M4 High Speed Tractor
Alclad 2 black gloss
Alclad 2 black gloss
Alclad 2 black gloss
Tamiya red brown, then some orange on top of that in some spots.
Neutral grey for the interior...
Seats, and all important fire safety equipment. Holy hell 1/72 is small.
Second coat - Olive Drab. The salt stuck nicely with just water, and my hope is that it comes off easily with just a bit of brushing. Now on to the final blue coat...
Final coat added (sky blue). Wow, that's really blue. The salt rubbed off easily and the chipping looks good. Not much green shows through, but I'm reasonably happy.
You can see the green in the bed a bit, but not too much.
Detailing is coming along now... My daughter asked why there were bicycles in the tracks! It's a pedal powered tractor, sweetie. Everyone's going green these days...
Getting dirty with some mud and grass from Vallejo.
And now some splash mud!
More mud & pigment.
Glamour shot.
Bask in the muddy glory...
Does this mud make my butt look big?
Ready to roll.
The beginnings of the diorama base. This is my first, so I'm keeping it simple. This is a piece of 1.5mm plywood with some shaped styrofoam to mimic berms or hills. I then coated it all with some AK Natural Earth texture mixed with Vallejo paints.
More grass! It's gonna need to get mowed before this is all done. I'll have to build a working scale lawnmower.
Here's where the fence will go... still working on grass.
Unfortunately, I think the fence is too big. The boards are 35mm long, which is a bit more than 8 feet high in scale. At 1/4 inch wide, it's almost 18" in scale. I think I'm gonna leave it though. It looks okay.
Back side...
Coming at you...
Front side! Now I need to make a box for the base...
Much nicer with the balsa base!
Almost done! Just a little more glue & ground cover around the edges to tidy things up. Not bad for a first diorama!
Final photo shoot!
It's been a fun project. Thanks for following along!
Holy smokes my friends, this little guy ended up in the reader's gallery of FSM!
Commenti
1 31 May 2019, 13:56
Paul Juliano@ Nathan and Oliver: Oh, this is gonna be high speed all right... hahahah!
@Bryn: This is an undercoat of rust colors so I can do some salt chipping. My plan is to do some layering: rust, salt, OD green, more salt, then blue (civilian repaint). That should give me some good layers and make it interesting visually. Well, assuming I can pull it off!
31 May 2019, 17:01
Paul Juliano@Nate thanks! And @Chris this was a total impulse purchase, believe it or not! Just wanted to try something new and this guy just caught my eye.
1 June 2019, 22:28
Paul JulianoThanks @Nathan! @Chris This is Tamiya's Sky Blue. I've applied some Abteilung Light Sand oil pant over the centers of the panels to add a fading effect and tone down the intensity of the blue a bit. I'll post some pics later!
I gotta say, this is the most supportive, non-toxic community on the entire Internet. Go us!
9 June 2019, 13:41
Paul JulianoThanks Alec! Nate, you should! Hell, I'm thinking about doing one in 1/35...
9 June 2019, 21:59
Chris GreathouseYou certainly covered your tracks on that one. 😄 I like the nice and dirty with the chipped blue. Great Tank!
9 June 2019, 22:09
Martin OostromEven the rivet counters are courteous at SCM, Paul.
You're doing a great job with this build. 👍
11 June 2019, 20:52
Paul JulianoThanks guys. The grass is slow going, as I'm gluing it on in clumps by hand. I've been placing some scrub in there among the grass clumps too. I figure I'll cut it down a bit when it's all there. If I go any shorter I can't grip it, and using tweezers yields more of a fan shape than a clump.
9 July 2019, 12:40
Paul JulianoOk, I think I just need to build some sides to finish off the base, and maybe hit some parts of this with a flat coat after I add some dust pigment to the grass. Some of the bushes and such are woodland scenics, but some of them are lichen I found on a branch, and...
I'm likin' the lichen.
Sorry! Couldn't resist.
15 July 2019, 13:26
Slavo HazuchaFor a high speed tractor diorama, I expected something more like this 😉 😉
[img1]
But as the picture confirms, your depiction of the static mud is most excellent!
Just joking - seriously, looks great, I like all types of dirty, broken, muddy and rusty stuff and this is a fine little example! 👍
15 July 2019, 15:21
Paul JulianoWell, I can't believe it! I submitted some pics to Fine Scale Modeler a while back and as I was flipping through this month's issue, look what I stumbled upon! Can you believe it?! I thought the images might show up in the online gallery someday, but I never thought I'd get in the magazine. Crazy!
20 January 2020, 13:21
Album info
With a maximum speed of 35 mph, I'm thinking this should have been named the M4 Moderate Pace Tractor. Well, I suppose, if we're comparing it to other tractors...
Regardless, this is going to be a re-purposed civilian version of the vehicle. My plan is to put on some salt (for chipping), paint it OD green, add some more salt and then paint it blue (for my daughter, it's her favorite color and she wanted Daddy to make her something...). This should give me a really good layered chipping effect, revealing both the original OD green and some rust.
This is my first armor (if it's even armor...) so any tips, tricks, or critiques are welcome.
