BryanKrueger

You traveled a long way CatDude. Did you enjoy Colorado? I have photos of this on my HD from the show.

Thanks CatDude01

Muddy progress.

Thanks. Weathering will be starting soon.

OK. Some progress. The weather has not been cooperating around here but I have been able to squeeze in some time to get some paint on this. BTW - Tamiya airbrushes just fine at 3C. White wash has been achieved with the HS technique and then some mapping with acrylics. Some of the contrast was lost with the following filter but I'll bring some of that back up after the wash. Man, white is difficult to photograph.

Very nice work!

Thanks.

Nice color variations.

Sorry for the late replies. Jeeze - Aug 27th. Phil - The Tamiya 1/48 GMC is a nice kit. There should be several 1/48 V1s to choose from. Chris, Tim, Chris - Thanks guys appreciate it. Mark - Yes, I did bring this to Nats in August. It was mixed in with all the other nice trucks. Pretty sure mine was the only one with a missile in it. BTW - it also appeared in the FSM IPMS show report issue. I was pretty excited about that. Yes, it does need a base. One base at a time.

In March 2013, a local club member, Mike Jacobs, passed away after a short battle with lung cancer. He was a very active member that participated in many of the local events, club meetings and annual shows. His model building interests included sci-fi, armor, aircraft, ships, figures, you name it. Be he was a creative scratch builder with a good eye for details. Mike will be deeply missed. Before his passing Mike let it known he wanted his kit collection be given to our club/club members to be sorted out and shared however we wished. About a month ago we helped his family by cleaning out the basement, packing everything up - kits, supplies, built collection, and storing it at our local hobby shop which has graciously loaned us the space. He had stacks of kit boxes and plastic tubs full of sprues. Mike was an avid scratch builder so most of the contents never matched the kit box and he had a multitude of projects all in various stages. It took us a long time to sort through it and categorize everything and a lot of it is still "It looks cool, but I have no idea what he was trying to do here." There are easily 120+ started models all in various stages, some in boxes, some in bags, some just a collection of parts. We knew what our next club contest would be. Each member was to pick at least one kit (in any condition)and finish it for Mike. We have until the club IPMS contest this month. One of the models that caught my eye, mixed in amongst a box full of misc. modern armor pieces, was this Tamiya Type 97. The model was mostly assembled with a fine coat of primer and a heavy coat of dust. Digging through the box I found the instructions, tracks, decals, box art, and the unattached tools but not the top MG. I may try scratch one if I can find references for the mount. (anybody have any references?) It looked like a complete kit and I can't imagine why Mike never finished it. I left Mike's build as is, warts and all, only attaching the missing tools and tracks. He did a nice job of adding missing weld beads and adding texture to the turret plate armor. I didn't know much of anything about this vehicle until a furious internet search led me to color profiles, tank history, color development/application, and last battle histories for many of the units. The model represents a vehicle from the 2nd Tank Division, 10th Tank Regiment, Luzon, Philippines, Jan-Feb 1945. The scene represents an abandoned hull-down vehicle. The Type 97 lacked sufficient armor to withstand hits from the US M4 75mm gun but the 47mm armement was still a formidable weapon against lighter US vehicles and infantry. As the as the Japanese retreated North through the Philippines many of the light and medium tanks were used as static defence to slow down the US advance. After soaking the model and scrubbing off the dust, the model is painted with Tamiya Acrylics - all custom mixes. Japanese armor is often associated with a hard edge camo with bright yellow strips but by 44-45, this practice was phased out and the camo was sprayed freehand and the yellow stripe eliminated. Variations were allowed for local conditions so I think the schemes are a little more flexible towards the end. The model was weathered with oil paints, enamels and dry pigments. Figure was painted with Vallejo Model Color. Groundwork is a base of foam with plaster, glue, fine sand, paint and pigments. Vegitation is a mix of real and paper products along with some hand cut leaves. Thanks for looking.

Thanks everyone. Glad you like it. Warwheels - Not that I have ever seen evidence of. The drilling was a lightweight mount and was fitted to halftracks, light duty trucks, even hand carts. So it is within the realm of possibility. Zglossip - I applied many, many, layers over the course of many, many, sessions. Check Mike Rinadli's Tank Art. http://www.rinaldistudiopress.com/

Chris - The spare track was common in some units. They served dual purpose. First, solved a logistics problem and allowed the crew to fix a broken track. Secondly they offered the crew some protection from direct hits but they also created shot traps. All those tracks added extra weight to a suspension that was already strained so upper brass discouraged the use but the crews felt better with them in place. Thanks Jim.

