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Tamiya Leclerc with baracuda netting


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Hello,

This is my first tank build in a very long time. I built it as a break from aircraft and what a break it was! I know the result is miles behind what real armour guys do but it was great to build something I do not know anything about, and to be able to hide mistakes with mud if required :)/>

It was by far my fastest build in years, having taken two months overall. The idea was to replicate the Leclerc in desert camo nets, which I have never seen in scale:

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I used Tamiya's kit (35279) along with the Voyager set (35073), which is great value for money. The aim of the build was to learn three new skills:

_How to make baracuda camo netting

_How to paint a camo free-hand (i.e. no masking involved)

_How to weather an MBT in the desert

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Please let me know what you think, I'm keen to improve as

_I can still change things

_I have an Abrams and a Merkava IIID lined up after this one ;)/>

Many thanks in advance,

Arnaud

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I forgot to mention the camo nets were cut out of thick kitchen aluminium foil using a Silhouette Portrait, perfect for this kind of stuff! Took a while to get the shapes and pattern right though :)

Arnaud

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Nice work :thumbsup: ! I love the barracuda camouflage netting. I have a Canadian Leopard that I would like to do in such netting as seen in Afghanistan ops. You mention that it was made from aluminum foil, but how did you replicate the individual cuts in the netting? What is "Silhouette Portrait"? I am intrigued as yours looks quite good and is far cheaper then aftermarket netting.

Thanks for sharing and happy modeling!

Regards,

Don.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Don. The Silhouette Portrait is a cutting machine: you design the cuts you want on their software and the machine cuts it, pretty much like a printer if you want.

Note that designing the nets to fit a particular tank is quite a bit of work, it's not an "easy" solution although it does give great results and flexibility. As a guestimate I would say it took ~20h to design the parts and 5h to cut them.

Hope this helps,

Arnaud

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  • 4 weeks later...

Nice result, Arnaud. The Leclerc is a beautiful machine. Interesting approach on the netting, How does the machine work? Once you do the cut designs, does it "print" them? Or do you have to do all the fine cuts by hand?

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The machine cuts it all for you, including the pattern :) Not a cheap machine but quite a lot of fun and possibilities (masks would be easy to make for example and are a typical application)

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