Tamiya 1/35 Leopard 2 A6

Hello there beautiful people.

Well, here comes yet another finished kit from me. This time, I will be adding a rather classic and popular vehicles; the Leopard2. The kit, as you can see from the title, is Tamiya. I guess everybody already knows about the vehicle and kit so I am not going to write about them. 

The kit was a gift from a dear friend, the name is Bret and goes by Mech Tech on our Mecha Lounge Forum. Thank you dear Bret for giving me this kit. It would have cost me nearly £40 if I have to buy one myself. As a sign of gratitude, I sent him a Zvezda T-90. He really loves it.

This gal is painted in Nato Green, Nato Brown and Nato Black. Scheme is per the instruction and references per the Bundeswehr as I saw that all German Leo2s are painted in the same pattern.

As this is a gift, I wanted it to look unique but I know I can't do that so I tried to make it stand out. I was looking around for camo references and I saw all these Leos with heavy foliage on them which inspired me to put them on my Leo2 as well. The branches are made from wire (I don't know if that was bronze or copper or brass) and the leaves are bought from GreenLine Product and even though the colours are very toy-like, it looks pretty nice. I got an A6 size fret with 200 leaves on it. The camo net was made from bandage and a secret weapon - Parsley ( It stunk like hell after spending a whole bottle on the net). The long grasses which looks like whiskers ( as this a ''leopard'' ) are from Woodland Scenic.

I debated on how to weather it and I just decided to go crazy with dried mud. The mud was made by mixing my pigments into a big tub of plaster and then finally mixed with Vallejo Acrylic Resin to make clumps of dried mud. I always had problems with making clumps but I successfully made some on this one. 

The crew's face were painted with Vallejo colours and the uniform was with Tamiya colours. After talking with one of my good friend, Geeyan ( who is a good friend, albeit somewhat new, and a great modeller), we agreed we should sponge on the colours to put on the complicated flecktarn camo. Thanks to him, I finished the uniform very quickly and without too much mistakes. I have to admit it doesn't look perfect but it does look acceptable. 

The build was very enjoyable. 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
Part 6 

Well, that's about as much I can sum up about the build. The exact steps can be found in the 6-part W.I.P. 

I'm vary satisfied with what I did ( on the tank), albeit it could look better but still, I'm happy. I am however, very unhappy of the figures and the sorry state it is in. I do love the uniform though.

It's time for the photos - 

(If you think some are small, just click on them ) 

Close ups of the muds and wheels -

Close ups on the turret and the foliage -

The camo tapes on the barrel and the whiskers ( that's what I like to called the long grass on the nose )

The on-board tools - 

The Periscopes and sights -

The crew - 

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

And as usual from me -

To be honest, I am not particularly fond of some small hiccups on this. This is a bit of self-criticism from me: I was very impatient and some of the mud are very underdone. My figure painting skills still sucks (BIG TIME) but I'm painting more and more and getting the hang of it. I also noticed that I forgot to put on some fuel/oil stains.

I just hope the Bret loves what I did to this gal. Thank you so much Bret for your great gift. I couldn't keep building if not for my supporting friends and comrades. Thank you guys for always supporting me. Thank you dear readers for your patronage as well.

Until Next time

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W.I.P Tamiya Leopard 2 A6 - Part 6

Hello gents ..... 

I got myself here, the latest update to my Leo2 before I launch it ... 

I painted and finished the crew -

My figure painting skills sucks big time and almost all my previous figures had this very wide eyes. I can now put on eye-lids and these two didn't come out very wide-eyed although the skin tones are not that good yet. I have to admit, I'm slowly getting the hang of figure painting.

Those two figures will go on the tank like so -

The figures went though some surgery and modifications to get those pose.
After that, I went ahead and put in the Long Grass that I have bought and never managed to use it. 

From the way I put them up, they looks like whiskers to me ... A very happy coincidence.
I took a quick look and I thought the baskets could use some stuffs in them so I went ahead and put in some stuffs I bought from Value Gear -

Another quick look made me rather dis-satisfied with a lack of foliage on the rear of the turret. Thus, with a lot of moaning and whining to myself for having to do more tedious stuffs, I braved through and put these on and was satisfied - 

After that, it was time to get dirty. Literally. My hands and Tshirt were stained brown from all those pigments.
I tried plaster for the first time to get some nice clumps of mud/earth. I mixed plaster and pigments and acrylic resins and I got really nice hard clumps. 

So, that's about it folks.... this is the end of this work in progress. I need to go over a few small touch ups and after that, I will launch it. The finished photoshoot will up in a day or two ( or even later as I'm busy these days ) 

Thanks for the supports and encouragements on this WIP.

Until the next update guys...

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