and other artistic stuff
This kit I also intended to have in a small diorama with the figures I also got. The figures are about half done, meaning they’re assembled and painting is started.
I also need to figure out how I want the dio to look. I’ll get to the dio later, and meanwhile, here’s some pics of the finished Warrior!
Enjoy! 🙂
After doing some additional weathering and painting, I consider the Warrior finished.
I’ll take better pics of the finished build later. I need to push on with the figures to get them done. Here’s a pic of the current progress on the figures.
It has taken some time to clean up all parts, and fitting the arms in order to hold the weapons properly.
I’m getting closer and closer to finishing this kit, and one part of the process was adding all the 7 decals, which at some point turned out to be harder than I’ve thought. Two of the decals go on the fire extinguishers, wouldn’t conform to the cylindrical shape, and required some extra work, but in the end I got all the decals in place!
I have no idea why the rear panel is slightly tilded, but I can’t adjust it now without the risk of breaking something.
After the decals was in place I did some weathering with brown oil colour and Tamiya weathering sets, mainly sand and light sand.
Then I could start with the protective bars that goes around the vehicle.
Putting all those bars/plates took a while, and once done there isn’t much left to do, except some additional weathering to tie it all together.
I also need to assemble and paint all the figures. They look quite nice but the guns are very delicate. I’ll have them on their stands for now, until I decide about a possible dio.
This kit is in some ways not an easy build, as it requires some planning. Some parts won’t be easy to reach when painting otherwise, and in some cases it won’t be possible to add some of the decals as they sit inside of the protection bars.
Anyway I’ve added some more parts to the body and turret, prior to adding the protective skirts.
I also started building on of the figures and a few small parts that will be needed later.
With the small parts in place I could start painting. First the tan base colour.
Next I painted a slightly lighter tan.
And finally a layer of Portland Stone, not covering entirely, mor like dusting it on.
Now I will continue adding side plates and some other stuff until next phase is reached.
The tracks on this one is of the link and lenght kind, which at times is easier than linked tracks. The smaller curved link parts are glued to the drive sprockets and the rear wheels.
Just take care when fitting those parts and check the direction of the tracks on each side.
Assembly starts with the wheels and the top lenght part.
Once the top part is in place, the wheel halves can be glued in place, before continuing with the rest of the track.
I assembled the front and rear track parts first before adding the bottom track. I was a bit worried that it shouldn’t fit as the wheels have slightly different positions, and don’t make a straight flat line on the bottom. Perhaps it’s supposed to look like the tank is driving over something. Anyway I started by gluing it to the front end, and let it dry for a while.
After working with the turret a while, I glued the last bit of the track.
So now I got one side done, and it looks like it should work. I’ll start on the other side asap.
As stated before I did some work on the turret. I started by gluing the front part with the gun mantle.
Then I started to add a lot of small parts to the turret.
Still quite a few parts to add to the turret. Will do that soon, but will probably do the other track first.
The turret really comes much later in the description, but I needed something to work on while other things was drying, as I didn’t want to continue with the topside parts before the tracks was in place.
The wheels, armor plates and underside got painted with the last colour tone.
The wheels got their rubber surfaces painted.
I also re-painted the tracks in a slightly different metal colour.
I’ve worked some with the turret interior, and got it ready to assemble.
Turret and body test fitted. I hope I can unmount it!
Next will be to assembly all the wheels, and start to give the tracks a rusty sandy kind of look using Tamiya weathering sets. Then I can assembly the tracks and get on with the topside.
A bit of slow progress, but I’ve finally managed to get the underside and all wheel parts painted.
There’s an intentional uneven look to it. Now I only need to paint the wheel rubber rims, and start assembling wheels and then the tracks.
The turret is really a bit further ahead, but I’ve started working with it a bit, and the interior part is done, and the inside of the turret got some primer inside, as the primer is a match for the interior colour.
There’s actually quite a few parts that go on the outside of the turret, hatches, and periscopes and boxes and whatnot.
The plan is to glue these parts, and then continue with tracks and the hull and all the parts on the topside.
The build have been standing still for some time, as I had more urgent things to take care of since my dad passed away. Now it’s all in the hands of the lawfirm, and I can’t do much until that is done. So I did some painting, mainly on the other side of the wheels with the basic desert colour.
The underside also got a thin layer of a lighter colour. I will paint with the lighest colour later, trying to create variations.
As soon as the wheels are painted properly on both sides, I will start adding a black/greyish rubber paint to the rims. And then I’ll start assembling wheels and tracks.
I added some boxes and whatnot to the rear and sides.
The part that covers most of the front is assembled earlier in the instructions, but either check the fit then or wait with the lower part to ensure it fits as it should on the lower part of the front. I had to break up mine and re-glue it.
Continuing with some of the parts for the turret. Some of them got painted in the interior green.
In order to get the wheels on, I started to paint the lower hull and backside of the armor plates in the darker tan colour.
Need to do some touch up before using the lighter colours for toning/post shading.
I did a test with two different colours to tone the tropical tan with.
For me I think I prefer the lighter one of the two, and I will probably use that one. The choice was so clear I also painted some of the wheels as well.
I’ll see what the community have to say about my choice of colours.
I’ve also started to sort the hatches to cover up the interior when I start to paint. I’ll see if I can keep them in place with some blue tac while painting.
As soon as I’m sorted with covering all the openings, I can start painting the underside at least, so I can get the wheels and tracks in place.