Using this as inspiration: Somebody needs to tell the crew that they should never let their tank get that dirty. Pink Foam Mock Up for base. I'm waiting on more Voyager parts to detail out the roof and misc hardware. The stowage is a mix of what ever I had. BlackDog resin, Tasca fuel cans, styrene, and epoxy. The kit zimm was OK but the seam lines on the upper front armor had a nasty seam that needed filling. I created a small tool to match the pattern, patched it up as best I could and then covered it with a tarp. Still in progress are the tow cables and misc hardware. Realized now I need to add the zimm to the rear lower hull. I also think there is an additional box on top of the larger box. Or, the box has a weid shape.

Some of you might have seen this at Nats w/o the base a figure. I've been working on this off and on since August. Base Kit the Tamiya Steyr 1500 I picked up for a song at a local convention. The MG151 Drilling from the AFV Club 251/21 kit was originally planned for the 6x6 build but I decided against it. The trailer is from the unused pieces in the Dragon Flakpanzer 38 "Gepard" which again, I picked up for a pretty decent price at a local convention. Each of these on their own are nice enough kits, but I wanted to build something more unique. The figure is an old Warriors figure with some mods and painted with acrylics.

Thanks a lot everyone. :D If I ever find myself buckeled into a missile, noise levels would be the last thing I'd worry about. The top of my list would how the heck do I get out of this thing?!

Thanks all. It was quite a learning experience painting and weathering the OD.

Normally I build SciFi - Maschinen Krieger to be specific, but for the last year I've been very interested in Military Models. This is my latest project. The 1/35 Tamiya GMC 6x6 with the Bronco V-1 Flieseler. I used a minimum of PE on the 6x6 as the kit didn't really need it. The V1 has a detailed cockpit but you'll never see it. Figures are Verlinden with some head swaps. Models are painted with Tamiya Acrylics, weathered with oil paints, MIG Pigments, and AK enamels. Figures are painted with Vallejo Model Color. Cheers, Bryan Additional images can be found here: Tamiya 1/35 CCKW 353

My current MaK project. I started working on this at WaffleFest in December. It's a manned recon version of the Nutcracker in the flavor of the 222 and 232 WWII German armored cars. You can see the build log here: sPKH 103/9

Thanks guys. Glad you like it.

I finally made some recent progress on my Frigo model that I wanted to share. First the the box art. Isn't that too cool. The kit is from Ankama aka Walter, an artist, illustrator and garage kit designer. The resin kit is very straightforward with not too many parts. I chose to paint mine like a late 60s early 70s automobile. But I didn't want a classy finish, so i found this beautiful beast as inspiration And this is where I'm at The rust is a little bright right now but will be toned down with additional oils and some dust on the lower sections and wheels. Thanks for looking. More info on the kits can be found here: http://futuristicmodelkit.blog135.fc2.com/

That's the trouble with Tribbles, you never know where they'll show up. Great snack food though.

Mark, Gil, Kevin- Thanks guys. This is my first post here, so thanks for the warm welcome. Kevin - Yeah, part of my motivation is to show that sci-fi models don't have to look all "sci-fi-y" does that makes sense.? By applying "realistic weathering" and placing them in a familiar setting, a sci-fi kit becomes more acceptable to those that wouldn't normally look at these things. My other motivation is that the designs are so cool I plan to keep building them for quite a while. Considering the kit stash, good thing I don't plan on changing genres soon. I apply the finishes of many differ genres to my kits, so I guess it all goes round and round.

I was pretty excited when I heard that Hasegawa was going to release a 1/35 Nutcracker(Nutrocker) hover tank from the SF3D/Maschinen Krieger series. I was even more excited when I starting seeing photos of it and the sprues at the trade shows. Needless to say, when the kit arrived, I wasted no time in putting it together. It took me about 10 months between home projects to complete but I am finally posting pictures of the Nutcracker. A brief history - The Nutcracker is from the scifi series SF3D/Maschinen Krieger created by Kow Yokoyama. It is an unmanned automated hover tank designed to fill in a weapon gap while the SDR where fighting the Mercenary Army. If you need a SF3D/MaK refresher course, check this timeline The Nutcraker design originally appeared in 1982 as a 1/20 scale full scratchbuld in Hobby Japan magazine. Nitto released a 1/76 scale version which was OK. There have since been numerous 1/35, 1/48, and even 1/20 scale resin garage kits but this is the first 1/35 injection molded kit of the NR. The kit goes together like a dream with a high part count to keep even tread heads happy. I only replaced a few items with mesh and wire and added some additional details because I was having fun with it. Additional images and Build Diary can be found here: 1/35 Nutcracker