Trumpeter 1/35 T-80BVD: A freak version of a T-80

Good day to you dear readers.. Hope you readers having a good day and all is well with you guys.

Yes, this is the T-80 that I have been building so slowly for about 2 months. Finally took some times off to take photos of this.

For a detail review of the kit, please refer to my review post I made for this - LINK. 

I have purposely taken off the fuel drums as I think this baby looks better without them. I also took off the cables ... well.. just because. I have no reason for taking off the tow cables LOL.

For the Colours, I used Tamiya Dark Green XF-70, Vallejo Air Black and Mr. Colour Aqueous Aircraft Gray H57. My choice of green was poor as you can see very obviously that it is too dark. It would have been acceptable just by itself but after I put on the Black patterns, it interacted with the dark green and made the green darker. Had I known that would happen, I would have used a lighter green or made the dark green a bit lighter. OH well.......

For weathering, I kept the entire vehicle clean, free of chippings and collected dust. Since this is a prototype ( according to what I have read at Armorama ), I wanted to put this in a scenario where they are testing out performance with the diesel engine on a relatively new vehicle. I was tired of making caked and solid mud and earth ( dry and wet ) so I thought of the kind of weathering I haven't done and I figured out that I haven't put on any kind of muddy water weathering. 

Deciding on what kind of setting I want my weathering to show, I ponder for a bit on what product to use and my eyes felled on a half empty bottle of AK earth effect. So, I put some in the airbrush, lightly spray them onto the bigger parts and made a heavy spray near the edges of the skirts and the front rubber flaps. Once dried, I apply some more heavy amount of it by mean of brush to make more convening random effect of a surface stained by muddy water. Once fully satisfied, I took a glance on to the surface and applied some pledge( AKA future/Klear ) floor polish in the nooks and crannies of the ERA blocks on the very front hull to depict still wet waters trapped in them.


I made a full account of the W.I.P in the previous posts and you are welcome to look over at them if you are curious about how well the kit goes together. Actually, let me make a list here for the Work in Progress posts -

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

This is one of the few kits that I am absolutely happy with what I did. I did have to nitpick about some boo-boos but the enjoyment and seeing it finished far weight the boo-boos

It's time for the photos - 
(Just click on the smaller ones and they will pop out )

The running gears -

 Some of the mud splashes and splatters- 

Some random close ups -

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

 

And as usual from me -

This is not one of my best works but my experiment with the enamel wash only weathering was a bit of a success. I been wanting to try muddy water stains rather than caked mud ( dry or wet) and this is quite satisfactory.

If I have to nick pick - I aboslutely hate that splatter on the left side of the front hull upper slope. It just doesn't look right. I thought it looked right but in hindsight, it doesn't. OH well.. what's done is done.

Learning from my ZSD-90, I tackled the white frosty finish of the infernal Matt varnish by rubbing them of with a brush that is very lightly wet with mineral spirit. Even still, there is some of these stupid unwanted effects still left on some places of the turret and the hatches.

Thirdly, I forgot to paint the convoy light's clear red over their silver base so it looks like the convoy lights are just normal white lenses instead of red lenses. 

Fourth, I am not happy with the condition of the green as I have stated above. 

Apart from these four points, I am really happy with this baby. The vehicles look just lovely and this is a milestone in my skills in applying .  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.

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W.I.P - Trumpeter 1/35 T-80BVD; Part 5

Alright ... last update on this baby gal -

Now that I have finished painting, it was time for the pin wash. Doing pin wash on this wasn't exactly a quick job. So many surface details.
Per the suggestion of a talented modeller who goes by the name of Coen, I used Burnt Umber for the pin wash colour.









Being tired of making too many kits with clumps of mud; dry or wet, I decided to weather this gal in a setting where it is stained with muddy water rather then mud itself.

First, I applied AK's Earth effect via airbrush -






The very stained front portion of the tank was brush painted with the same effect. Mud splatters have been added by speckling a brush loaded with the effect wash with a skewer stick and by blowing air onto the brush.

After that, I thinned the MIG pigments '' Dry mud '' with tamiya thinner, draw some streakings and wipe them off with my fingers so that only some fade effect is left. This is to show the dried streakings of muddy water on the side.









I'm pretty sure I might have to spray some more AK's earth effect on top of the streakings which I will do so later.
As this point, I have already painted the vision ports, and the machine gun along with a very light black smoke effect underneath the exhaust.

So this is it. This wip has now come to a close. I will take the showcase photos later on and put up a finished product gallery very soon.

Thanks for the supports through out the build.

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W.I.P - Trumpeter 1/35 T-80BVD; Part 4

Right ... up date is due on this baby. Haven't touched it for a long time. I been on a vacation with sister and family friends.

Works continued on the Turret.
Last time, I left things here -


Before I work on it, I had some almost empty bottle of green paints so while cleaning them, I decided to spray all those green on the turret as a mean to serve as a primer so you will see a very light green painted turret on this update .

Anyway, I started putting on some of the things I need to put on.
This is the turret left side -


The search light at this point has no lenses install so as to make masking easier. The gunner sight comes closed which would be a PITA for some people who like to show the sights open but I don't mind; less masking job for me.

This is the turret back top -
I don't know what is that little thing is; it kind of looked like a speaker or a ventilator. The instruction calls for the little P.E parts to be closed but after careful dry fitting, I found out I can leave it open so I left it open as you can see from the photo. On top is the back search light ( or is it a convoy light? a little big for a convoy light no ? )


Turret left back -
I put on the last of the little box that we see on T-80s ( this is the third and last one on this T-80 version) along with a larger storage box on the turret rack.


Come backing to the front left again -
I put on the shade or cover for the gunner sight. I think this is the direct sight. Care was exercised not to overly apply the CA glue to avoid a very messy attachment. 


After that, I moved on to the Commander Hatch and the RWS.
The whole thing is a quite complicated and it strained my eyes to the braking point. Luckily, having build the Zvezda T-90's commander hatch and MG, this is nothing. After about 3 swear/curse filled hours, I finally got it - 


Back top view of the hatch and gun -


At this point, you will notice that I haven't put on the MG ammo box. I'm still thinking should I or should I not put on the ammo box at all.

After that, i moved on to the last piece I need to put on the turret; the big light ( is it IR or normal light or switch-able?) on the right side of the gun -


and Last but not least, the front lights. Again, no lenses are install so as to make masking easier. 


Finally happy and confirming with the manual that I have nothing more to put on, I masked all the running gears and tracks and started painting.

Firstly , I gave it a blast of Tamiya Dark Green for base coat -


After that, I sprayed on Aircraft Grey from Mr. Hobby Aqueous -

The airfact grey I used is glossy but once I flat coated it, there shouldn't be a problem.

And Finally, finished off with VMA Black.


Since I am a very lazy guy and couldn't be bothered to mask, there were over-sprays but nothing a few precise re-spray of the previous colour couldn't fix. 

And that's that. Almost complete. Next step is the weathering. Stay tuned for more. Thanks for reading.

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