AlcatrazLogan

Detail Painting – Part I In between some other commitments which have been keeping me busy I’ve been doing a little detail painting. It’s been slow going as I’ve mostly been hung up on painting the tracks and the rubber rims on the road wheels. Thanks to the tips and suggestions offered up to me across a couple of forums I’m now back on track... no pun intended. When detail painting I like to use Vallejo Model Color and Vallejo Panzer Aces as they’re both very brush friendly and rich in colour too. Of course Revell Aqua Color and Games Workshop paints stand by to fill in wher

I wonder, would anyone have tips on painting realistic tank tracks? I'm fairly certain the T-80 has metal tracks and I want to pull off the right look with them.

Hairspray Technique I’m back and with another update although I wasn’t sure I’d make it this week. I spent a busy weekend at the IPMS Ireland Nationals and was quite chuffed to win a medal in the competition. Unfortunately I also contracted a pretty build cold that built up over the weekend so that by Sunday evening I was feeling terrible. I’m still trying to shake the cough. During my last update I said that I was going to apply a matt coat to the T-80 before proceeding. I wanted to do this in order to seal in my previous attempt at using hairspray. I used Vallejo Matt Varnish s

Forced Contrast In painting the T-80 I’m trying to follow the techniques layed out in the Braille Scale Modelling eBook and the first one on the list is Forced Contrast. Forced Contrast is a little like pre-shading on an aircraft. The idea is to put down a dark basecoat before your main colour. When you begin putting down the main colour you work from the centre of panels, or other logical areas, and slowly airbrush out to the edges. If all goes right you should be left with dark edges which provide a semblance of depth, shadow and contrast. Before I continue I should mention thi

Prime Details Another small update from myself and this time there is some paint involved. Halfords Grey is my primer of choice at the moment. It’s a nice clear shade of grey and the can is very generous in size. I’ve used Humbrol primer in the past but the can is very small for the price locally and just runs out to fast. I’ve also used Games Workshop primer in the past but I’ve found it to be very fumy and my apartment isn’t greatly ventilated. After attaching the wire which, as it turns out, is not actually wire but tinsel I was afraid the turret and hull would come out looki

I'm lucky in that my fingers are not too thick but I do have a bad habit of dropping things... a lot. It's a good thing I work over a tile floor. Stowage Option I Although most pictures of Russian tanks in action would indicate a distinct lack of external stowage I may have found two pictures that are the exception to the rule. # Picture One # Picture Two Now the second picture is a real interesting one. In fact if you had the room it might make for an interesting diorama. I think I’ll save a copy of it actually. Anyway, as you can see from the picture both the tank and the

Picking Up Some Goodies I’ve got a small update here for you guys, just to show off a few things I recently picked up for the diorama build. When I couldn’t find the set of Chechen rebels I was after I had another look online and found this set from Armory. It’s a trio of modern Russian tankers and they look quite good in person. There’s a bit of flash and a few mould lines but otherwise the detail is fantastic. Subsequently I’ve had a slight rethink of my diorama idea. Rather than going for the classic ambush scene that I was planning on befor

Detailing the T-80 Based on this picture here I noticed the T-80 has some thick cables running across the turret to the smoke dischargers and the searchlight. I thought that was an interesting feature on the tank that I could replicate so I went online to see what I could find in the way of fine wire. Sure enough you can buy fine copper wire in small diameter from companies like Eureka XXL but then I thought to myself I could probably find something just as good locally. First I checked the website of my local art supply shop and came up empty. Then, for whatever reason, it clicked that

That is a beautiful collection, absolutely stunning work.

Turret – Part II Onwards and upwards with the T-80’s turret: In the above set of pictures you’re pretty much looking at everything provided in the kit for the turret minus the snorkel and machine gun. I think you would agree that it is pretty bare looking. It’s not totally without merit though; the gunners hatch can be posed open and the interior detail is nice for this scale. Also the various vision blocks around the turret also look pretty nice. I suppose it is worth clarifying the different T-80’s available from Revell. I have the old T-80 from 1995 which is a direct copy of

Turret - Part I Since the T-54 Russian tanks have featured a characteristic dome shaped turret. I think a lot of people refer to it as a mushroom shape but I think it looks more like the head of rivet. Anyway, the T-80 features a similar shape most of the way around the turret. The back of the T-80’s turret is vertical but Revell\Matchbox have it a more an angle which is incorrect according to a review I’ve read. You could work at reshaping this part but I’ll decline; I have more than enough work cut out for more trying to reshape the front end of an A-10 Warthog at t

I've run into a bit of wall in regards the figures for the diorama. I had originally planned on getting these, a set of Chechen Rebels from Orion, but I'm finding them hard to source at a reasonable price. I'm also finding it hard to source any alternatives. There's seems to be a lack of modern Russian figures in 1/72nd at the moment and a definite lack of anyone holding an RPG. In fact the closest I've come to finding a set of figures with RPG's is an Italeri set of Viet Cong but somehow I doubt the Chechen's would be running around the snow in shorts! I'm appealing for help here guys; I'm

Well I’m back and I have some pictures. Upper Hull There isn’t really a lot of work to be done to the upper hull; most of it is already moulded in. For example along each side of the tank you can see the storage boxes already in place. The various tools you usually find on a tank are, I presume, stored inside the box so you don’t need to add any to tank. Before the upper hull and lower hull are joined together there are a few bits and pieces to add on. These include the drivers hatch and the front headlights; both can be glued into place from beneath the hull which is a

I'm starting to think the same. Someone else on another forum suggested I look at a few wartime pictures, which I honestly should've done to begin with, and I'm not seeing the extra tanks in use so I'm just going to leave them off.

Alright, so I can't upload any pictures for the next week but I can still make a small post and ask a few questions. You'll often see Russian tanks carrying extra fuel in the form of two fuel barrels mounted on the rear of the vehicle. In reality my tank would presumably be no different as it would be on extended operations in Chechnya; that extra fuel would come in handy. However after examining the external fuel tanks on my T-80 kit I'm not very satisfied. The barrels come in two halves and the overall join is poor in my opinion. First of all there are several strips of banding that wra