1/72 MAN 8x8 Truck

[Jim R]

Hi Andy
Great progress and an invitation to join The Rabble. Matron comes round to members regularly with the tablets although some are so far gone straight jackets and cattle prods are the order of the day :rolling:
I like your additions to the cab. Instructions are often lacking but a bit of thought can usually get you by.
Jim

[Guest]

Cheers Jim, hopefully posting more pictures later. As well as a bed the driver now has cup holders :smiling5: but his bedding is a bit scruffy. Maybe Matron could get someone to change his sheets.

[Guest]

Made a little dashboard to fill the empty cab up a bit. Looks a bit thick but you'll never see it side on like this once complete

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A bit of plasticard, some wire and a drill made the driver somewhere to store his butties and a coffee

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A splash of paint, some dry brushing and a bit of dirtyness thanks to very thinned coats of Vallejo dark earth

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And a rather grubby mattress with an even grubbier pillow. He really needs to get that cleaned!

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Pretty much all the sub assemblies are built and primed, just the crane to finish off in the morning. I've decided to paint everything separately and bring it together at the end, to save a mammoth masking job protecting the detail painting I've already done on the chassis and engine parts.

Sorry for the fuzzy photos, my 4 year old phone just isn't up to it! :smiling5:

[scottie3158]

Andy,
Some very fine scratchery.

[Guest]

Thanks Paul. I really enjoyed making the bed, it's a shame it's virtually invisible now the cab is together!

[minitnkr]

Looking very good. I've modeled many MAN BW trucks w/this type of cab, but never was able to find a good interior shot that depicted what was behind the seats. Thankfully you can't see that far when the armor kit is installed. I can see now where the bed goes. Thanks. PaulE

[Bortig the Viking]

Hi, I agree with others, you've done very well with this so far, very impressed. Wish I had more time, since the nice weather my wife has got us out and about and visiting.

[minitnkr]

So which camo scheme have you chosen fo this beauty? PaulE

[Guest]

Thanks chaps.

I couldn't find much in the way of reference photos either Paul, but figured a bunk was a good option. Still not 100% on the colour scheme either which is another reason for leaving all the major external parts until last. I'd even thought about just plain green to have a go at colour modulation and such things, but in the end I'm sure camo will win me over.

I could mock up the parts together without attaching them to the chassis to make life easier if I did go for camo, but I'll see where the wind takes me in the morning.

[Guest]

That certainly looks good and convincing. Like you say, the dashboard may be very thick, but if you can’t see it, then that’s no problem at all.

I also thought I’d try and solve the question of what’s in the back of the cab by digging out my half-built Revell 1/35 scale kit, but it seems to have a different cab, with no space behind the seats — they’re directly against the front wall of the engine compartment. So that doesn’t help either.

[Guest]

Thanks for looking anyway.

I did see a picture of an expedition vehicle with a drop down bunk behind the seats, and having spent a lot of time around trucks as a youth a cab of that shape is often a "sleeper", so I'm probably not too far away from reality.

[Guest]

I just spent a bit of time looking at photos of the models and their real counterparts, and the backs of the cabs are very different. This is the style from the Revell kits:

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and this is the one on your Model Collect kit:

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And look what I also found: the US Army operator’s manual for this series of vehicle. Appendix E has some drawings that show at least a bit of the cab interior. It strongly gives the impression there’s either stowage space or a bunk bed in the back of the cab, but this manual doesn’t actually say what the space is for.

[Guest]

Well, I think you've done even more research on this than I have! I'll definitely know who to call on if I ever go down the super realism route, thanks.

[Guest]

So, I decided to have another go with Vallejo Model Air for this one. Others seem to have great success with it, but for whatever reason I just can't. I tried many different thinning ratios, flow aid and no flow aid, low pressure, high pressure, stripped and cleaned the AB many times, and still it would only just spit and fart the colour out. I eventually managed to get it looking something like reasonable, but I'm not really happy with it. In many places I've had to chase the colour to cover spidering or big dry blobs when I was getting no paint at all coming out, then suddenly it would all come at once!

I think it's convinced me to stick to Mr Color for airbrush work, or try the MRP paints that Barry W gets such an amazing result from.

Anyway, rant over, on with the show :smiling3:

Everything got an all over coat of the Dark Slate Grey I'd used on the chassis just to make sure I didn't miss any spots, then I started assembly

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I then started to try and add a bit of variation by lightening the colour with Light Slate Grey and some yellow, and some darker bits by adding Dark Earth. I think I was probably a bit too subtle about it as it's hardly noticeable in the pictures, even with flash.

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Then I started on the camo, which is when the AB problems got really bad. If I'd wanted to do a marble style camouflage it would have been perfect with the paint pulsing on and off whenever it felt like it, but trying to get a reasonably even covering was a nightmare, and the spluttering caused overspray to go far and wide, ruining the neat lines I was aiming for.

But then I said I was going to stop ranting :smiling5:

I've been reading up on the scale effect and it made a lot of sense, so rather than using black for the camo I used a very dark grey, and added more black as I got to the bottom of the model. The brown was a mixture of an RLM Dark Brown, Rust, and a drop of red.

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Doesn't look as bad in the photo's as real life to be honest, but I'm hoping a bit of weathering will hide the issues even further. I don't think I'll ever get really fine lines and sharp edges from this airbrush (or paint!) but that's an upgrade for another day. It's currently sat in the house to harden up a bit before I go any further.

By the way, I dug out my old Lumix TZ4 for these pictures. Hopefully they are a bit better than my usual phone ones, although I don't think the auto resizing on imgur helps.

[Tim Marlow]

Looks good despite the problems. I’ve never got water based acrylic to spray consistently either. Usually get tip drying or blocking problems and the frustration drive me insane.
I now use Tamiya/Mr Color (with Mr Color levelling thinner) exclusively for spraying and Vallejo for brush painting. Sure, I need a mask to spray, but better that than frustration......
PS, pictures look fine....