Trumpeter 1/35 JGSDF Type 87 AW

Good day to you dear readers.. Hope you readers having a good day and all are good. 

Now that I am satisfied with my line up of SPG, I decided to go for IFVs and SPAAGs and wheeled vehicles. I started my other fleets with this particularly beautiful and sci-fi looking vehicle from Japan.

This is one of two kit available in 1/35 for this vehicle, the other being an offering from Pit-Road, released locally in Japan solely with more decals offering. 

The kit cost somewhere around £29 something but I was lucky enough to get it for £18 + PP. 
For a detail review of the kit, please refer to my review post I made for this - LINK. 

I painted this beautiful gal in Tamiya JGSDF Brown and Dark Green. As I have painted the Type 90, Type 10 and the Type 99 with the Tamiya colours, I am more comfortable with those colours. Tamiya JGSDF could use a mix of dark green in it to make it look more closer to the actually green but meh. I'm not that much of a rivet counter anyway. 

For weathering, I kept it rather clean apart from the various shades of mud and many streakings. I am very very weak in making streakings and since this baby offer a lot of nicely angled surfaces, I though I'd give streakings another try. I used a grey colour streaking wash which I applied following a friend's suggestion; that is to streak them from bottom to up. I let it dry and apply another gloss and put on streakings that go top to bottom using oil; just one colour for the streakings and I used Naples Yellow. Before, I used to just draw a line of un thinned oil paint straight from the tube but this time, I squeezed it out a bit, put it in a palette and thinned it down a bit and used thinned down oil to draw the streakings rather than straight from the tube. That resulted in much much bettr streakings then my usual streakings as you can see. 

For weathering, I initially had no idea how to depict this but I have seen this vehicle in exercise in what seems to be a wet day of Japanese Autumn season. A quick check with my friend in Japan affirms me that in the transition from Summer to Autumn, the weather is dusty, humid and it rains. Therefore, I decided to show a lot of rain marks streakings with a layer of dusts on top. 


The chassis was bombarded with various colour of pigment for collected earth and soil. Dry mud alone is used on the wheels to just freshly dried mud. So was the tracks. The tracks were dry brushed with Vallejo Steel for the polished steel effects. The dust effect was something I never though I would use, oil paint thinned down to watery consistency. I soak a brush in it and dab the brush at the surface, let it dry and remove with white spirit when needed.

The tools are painted the camo colour on top of their wood colour as references photos shows just like so. The same goes for the tow cable.

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 -

The streakings and dust -

The lights and sights-

 

The pioneer tools - 

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

Since this is a vehicle with two guns, I cannot do my signature Gary Wintin shot ... how sad :(..... 

Well, that's all I can say about this. As you all know, my patience is my bane so the usual hiccups are met.  I could have done a better jobs on colouring the periscopes and some of the P.E works, most noticeably the underneath cover for the SGL.

If I have to nit-pick, there is only two I can -
First is the rear lights. I totally botched up the clear paintings for the lights and it ended up not as nice as the front lights.

2nd is the accumulated dust that I put on by a wash of oil paint. On some part, it looks nice but on some, particularly on the turret, it just looks rubbish. I don't why but I think it looks like rubbish... grrrr.... 

On second though, I just saw a third boo-boo. its a big one. I think I just saw a huge finger print on the front glacis.... damn it.. somebody kill me now... damn it .. "$%£$%$^&"%$£%

Be that as it may, I love this vehicle and I will always be happy looking at this regardless of those two boo-boos. And my freaking finger print. GRRRR. well, I will just fix it later with more thinned oil OR pigment dust.

Until next time. 

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A peek inside the box - Trumpeter 1/35 T-80BVD

When the T-80BV was announced by Trumpeter, I just can't help but be drawn to it due to its amazing looking turret set up. Something stayed my hands in getting it and so I waited and then suddenly, trumpeter released the T-80BVD. Being a guy that wants to go for the kit most people won't buy, I had to get my hands on the T-80BVD as it was obvious nobody even did any reviews ( as far as I have checked, I could be wrong).

