Trumpeter 1/35 E-75 '' Retaking Berlin '

Hello All and all hello ...

Right ... so I got a new finished kit to show you dear readers. In all honesty, I am so stressed and will be until the 11th of September. I have a minimum of 18,000 words dissertations to write and I only done like 10,000 words on it, therefore; I AM FREAKING OUT. To calm down, I finished up this E-75 and took photos the other day and now, finally posting about it.

As u all know, there is only one E-75 kit available in 1/35 and it has been widely reviewed by better modellers so I don't think any special introduction or mini-review is necessary.

I wanted to go crazy with the paint scheme as this is a paper panzer but I cannot go over the words of she-who-must-be-obeyed ( only girlfriend in my case, no wife yet :P ). Girlfriend said she wants to see this in dark green and dark yellow. I tried negotiating for olive green as you all know olive green is far more correct but she didn't budge from dark green. I dare not cross her, therefore, dark green it is. Haha. I used Revell Aqua (Acrylic) Dark Green thinned with the fantastic all-around acrylic thinner from Ultimate Modelling Product. The dark yellow is a mix of Tamiya Dark yellow and other yellows and brown that I could find as I was running dangerously low with Dark Yellow.

The addition of the add-on armour was greatly influenced by my Facebook friend by the name of Jason Lim. He does amazing customised vehicles and day in day out, I am inspired by him to also customised my vehicles. Take a moment and visit his blog here - LINK. The 12.8cm is influenced by the none other than the cursed game Worlds of Tank and Adam Wilder's E-75 with the 10.5cm.

The added on mesh armours were made from Eduard P.E. Mesh sheet and Ever Green Stryene Channels ( or angular U ). The P.E meshs were cut to size, the channels super glued on and used the same channels for legs (for want of better words) which ends were superglued on. The rust effects are done by first spraying the Vallejo black primer and then sponging the Rust tones from darkest to lightest. Vallejo Panzer Aces rust tones were used.  

For weathering, I wanted to show a vehicle gone through very harsh fightings pushing back the Russians advance so I made it all beat up and chipped drastically. For finish, I wanted to show a vehicle involved in retaking Berlin so I put on a lot of dusts and debris as can be expected from urban fighting. 

I also put on some wood applique armour on the lower glacis plate. I used the actual wood from the ice lollies sticks ( whatever they are correctly called as I can't remember the correct term right now). 

It's time for the photos - 
(If you think some are small, just click on them ) 

 

The running gears -

And here are the parts I added on to customised it -

 

 

 

The wood planks armour that I added on -

(I hope you can see the actual wood grains )

The dust and debris from heavy fighting -

The on-board tools and the cable -

The exhaust -

And as usual, my show case photos from various angles -

And as usual from me -

Well, that's all I can say about this. With hindsight, I should never have made the gun look too long. I wanted to show a sizable length to depict the awesome firepower of the 12.8cm Pak44 but I messed up with measurement when attempting to adapt the metal barrel to the Mantlet.

I wanted to go for the HobbyBoss KingTiger Indi-tracks but since they would cost me a further £7 ( Posted ), I just opted out of it. I do regret that decision as the indi-tracks would have look much better than the vinyl I used out of the box.

I also totally forgot to put on welding seams where the legs of the armours meet the hull and turret. Lord, I feel like banging my head against the wall for forgetting such important stuff. 

Another one I have to nitpick is that I should have put chippings on the woods to show the actual wood underneath. Now, it just looks silly without any chippings.

Apart from these four points, I am absolutely happy with this baby. It looks means and it looks unique ( well, even if a little ) by the addition of the Mesh armours. This is one baby I will be proud to have on my shelf or another one shelf should anybody would buy it as I have plans to sell it ).

Speaking of selling, I am selling some of my built models so if any of you are interested, shoot me an offer on ebay -
http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/romance6688
Internationals are welcomed as well but most likely have to be communicated via email and paypal as I did not turn on international shipping on ebay. So shoot me an offer on ebay or from email if anybody's interested.

Thank you guys for always supporting me. Thank you dear readers for your patronage as well.

Until the next post. 

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W.I.P - JGSDF Type 87 AW - Part 3

Alright... update has been long due for this one.. I do apologize as I have been busy lately ...  This was the sate of the vehicle I left off -  So carrying forward from that, I put on whatever I need to put on on the turret. I started with the sides, this is the left -  and this is the right -  All the little parts I had to put on are shown with the red lines. With the sides done, I moved to the back. The kit comes with option for plastic or etch for these steps so I decided to use the etch for the great details they provide - I then put on these three little parts in preparation for the complicated build up of the radar equipments - I followed that up with the main hatch -  The min hatch comes quite detailed with some interior details and a hatch handle inside and outside. The downside, however, is that the hatch can only be open to a maxim of this - I thought of putting in some figures but since the hatch can't swing all the way to the back, I'm not gonna bother. With that done, I decided to work on the 2nd most tedious build of this kit ( after the radar ).  I started with this round slab base thingy that the gun and the gun base sits on- If you are building this kit, be very mindful when you glue this two parts together. The little edges which I have shown with the lines should sit nice and tight like in the photo. There is a tendency for either end to pop out and result in a boo-boo set up. I had to try for 4 times until I finally get it right.  Next, I built the housing ( let's just call it that for convenience's sake ) for the gun breech and ammo feed. It went up quite quickly and simply but I realize it need a bit of filling and cleaning - IF you are building this, be very mindful of the attachment points, gaps and seam lines I have shown.  After that, I put on the little bibs-and-bobs details on the housing. These are very small pieces so be very carefully as they will ( and had, in my case ) fly off the tweezers. Followed up by gluing the two halves of the gun barrel. The gun barrels are too flimsy so be very careful when taking off the sprues - The two halves joined -  and apparently, when glued to the housing, it seems to be bent - I did my best to softly bend it the other way by heating it up getting it near a warm light bulb and used a very little amount of force. After that, I put on ten little hooks which put so much of a strain on my eyes - And this is how the whole gun assembly looks. All that left is to put the housing into the turret and glue it on. Right. here comes the tricky part; installing the guns into the turret.  If you look at the photo - the little extruding part that you see on the slope is on the way of a direct insertion of the large round base of the gun housing so it has to be installed in a certain way. The bottom part of the round base has to be facing the front just like I have shown in the photo. If you just randomly put in the round base, you risk the chance of breaking the little extruding parts.  You then bring the bottom surface of the gun base back down like so -  Thus, I have avoided a situation where I will end up with a broken detail. Had I knew this beforehand, I would have put on the little details only after I put on the gun bases. ( Talk about people only caring for WW2 stuffs and other mainstream modern AFVs and doing only build reviews on such kits and completely ignoring this kind of vehicles :/ ) And I'm sure you guys have noticed that I haven't put on the gun housing on the base.I find it the most easiest to do so by not having the guns housing over these bases.  After putting on the other side of the base and gluing the attachment point in the middle, I put on the gun housing on the bases. The gun housings needed a lot of care when gluing or you risk gluing on mis-matched angles of the guns - Make sure the two guns are level and at the same angle. They elevate and depress at the same angle so they have to be levelled. With that done, this is how it looks now. Totally in love with this baby. It looks like a love-child between a mecha and a tank. LOVE IT.

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