Tamiya M3A1 Scout Car Red Army

As I'm still waiting on some bits to arrive for the warrior build & the lince is almost finished it's time to crack open another box. This time I've chosen tamiya's M3A1 scout car which I'll be finishing in Soviet markings. It will be an out of the box-ish build and I'll use the supplied Russian figures as 
well.
I have actually started this last night and already have a rolling chassis. You just have to admire these new kits from tamiya for the ease of construction and very nice detail. 

Lince Base & Pigments

The base has now been built up for the model and here I made up a raised display using foam board and cork sheet. This fits nicely into my usual picture frame. The base has now been sprayed an initial coat of black primer then plaster, sand and small stones were used to make the bank. Next AK terrains asphalt was used for the road surface. I flipping love this stuff!  

Today I've started final weathering with VMS pigment No4 type A fine. This has just been applied as is with a selection of brushes and worked into the surface of the model. Just a little bit more work with the pigments is needed now to finish it off. All the antennas have also been fitted and the rather smashing wheels which look superb. A test posing on the base with the figure shows how it will look once finished.

Lince Figure Done

I have now finished off the figure this morning and am really pleased with how he came out. So here's some mimetico vegetata or vegetated camouflage for you. Next will be some base work this afternoon I think.

Lince Figure Painting

I've now painted the camo on the figure after spending some time mixing paints to get the correct shades of the four different colours used in the pattern. It was not as hard to paint as say flecktarn which sped things up nicely. I'm now working on the chest rig/ body armour before adding some shadows to the uniform creases etc. 

LMV Lince Figure & Wheels

As there is now a slight pause on the warrior build while I wait for deliveries it's time to resume the lince build starting with the figure. This is the spare one I had left over from the puma build last year and he works pretty well for the lince dio I have in mind. After a bit of clean up removing some very slight seam lines & primer I can now work out the colours for the camouflage. 

I'm attempting to paint the current Italian mimetico vegetata camouflage so as usual with a pattern I'm not familiar with I paint small samples on some paper to try and match up standard colours to the specific colours in the pattern. Next I'll use reference pictures to help get the correct colours by mixing paints if I can't use a colour straight out of the bottle. This can take some time but I do enjoy mixing colours to match the pattern. 

The wheels have now been given a quick pin wash then matt varnish so are all ready for final weathering with pigments. 

Warrior Stowage Continued

More work now filling up the turret basket and adding a cover to the long hull bin. I started with some duro green stuff putty and made up a couple of roughly shaped sheets to go on the bottom of the turret basket. This was followed by various bits of kit being lightly pressed into the putty and left to set. I then mucked around with the placement of even more ammo cans etc until I was happy with the result. A mix of accurate armour, red zebra and anything else I could find was used here.

Next I used some magic sculpt putty to add a couple of sacks to the open ammo box. Finally on the putty front I added the protective cover to the gun barrel using this as well. It seems a shame to cover up that lovely barrel but photo evidence shows it was heavily used during the ground war for obvious reasons. 

And finally some thin lead foil was used to make a cover for the long bin on the hull. I placed some bits of foam board in the bin first to add a some shape to the cover once in place. Then finished it off with some etched straps. Now with just a new rack to make for the side armour it's time to start thinking about figures.

Warrior Stowage & Lince Wheels

Stowage time for the warrior now and I've been having fun looking at my refs and sorting out stuff for the build. I'm also going to add a long rack seen on some warriors along the bottom of the armoured sides. Of course I had no suitable L beam in the stash so had to order some. It should look good though filled with water cans and other bits of stowage. 

I'd also like to add a couple of milan storage boxes but need to check that accurate armour are still operating due to the coronavirus lockdown here in the UK. 

My replacement wheels for the lince have also finally arrived so I've primed & painted them over the last couple of days. I'll gloss them next before some washes then matt coat.

Warrior Milan Mount Revised

Thanks to facebook I've now found that my interpretation of the milan mount was not correct. It was actually fixed to the sight armoured housing. So off came the first one and a new mount was made from plastic card. I'm happy now that I know for definate how it was fixed to the turret. Meanwhile I've been bashing away with the stowage so more pictures of that soon. 

For discussion purposes only,