JPK 120 in 1:35

[Guest]

In the end, thinned Army Painter Strong Tone proved to work well. Here’s a comparison shot between the left and right gun pods:

[ATTACH]476315[/ATTACH]

The left one is as sprayed, the right one has also had the wash added, which has darkened it a little (of course) but more importantly, shaded the raised detail and added more colour variation, making the part look a lot more believable, IMHO.

[The Smythe Meister]

Was only thinking of this one about a week ago,and thought it might have been forgotten about....only to see it pop up again
A weird looking thing for sure,but I kinda like it!

[Jim R]

Definitely see the difference with the wash. Much nicer.

[Guest]

Was only thinking of this one about a week ago,and thought it might have been forgotten about....only to see it pop up again

I’m going to finish this (and the Grant CDL) before I will let myself start the Churchill AVRE with SBG bridge — so I have motivation to get this done sometime soon

A weird looking thing for sure,but I kinda like it!

Same here

Definitely see the difference with the wash. Much nicer.

Agreed, I used to paint models simply in the basic colour and left it at that, but I’ve since been converted to shading and highlighting them because it just looks better, IMHO. And it’s not like you need to be a great painter to do is — the main skill is being able to spray fairly finely with an airbrush, and that’s about it. If it took more skill than that, I wouldn’t be able to do it

[Guest]

So, some other stuff got in the way, but this one needs to be finished one of these days too …

I don’t have pictures of the wash-and-drybrush efforts after the previous photos, but it’ll show up in the next ones. Nothing much special to report about those anyway: an overall wash of thinned Army Painter Strong Tone and some drybrushing with Revell Yellow Olive and Light Olive to bring out the details.

That done, I started on the markings yesterday. First, the black rectangles that Belgian vehicles invariably have on front, sides and rear. These have a white number at the top that indicates the unit, but that makes it hard to use decals from another model because the number will usually be wrong. So, I measured up a decal from another model, found it was 8 by 6 mm, and masked things off to paint the rectangles by hand.

First, I cut an 8 mm piece of 6 mm masking tape as a template, so I could put it where the rectangle goes and then mask around it with more tape:

[ATTACH]479471[/ATTACH]

You only need one template, of course, because once you’ve masked one, you can remove it and put it in the next location you need to mask. All that remained was to paint inside with some matt black:

[ATTACH]479472[/ATTACH]

… and remove the tape:

[ATTACH]479473[/ATTACH]

I did find suitable division markings on the decal sheet from the old Italeri M108 kit, but it had a small error. The marking for 16 Armoured Division was a yellow lion’s head on a red and white shield, but the decals had the shield in black and white. Painting over it in red is not that hard with a fine brush, but due to red’s poor covering power, I had to do it in two steps, first with sand:

[ATTACH]479474[/ATTACH]

Left painted with sand, right as printed on the sheet. Then red over the sand:

[ATTACH]479475[/ATTACH]

Again, left with red, right only with sand. I initially did try only with red, but saw no difference with the black ink, so I quickly wiped it off again and went for the sand undercoat.

The decals haven’t gone on yet, because after spending ages digging through my decals for suitable numbers for the black rectangles, I found I will need to cut up some numbers and assemble them from loose digits, which I didn’t feel like doing anymore tonight.

I also painted the tracks and rubber tyres on the roadwheels:

[ATTACH]479476[/ATTACH]

The track was first sprayed with a rust/mud colour, and then I painted the metal parts with Italeri Gun Metal followed by the lighter Games Workshop Boltgun Metal, both so that they didn’t quite cover the colour below them. The idea was to leave the rust colour in the recesses and have the boltgun metal only on the more raised areas still.

The rubber was done in my usual way of painting it dark grey (Italeri Rubber) followed by thinned Indian ink and a drybrush with a medium–dark grey (Vallejo Bluegrey in this case).

On the engine deck, I painted the tow cables while I had the boltgun metal out, and then gave them a coat of Tamiya Smoke to create shadows and give an oily effect:

[ATTACH]479477[/ATTACH]

[Jim R]

I would never have thought of painting decals but it's worked fine. Masking around a template for the black rectangles is another good idea. I really must try to better think outside the box :smiling:

[adt70hk]

That's coming on very nicely Jakko and again something very different. I'm wondering how it would have behaved if it ever saw combat.....

ATB

Andrew

[Guest]

I would never have thought of painting decals but it's worked fine.

It looks a bit rough in the photos but that’s because it’s much larger than IRL — the decals are maybe 5 mm long, so it’s hard to see on the actual decals that it’s not been done all that neatly.

I'm wondering how it would have behaved if it ever saw combat.....

I suspect not well enough that it would really have been worth the trouble. Two of the main reasons for using a hull-mounted gun are because it’s cheaper and it makes the vehicle lower. That last thing was achieved here, but I’m not sure this would have been much cheaper than a Leopard 2. Two guns would rather up the cost compared to having only one, and autoloaders also aren’t overly cheap, I think — certainly not in the added maintenance and spares compared to not having one. But it would be able to put rounds on target at more than twice the rate of any MBT … at least until the autoloaders are empty Tactically, it has a fairly major drawback in not having any traverse for its guns without moving the entire vehicle, but then again, this was also seen as a detractor for the Strv 103, yet the Swedes never seem to have found it an important problem.

[Richard48]

Hi Jakko.
I saw this kit previewed on Andys hobby headquarters and thought it was a strange old beast.Looks like you are weaving your magic on her.
Happy modelling chum.
Richard

[Guest]

It is a strange beast, but then, in the real world it was never intended as an actual combat vehicle prototype. All it ever was, was a test bed for the idea of using two guns to achieve a higher hit probability. In real life, it turned out that the advances in fire control systems made for the Leopard 2 removed the need for this kind of salvo firing.

[Richard48]

It is a strange beast, but then, in the real world it was never intended as an actual combat vehicle prototype. All it ever was, was a test bed for the idea of using two guns to achieve a higher hit probability. In real life, it turned out that the advances in fire control systems made for the Leopard 2 removed the need for this kind of salvo firing.

Going back to Shermans i managed to track down a Resicast m4a4 DV hull from Ultracast in Canada.A mere snip with VAT etc to U.K for nearly 64 pounds.Glad i got one but ouch it stings at that price!!!.Did manage to get some Tasca m3 bogies cheap off e.bay tho.If i had ordered from Asuka it was 30 pounds more than what i paid.
Richard

[Guest]

TBH, for 64 pounds I think I would instead have cut the fronts off the drivers’ hoods on a plastic late M4A4 hull and built the DV visors myself … (He said after ordering a DV M4A1 upper hull from Asuka recently ) But what Sherman are you intending to build? Just a generic early M4A4 or a specific tank from a photo?

[Richard48]

Hopefully this one mate.43 RTR attached to 79th Armoured prior to D.Day.Practising on the River Deben which is about an hour from where we are.
Rich

[Guest]

Nice one, that should be doable from those photos, I’d say. Looking forward to seeing you build it

[Richard48]

Nice one, that should be doable from those photos, I’d say. Looking forward to seeing you build it :smiling3:

Yes i think i can piece the markings together from various sheets.I know Star decals do.79th Armoured stuff.The turret numbers are plain white i hope.The 40 on the glacis i shall try and track down.The only problem might be the side numbers.I did ask Johan at Star if he would consider doing a set as an add on to his 79th set.He seemed quite keen and i supplied some references.Peddinghaus has the well known Sherman V " Spiteful".Sadly only available in 1.16th scale.
Richard