For this one, I just can't find any inbox review or anything of the kind and I know people would be curious so I decided to do a inbox peek for this particular one.

 little information about this particular vehicle - Trumpeter name this as th T-80BVD but that is only half true. This is Basically a Ukrainian T-80UD with a Russian T-80BV ERA layout. The Engine deck and the external fuel tanks positions are from the Ukrainian T-80UD as well as the snorkelling device as some are aware that the snorkelling device on the russian T-80s are much larger and look different ( evident on the B, BV and U). A quick search on Armorama forum tells me that this is basically a kind of prototype the Ukrainian did which leads the development to the UD.

As you all know, I'm one of the guys who don't give a damn about how a side skirt of a tank is 2mm too short or too long or blah blah. So, I will just keep this as a look of what is inside the box and some very obvious pros and cons of the kit.

First we have a rather bad looking box-art. Why the artist decide to show the back, I will never know. Probably to point out the two fact I just made. 

That box is wide and a typical 1/35 model box and normal Trumpeter's boxes thickness.

And then we have the manual, the colour guide and the usual sheet of a catalogue page showing the new releases -

Here are the sprues of the entire kit -

Sprue A -

Sprue A contains mostly the road wheels and the return rollers and there are a total of 4 sprues of them.


There is no Sprue B in the kit so Sprue C -

There are 4 of them and consists mainly of the Suspension arms and other stuffs.


Sprue D -

Sprue D is for the idlers and the fuel tanks.


Sprue E-

Sprue E contains some of the ERA blocks and the two cable hooks.


Sprue F -

Sprue F , as you can see clearly, contains the gun along with the hatches and the transmission cover.


Sprue G-

Sprue G is for the lower part of the turret along with some bibs-and-bobs


Skipped again to Sprue L -

This sprue is for the external machine gun as you can see.


Then we skipped  to Sprue M -

Sprue M is mainly the ERA blocks along with the engineering blade.

and then, we have two little sprues of very rubbery stuffs ( or it could be rubber )-


Sprue S -

which is the un-ditching log and the mantlet fabric cover and mud flap. Why they decided to mould the log in this rubbery thingy, I have no clue.


Sprue W -

More mud flaps along with some parts dedicated for fabric stuffs like the spent casing pouch for external machine gun.


Then we have sprue X -

Here is the sprue for the fenders and the side skirts.


And then we have Sprue Y -

As you can see, it is the first half of the top hull along with some more bibs and bobs.

After that, we have Sprue Z -

Sprue Z contains the fuel tanks on the fenders as well as the storage boxes. ( I have to ask, do T-80 have fuel tanks on the fenders?)


And then, we have these three separate pieces, 

The upper half of the turret, the UD engine deck and the chassis. 


and as per Trumpeter, the most annoying parts of the kit -

the damn tracks. I mean, they are good but it's just so much work. the guide horns are moulded separately as well. I am not happy about that.


Then, we have three frets of Photo etchs and a metal cable and some generic numbers and a russian flag for decals -

Why they include a Russian flag decals on a Ukrainian prototype is way beyond me. 


And finally, we have the clear parts for the lights and scopes -

Since I will surely be building this kit, I opened up the bags and took some close up pics of the parts quality - ( just click on them. I arranged them to be smaller for spacing reason)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pros of the kit: numerous options for open/closed hatches, crisply moulded details, clear parts for sights, a rather unique vehicle, a kit for Ukrainian armour fans 

The Cons of the kit: a high part count at 1000+, a very high price of £59.99, as usual for Russian vehicle- gun cannot elevate, very complex kit; not made for beginners

If you are into unusual vehicles and a modeller who like to build non main-stream topics and subjects ( like me ) then this is one of the kit that you surely must have. Any fan of Russian machine will love this kit. 


This will definitely be a great addition to any shelves and I think I will be doing a full detailed wips very shortely.

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