Just For Fun - An Iraqi BMP

Here, then, for your viewing pleasure, is a Lindberg BMP, one of those really old kits that you probably remember from back in the day. I got it on eBay, and build it in a few hours (there are something like 50 parts in total).

I'll slap on the wheels and tracks tonight (the roadwheels are drying now).

T-55 Painted

Next we have the Iraqi T-55, completed, except for the tracks and roadwheels, which I almost always build last.

I don't have good pics of each step, but I textured the smooth-looking turret by stippling while glue onto the surface with a stiff brush, and then I shot the first coat, Russian Dark Green. When that was dry, I shot a base of my own mix of Tamiya and Gunze paints, approximating a dark tan. The final layer is a contrast coat of the same mix, with some white added.

Iraqi T-55

This is the Trumpeter Chinese Type 59 kit, repackaged by Hobby Craft. I was waiting for my Jordi Rubio barrel to come in from Lucky Model. To review, the fule panniers are from Tamiya's T-62A kit (the originals from Trumpeter were too small, and had a strange texture to them).

I reworked the kit's gun mantlet by adding a few layers of thin tissue, secured and stiffened with white glue. I had to drill out the middle of the mantlet, as the barrel is sized for the slightly larger Tamiya part. The PE locking ring around the base of the barrel is from On The Mark's excellent T-55 PE set.

Next came the external fuel lines, made from #26 lead wire.

This was the last item I added before painting. Next post will show the paint and weathering.

FOUND

Here's a dio in progress. I don't build a lot of dioramas, or at least I don't finish a lot of them. But this one's coming along nicely.

The idea is this: Two US paratroopers have stumbled upon (found) a freshly abandoned German Panzer IV in the rubble of a bombed-out building. Location would obviously be somewhere in Western Europe, probably Belguim.

The Panzer IV is a kitbash that I built about a year ago, consisting of Tamiya and Academy parts (mostly Tamiya). I used an Aber barrel, Lion Roar turret skirts, Cavalier Zimmerit, a Panzer Workshop interior, parts of a Tiger Models Designs backdate set, Friulmodel tracks and Archer turret numbers. PE tool clamps, etc came from Eduard, Lion Roar and Aber.

The building is "East Prussion City Building" from Mini Art. I don't recommend Mini Art's building kits because of the way they're designed. They're basically in two halves that you have to join together, leaving the worst seam I've ever seen, right down the middle of every edge. Terrible. This building, has more after-market filler and putty than Pamela Anderson.

The cobblestone street section underneath all that rubble came from Kancali, as did the rubble molds I used to make some of the debris. Also in the mix is some home-made debris.

The US troops haven't been difinitively added yet. They're in the last two pics, but only for my reference, for now.