I built some armor.
I’ve always been an aircraft builder. Mostly World War II aircraft. Even when I was modeling as a teen, I stuck to aircraft mostly. I had built Monogram’s M4 Sherman Hedgehog years ago, but other than that, I stuck to aircraft.
But when I was at my favorite hobby shop, Hayes Hobby House in Fayetteville, NC, and my son said he wanted to build some armor, I decided to join him.
One thing that did intimidate me as I looked over the targets…. er…. tanks… was the thought of gluing together several gazillioin track parts. As I pondered that, I spotted some armor with wheels- an armored car. The price wasn’t bad, and the scale was something I was familiar with- 1/48th. So I grabbed the box to take a look at it- Tamiya’s M8 Greyhound. Though I didn’t know much about its history, I did look like a cool little kit. Before you can say “Credit or debit?”, it was in a bag, riding along with me as we headed to the house.
The kit was everything I’d expect from Tamiya…. darn near perfect. The worst complaint I have about it is the choice of how some sprue attachments were engineered…. and if that is the worst you can come up with, it’s a darn good kit.
Not having built armor in many moons, I went over the instructions and planned out the build sequence. It became appearent this was no airplane. I realized it was pretty much build the kit, paint it, and weather it.
I did assemble and finish the turret interior first… almost called it the “cockpit”…. but the rest I just built up. The only thing that I did not build before painting was the fenders, as test fitting showed the tires would not fit if the fenders were glued on. But masking and painting them after painting the kit seemed to be a problem. So I glued the fenders on with white glue, and painted the tires seperate. Once all the parts had their basic painting done, I popped off the fenders, glued the wheels and fenders back on, and began the weathering process.
I started with various shades of OD, trying to create a fairly random appearence to the paint. I follwed with a sludge wash, then hit it with a coat of Future. I made an attampt at the dot filter method- using artists tube paints to create a more weathered appearance. All my attempts ended up looking like I’d done nothing, or that the M8 was sponsored by Wonder Bread. So I skipped that…. maybe next time.
I crushed up some pastels and powdered things down pretty heavy. Somehow it mostly seemed to disappear. I did sneeze once or twice…. so maybe that explains it.
Looks like I need more practice weathering armor.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the build up to the weathering, I followed one of my rules of modeling- when it gets frustrating, put it aside, or finish it. Since it was close enough to the end to call done, I hit it with some Pollyscale Flat and called it a day.
I’ll certainly build more armor. This was a nice little kit, and I had fun building it. I do think I’ll move up to 1/35th scale…. 1/48th armor just seems to have too many small parts. But I’d certainly recommend this kit to anyone- it is a little gem.
So I’ve dabbled in “the dark side”, as I see armor building called on so many forums. 🙂 I’m certainly not going to give up aircraft, and the Spitfire is still at the top of my list. But I will be building more targets!
