I have a small base or dio intended for this build, and I’ll sort that later, but until then I’ll consider this one finished.
M3A1 Scout car – Finished
Mirage, Ford Mustang and some diorama making.
I added the control surfaces for the Mirage.
My son have asked me to help him with his Mustang, and now I’ve finally got to it. I had done some painting before but wasn’t happy with it so I sanded most of it down, but then it ended up on the shelf and sat there for quite some time.
Front, rear and inside of hood painted.
Not sure how long it takes for the red to fully dry, but I’ve heard a week, so I’ll just leave it for now, then I’ll paint the topside of the body and the hood.
Now I’ve finally started to make a dio/base for my Scout car. I first made a scetch on the canvas.
I then started to work with the clay I bought. Very soft to work with but crumbled easy. Using water helped a lot, and after a while I had a piece of landscape that looked like this.
I will let this dry and then start to paint it and add grass and small turfs. Some logs and small branches might also work. Not sure how to make vegetation as I think some bushes and leafs would look nice. I’ll figure it out!
M3A1 Scout car finished, well almost!
I decided to put all the figures in place, and build wise that finishes the kit.
I still want to put it on a small base, but I still need to buy materials to do that.
So for now I consider this build finished!
Next will be creating the small dio.
M3A1 decals and weathering
There are decals for 3 versions in this kit, one american and two russian. As there are russian soldier provided with this kit I decided to go with one of the russian options.
Only three decals and the set I thought looked the coolest, but also turned out to be the most difficult.as one is quite large and covers the rear side of the vehicle.
I actually broke the decals when sliding it on to the surface and then had a lot of problems moving the pieces around. I managed to get it right in the end and after some micro sol it sits quite nicely.
I assembled and painted some ammo boxes to put in the car.
I did a new test fit with the figures and guns.
Looks pretty ok to me. I still need to get the driver in place, but first some weathering. I sealed the decals yesterday, and today I used black oil colour to make a pin wash.
I also painted exhaust pipe and some other spots on the underside with rust.
Then I started working with Tamiyas weathering sets, adding mud and rust to certain areas.
I think I’ll need to do some additional weathering later. I’ll do some weathering on the figures, get the driver in place, and start to plan for a small dio. Might add some more mud once the base is done.
The russian figures painted.
I consider the figures to the scout car done. I still need to do some weathering that’ll go hand in hand with the weathering of the car, and perhaps a small base.
I also did a little test placement of the figures.
I prepared to apply the decals, and then I will see if I can get the driver in place.
Then guns and stuff needs to be placed and the figures put into position, and some weathering done. That’s more or less it! 🙂
Mirage fit issues and other updates.
Normally joining the body halves should bring no bigger problems, but for some reason the halves woudn’t go together as they should in the middle of the body. After some checking I figurered that the intake seemed to be the problem. By gluing the body halves to the intake, it pulled them in, and thus created a gap in the top.
As the underside is open as long as the wings are not on, it was no greater problem to loosen the sides anad then glue the seam.
I then glued the intake again, which as it turned out I shouldn’t have done, cause when I tried to fit the wings, it looked like this.
There was quite a large gap to deal with and no matter how much I tried to press the wings closer, it wouldn’t work. I checked the net for a build review, and found one that said that I shouldn’t have glued the rear end of the intake at all. I also shouldn’t have glued teh outer intake covers until after the wings was in place. Something I’ll try to keep in mind as I have one more Kinetic Mirage kit.
I cut open the intake/fuselage bond again and also added a piece of sprue to widen the fuselage a bit.
Now the wings fit against the fuselage looked like this.
I glued the wings and added a bit of plastic on each side to take away some of the gaps.
After cutting them and filling the rest with some putty, it looked like this!
I’ll sand that later and might have to fill more putty to make it look nice. The hardest will be to rescribe missing panel lines.
Next up on my work bench was the figures to the Scout car, which after some shadows and dry brushing looked like this.
Getting closed to be done! The driver still need to be painted. All black uniform doesn’t make it easier. I might also sort a base of some sort.
It doesn’t show very good, but I repainted the belly of the lightning.
I’ll repaint the wings as well, and then do some panels in different colours to break it up a bit.
While painting black a while ago, I also painted the hood and interior roof black on my sons Mustang.
That’s all for now!
More progress with the scout car.
The seat cushions was painted and I’ve started to assemble two of the figures.
Then the seats was assembled and glued in place.
I put the gunner figure in place just to check.
I sorted the missing glass with a piece of cut 3 mm clear plastic. The instrument panel got decals and two figures got assembled. I needed the driver to see if I could fit him into his seat..
The panel was glued in place, which some other interior parts was a bit fiddly to get in place.
Except for the steering wheel, the vehicle is done, then of course decals will go on and some weathering. I’m also working on both the machine guns and 2 more figures.
I still have one more figure to cut lose and assemble, then they all need to be painted, and I also need to put some decals on the vehicle.
The M3A1 build continues and a quick update on the Lightning.
First the hull and chassie was assembled. The wheels had poly caps so they’re just pushed on.
The machine gun railing was assembled. A bit fiddly with the movable gun holds, other than that they went on smoothly.
Then I started with some of the small parts like front lights. Accidently dropped the clear piece and couldn’t find it. I’ll see if I can solve that later.
Lastly I’ve started to paint the seats and the front windows.
The seats cushions will be painted next.
I’ve also done a little puttying on the belly of the Lightning.
Progress with the Lightning, Weekend build meeting, and my new purchases.
Earlier last week I was asked if I wanted to join a weekend gathering were we could sit and build and talk. After not being able to meet like this for quite some time, it was a no brainer, adn with my girlfriends permission, I was ready to go.
I managed to to do a little on the Lightning beflre it was time to pack everything for the little more than 1½ hour trip to the meeting.
I assembled the exhaust pipes, painted the chrome on the rear piece, added decals to the cockpit and started painting the pilot.
The seat was also painted.
I got some wash on the exhaust and intake parts, to enhance them a bit. Not that they are very visible inside, but anyway.
That was how far I got before the meeting. At the meeting I glued the intake to the fuselage and added some weights to that half.
For some reason the the pilot didn’t fit, at all, at least not without major surgery, so I decided to skip the pilot. So I added seat belts made of thin stripes of tape.
Landing gears assembled.
Wings assembled.
The cockpit fits nicely on top of the intake. More weights was added and secured with white glue.
Missiles and over wing tanks built.
Landing gears painted black.
I decided to switch object and started a new kit, a Swedish personal carrier, BV206S.
I forgot to take pics, but after some time I had gotten this far.
Talking about forgetting to take pics, which is easy to do when building and making conversations with my fellow model builder friends. So all of a sudden, I had gotten this far with the lightning.
After some more time I hade masked the canopy parts, painted the inside, glued them to the fuselage, and assembled a lot of small parts on the body.
One of the kits I picked up from a visiting vendor, was this M3A1 Scout car in russian service.
Same problem here, I forgot to take pics during a large part of the build process.
Another find was this lamborghini kit.
And this one.
On a table was a few kits that caught my attention, and especially one of the kits, I wasn’t sure who had brought them to the meeting, but when I asked it turned out they were for sale, so I snatched this beauty.
And it came with this book.
I came home sunday afternoon, and before putting all model stuff in place I cleaned up my workspace! Much needed, and now I only need a new cutting mat.
It was a great weekend, even if my girlfriend complained about spending too much money.