Global Scale Modeller

Was going to build this with my Abrams but it's not going to work. So until my new vehicle shows up, I'll do a practice run here.


Have some ideas on this, but for now I'll just see how this plays out.

Being completely oblivious... Why won't it work?

Just read your Abrams thread... I can see clearly now....

You can divide this vehicle in three parts, lower chassis, the interior body, and the shell. This makes up steps 1-10 of the 26 steps. Went together perfectly. And four hours of work, well not really work, more like four hours of helping my son with his school work, a swim break, throw in a couple of beers and this is the end result.

Very nice.
I love that detail.

A breeze putting this together. Never built something with wheels before, and I am kind of digging this build.




So I pulled a picture off the Internet from Desert Storm circa 1991. That is a Humvee, and the tank is a U.S. built M60A3 used by the Saudis (even today) no reflective armor, just the basic tank. This tank happens to be the same as the one I have in my stash. So maybe I can work this into something. I even have the signs...

I love the look of that kit!!
So much so that I've gone shopping... It's all your fault.
Looks really good bud. Crazy to paint though.

Couldn't ask for a better fitting model - just perfect fit every step of the way. Total blast to build. Lots of detail and suitable for all levels. Here is the compleated build:




Here's how it really looks before the painting.

That's Tamiya for you... fits fits and more fits.
It looks soo cool.
Lots to paint though.

Coen wrote:That's Tamiya for you... fits fits and more fits.
It looks soo cool.
Lots to paint though.

Have to be honest with you here, I am optimistic about the paint job. A couple of epic books arrived in my mail on Friday, and I've about finished one of the - I think it was you who recommended them, Tank Art - I picked up volume 2 and 4 - looking forward to this next part.

Okay was able to get the primer applied this morning. Yes - you are seeing this photo right, I did use different colors of primer - there is a method to my maaaadnessss (evil laugh follows.....).

Makes total sense to me.. I see an experiment in chipping on the horizon.

Coen wrote:Makes total sense to me.. I see an experiment in chipping on the horizon.

correct you are young Jedi.

Yep, interior color is the ole cockpit interior color, since I never plan on building a thing with wings again figure I had to use it up somehow. Look I know the "official" color of interior is slightly darker - like a bomber green, but this is close and it will lighten up the interior somewhat making it easier to see inside.


Then the base coat is a NATO green. I know what yer thinkn "did he fire six shots or only five, and in all this action I lost track mysel....wait yea, so Desert Storm 1991, "shouldn't this bad boy be a sand yellow color". Maybe. But in researching I discovered a lot of pictures of Humvees in DS that looked to me as though they were green underneath and had been quickly painted desert. Even troops in interviews kept saying things like, " we were in Europe training to fight Russian forces over the European planes, and next thing I knew I was on a transport to the Middle East. So equipment was moved out of Europe to the desert very quickly, thus, I am making an educated guess here, their equipment was NATO colors and was painted over in desert colors.


Did a double coat of hairspray on the primer colors before painting.

Looking cool mate.

The logical thing here is to do the interior first, as it can be sealed with little effort. You can see I have painted the interior roof in a flat white color (which I will most likely turn into a gloss or semi-gloss). Again going to give up the "realism" aspect in exchange for light in the interior. It will help brighten the interior of the vehicle, and will not be noticeable unless you're looking for it.




Oh and my advise for any other builders of this kit, don't glue the front seats in until after you paint the interior- for some reason I can not get my airbrush to do a figure 8, combined with snaking around a loop upside down...you get the point.

Did a light chipping on the interior and outer shell.

Experiment success! Looks chipped to me.
Nice work.

Did a weathering on the inside, used some clay wash, very sparsely on inside doors and a few other key areas. Threw some storage in there to see if it is something I should do but since it has a hard shell you cant see inside, so why waste stowage on a cave?



Here is the clay wash, put it on, wait, damp cotton bud and wiper off.


Tape the interior off for the next coat of paint- the real color.

Mixed desert sand and a couple drops of white on this color.


Now I'll chip this slightly, and it should, finger crossed, have a nice effect.

