Marder III M AT ambush
Marder III M in ambush position with Normandy camo

THIS WAS A THOUGH ONE!

This is the Marder III M in 1/72scale from revell

It was probably one of the thoughst ones thus far! Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. the antenne, track (in both tracks) one of the wheels, the gun holder, the step and the gun - broke. This model was above my capabilities. But I did make many workarounds to conceal where I failed.
The drives hatch is practically painted over with rust as I have used to much paint. The tracks are full of mud to cover the broken points. the only thing I couldn't fix is one of the gear wheels, thus, the right track is a couple of milimeter shorter than the left. I will post more photos later to make this clear.

I do love the high level of details on this one. And the Marder is also a favorit "#tank for me. I like all the Czech varients. When I saw it on sale last christmas I it got right away. However, I do wish I would have been more methodical with this one, as it is adcanced model and it was a first for me with many things:
- wealding beads - way out of scale
- smallest model by far yet
- first time building tracks that are applied with heat!
- First time applying detail (figures, tarps and ammo boxes

In the first and last picture, you can see one of the racks (the right one) is completely missing. It got yeeted out of existence and never found... so it turned into a rusty accident, and I like!

In the last picture you can also see the drivers hatch that also turned into a rusty mess, as I evidently flooded it with acrtylich paint that dried up, so I made it into a chipping and rust mosaic.

In the other pictures, you can see the sunken track where the gear and track itself broke, thus its lower than the other one. The thick dried mud is doing a bit to hide it - not that bad of an outcome, but the most troubling of evident none the less.

Last but not least, the left track also broke in several places, but the thick mud hides the twisted track almost completely. It happened when I heated the track for application, and used too much heat excidentaly. This is the best of workarounds, as the mud really does hide it completely.

While I like the mud on the merkava more, as it was more tastful, this time, it's not bad. A combination between textured earth, acrylic and enamel earth paints. I could maybe add more dust transitions, but seeing this is supposed to be late normandy campaign, it could make sense to me, as that area sees a lot of rain in the summer.

Where I did go on a different way from the original revell kit is that the kit depicts the Marders of the Panzer Schule (tanks school), with a Wood gas special fuel system. I find the kit highly innovative and interesting, but I did want to have a different camo, and if I build a diorama, I though this panzer would have fought in Berlin/Germany 1945 scenario and I plan more of an AT Ambush diorama, so I went with a late Normandy 44 camo.

I will now plan my new project, I'm not sure if to continue with Diorama, or maybe the my next kit.

P.S. - what do you think of my recent model?