Miniart Soldier pushing bike

The fun of soldering in little space! 

Got very strong doing it this way! 

Pre-painted a few parts with Tamiya XF-62 Olive Drab. The assembly manual says XF-64 to be OD, but that´s not correct. 

Tyres got airbrushed in LifeColor Worn Black, with the rims and spokes in OD. No masking; airbrushed using a circle template from the artists store! 

Wonderful tyre pattern! 

Pre-painted frame. Note the ultra tiny butterfly nuts. These are not the kit provided PE parts, but plastic ones in the same size from Bronco. Easier to glue... 

The lower protection shield with two PE parts on got a first coat of primer. 

The saddle, prepared for priming. 

Same for the saddlebags. The black primer will add to the shadows later. 

More and more detail gets added. Note the two very (!) tiny PE parts, bending them took a fair amount of time and pointed tweezers. 

The hook for the stand will get its final shape later, when the stand has been added.  

Front wheel glued fix. I will try to pre-paint as much as possible before final assembly. 

The ultra tiny PE parts PE20 are smaller than their attachment on the fret! I found a more comfortable solution and replaced them all by resin nuts with washers from MasterClub. You see one of those stick out of the lower fuel tank half. 

These are the ones I used. Simply drill a 0.5mm hole, insert the resin piece and glue with super glue from the inside! 

Despite their size the detail has much more "volume" than the PE parts provided by MiniArt. 

To get the PE parts here more strength when mainpulating I decided to solder them. It was harder to hold them in place than the actual soldering process... 

Same for the other side. 

Any struts have been airbrushed in Tamiya Olive Drab, using a flat piece of paper to protect the already painted wheel. Patience is the key here. 

Again: the other side. The tiny wing nuts and the PE parts on the rectangular box can bee seen. What you see here is about 45mm long...