. I had a lot of trouble getting it to stick down; in the end I cut the decal along one of the sides of the star to get it to fit the curve better, followed by even more Micro Sol. Luckily, this seems to have worked.

You may notice the star on the glacis seems to be upside down. This is intentional: a photo in David Doyle’s M3 Lee Grant shows two M3s on 18 December 1941 like this, so I thought I’d do that too, as it’s more interesting than with one point up as usual.

[Graeme C.]

Just had a catch up Jakko, It's all looking very good indeed, the modulation has worked very well and the decals look to have gone on well despite the difficulties they gave you.:thumb2:

[Guest]

Thanks, the decals are not that bad, really, unless you want to put them on a strongly curved surface. They worked fine on the turret side, it’s just the rounded roof/side edge that was difficult.

[outrunner]

Nicely turned out model Jakko.

Andy.

[adt70hk]

Just had a catch-up Jakko. That really is looking very nice indeed.

Well done.

Andrew