So now I've done my second HS chipping, I have two colors showing through here , and I am freaking loving the results baby!


















And that's it for today.

So rather than using the decals provided, I wanted my - I don't know I guess they're called NATO marking- to be more hand painted on- that's what I did:



The result:


View of the undercarriage:

Here's where I screwed up, I didn't seal the paint with a gloss coat around the main body of the vehicle, so I applied the Ultimate sand wash and when I started taking it off all hell broke loose. Huge areas of paint were coming off. So I carefully removed what I could :

And here you can see how bad things look.

I should have documented this next part better, I repainted the vehicle in a "dust" coat of the sand color as you see here:

The using a lacquer thinner, very small amount I chipped this new layer again as it was quite flat looking and I wanted to get back down to the primer and basecoat layers. I'll post pictures of my results tomorrow because now I am going to the Great American Beer Festival - living in Denver ROCKS!

This morning - yes up bright and early - I was thinking this Humvee is headed for the status of Shelf Queen. See I dont want to couple it with a tank or anything like that, nor do I want to build another Humvee in the near future - so maybe I could come up with a quick diorama. Here's the problem with the whole Desert Storm thing, go look at the pictures, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Western Iraq and what do you see? Nothing! Sand, and sand, and nothing - it's even flat. So building a diorama presents a unique challenge, have to have that desert but should have some ground feature to add interest to the model.

Swung by the ole Home Depo this morning and picked up some stuff...


Let me put this junk together real quick like for you:





You're starting to see the whole vision now... the Texas Tea pipeline. Those pipes are what this whole thing was about anyway and they are about the only thing in those deserts besides the sand.

I'll go ahead and prime that tube up with a red primer, throw on a base coat of my go to choice Pre-mixed tile Grout, I'll doctor up that pipe holder somewhat to make it look more "real" - and will throw on on powder tile grout in a super light color to depict sand.

Wowzers that's great man, props for the custom painted markings. Can't wait to see it finished

Inching towards the end zone here, just a few more details and some time to reflect on this piece. You get a good idea here of what is happening.

Amazing I spent about thirty minutes this morning on this, and I really need to work on those pigments - still.






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I think this build is stalling on me, for some reason I can't figure out what is going on, so going to shelf this for a week or so and get started on my American Muscle Tank!

Okay I am pinching pennies here and just do not want to spend more money on another Humvee - so like a lot of my early build models - I've decided to re-work this humvee so I can use it in my American Built Muscle tank diorama.

First, I took off all the clear parts - which was easy actually. Then very carefully I took apart the larger body parts of the model. Only breaking a single rear view mirror, and the antenna (easy to replace).

Here are the main parts I need to re-work - and by that I mean I am going to re-paint this to fit into the same color palette as the Black Flack M1A1 SEP avec Tusk II.

Cleaned off most of the pigments, and re-primed the unit in a grey (my new favorite primer color). Applied some hairspray. After a day I then painted it using a mix of grey, buff and deck tan - GDI just the best desert color if you ask me!

Light chipping next -

Looking good!

Still feeling much shame.

Coen wrote:Still feeling much shame.

Think of all the money you saved me. Honestly I think it looks better already. And it's going to fill in that empty space well.

Okay chipped this baby nice and light like - and then sealed it so I dont make the same mistake as the last time I was working on this unit - no paint coming off this time!







The good news is I didn't use the makings last time - so Ill be able to apply those next.

Hey you know what the great news is about this? I find that a lot of great model builders (I am not one by the way) but you see them always re-painting their models, re-working them - kind of a different angle on this hobby - actually kind of satisfying in fact.

The title basically states it all, decals, windows installed, and applied a filter with my airbrush.

Decided to open that hatch and now I have to paint another dude.



See that rear window, the only mess up on windows, last time I built this I had that window half open, but it doesn't fit. I told the boys to put in a work order for a new window so I have this covered.

Hey check it out Humvees and Hetzer are the same size!

Here is where I stand now:






Pigment only are left-

Still very cool looking stuff bud. Love the look of that hummer.
Something about those big dirty knobby tires... Whoa... may have shared a bit too much there... still... COOOL!!!