Back to the fox now and after a trip out to find a suitable photo frame I've started making up the base. Using some AK terrains asphalt I've made up a bit of road followed by a verge with a gate made up from wooden sticks plus plastic tube an a bit of brass. The rest of the ground will be made up of shrubs and grass with a bit of fence either side of the gate.
The sight housing is now fixed in place and I've also added weld beads around it using stretched sprue. A start has been made on adding any obvious missing details to the kit such as the conduits to the two side lights on the front track guards.
I'm also steeling myself for the turret basket which basically needs making from etch and brass rod. The kit parts are extremely fine and have the mounting points molded on for the extra armour. Almost impossible to remove without breaking each section, should be fun!
More progress with filling and adapting the hull with redundant holes filled on the hull sides and the seam between the rear plate and upper hull filled for a seamless finish. Some weld lines will be added here later on.
By far the biggest challenge of the build is cutting out the hole in the turret for the new gunners sight housing. Careful study of references helps to get this in the correct location. I also removed all the locating points for the extra turret armour and then filled and sanded the turret.
Next on the bench is the very nice Meng Leopard 1A5 which I am converting to the Leopard 1A5 BE as used by the Belgian army. This was the last version of the leopard used by them before they were retired in 2015.
So far the running gear, partial track runs and hull upper & lower parts have been sorted out. Plenty of interesting work to do on this kit during the build which I'm really looking forward to.
Here is the Fox almost finished with just antenna to add and a base to sort out. As usual I had no suitable antenna and did not check before starting the project. Some should be arriving at some point during this festive season. The figures have worked out extremely well and I'm very pleased with them.
The model is very close to being finished with all the glazing and lights sorted followed by a round of filters, pin washes and oil dot fading. It just needs a little bit more dust effects added to finish it off nicely. Again nothing too heavy as I'm planning on a road based dio to finish it off for display.
Well tis that time of year again when I look back on the modelling year and make some modelling promises that I won't keep or achieve in the coming year! A total of five models this year not counting the current Fox project so not too bad. I have had a long break over the summer from building pretty much anything but I think I'm back on form again.
Show wise Stonehenge Modellers attended three shows this year and a couple of others as punters. Next year we will yet again venture over or rather under the channel to attend the annual IPMS Belgium Plastic & Steel show. Something to aim for and also something to really look forward to. We will probably attend another three UK shows as well.
On the home & work front it's again been a busy year and we have also been blessed with another new grandson. So the wallet will empty that much faster with three of the buggers now!
Finally a big thank you to all you who still follow the blog and for sticking with it for so long. I hope you have enjoyed the projects this year. I hope you all have a very happy Christmas and new year and I'll leave you with Dita to kick off the festive season.
Here are the figures all done and ready for the model. I painted the helmets using Vallejo 957 military green as the base colour then added shadows and highlights using black and 819 Iraqi sand. The NBC suits where a particular colour, sort of a blue green. So I mixed Vallejo 823 Luftwaffe camo green, 970 deep green & 899 dark prussian blue until I came up with a suitable colour.
I've no real ratios but just mixed it until it looked right to me. I then added this to the figures in washes building up the intensity. I added a drop of black to this for a final filter before adding shadows with more black and highlights again with Iraqi sand.
Things are progressing very nicely with the decals added to the model and the figures painting up very well.
The final bits of detail painting have been completed on the model as well as stowage for the turret basket. Also the figures are getting some attention. I'll now give the model a gloss or satin coat before adding decals.
A little bit more detail painting on the Fox now with a slightly lighter colour green added to the camo netting followed by some brown sections. Also some light chipping of the green and black on the model, nothing too drastic but just enough to add a few interesting highlights showing wear. I'm just waiting the arrival of a deep green paint for the extinguishers and hatch pads before I crack on with a gloss coat and decals.
