M3A1 STUART "HONEY"

Academy Stuart Honey 1:35 scale, base is a Photo frame(50 pence from charity shop), wall is made from bricks created in the same interior general purpose filler as the land scape. Filler is applied then wetted with a spray of 50:50 water😛va glue, wall and rocks are positioned pressed into filler as normal, sand is then poured on top, left for a few minutes then excess poured off, left for sand to dry.

Sand is wetted with same spray and fine sand is poured over the surface, gently patted down to mix with previous normal sand. Excess is again poured off after a few minutes, the whole surface is wetted with a pva:water spray and left for a few days in a warm place for filler and sand to set hard.

After drying the base is airbrushed using Sand as full colour, with Khaki and Khaki brown for shading. The stone under the Stuart is one picked up on a walk on the beach. The split glass is a pointer to the Libyan desert where this tanks regiment served, Libyan desert is a *glass* desert, an asteroid air burst over the desert scattering glass like particles over it. It does not seem to have worked as everybody who sees it asks what it is and why its there and most don`t like it, but its my diorama so it stays. Normal green bushes as you can buy in a row at any modelling shop.

I could not bring myself to paint it the blue it says in the instructions and used Tamiya Sky Grey for the top and a mix of Heller Brown and Tamiya Khaki for the bottom, the colour is not quite the Sandstone I was looking for but its close enough. Used matt acrylics for both, there is no lacquer over the paint to protect it as yet, still experimenting with various acrylic varnishes in matt to get the finish I want. The JSU 152 I recently finished is the closet I have got yet, with a mix of white spirit and Humbrol matt varnish, trying to get that matt but slightly shiny look that oil based paints give.

It was my first time with Micro Sol for the decals and I was bit rough in patting them down, so tears and rip as are the order of the day, a lesson learnt, when the bottle says it softens the decals it means SOFT.

I am not a big fan of weathering, for others its the best thing since sliced bread and seen some amazing results with it and some pretty extreme ones, as an ex serving soldier I belong to the camp of *if my sergeant saw my tank/vehicle/weapon in that state, war or no war, I would be wearing my head a few inches lower from the pounding*. Others disagree, fair to them, its their model they can set it on fire if they like. Dirt, mud, sticky stuff I can live with, scratches, dents and bends to soft metal I can live with. wear and tear yes, rust to small hard to reach places yes, but the large scale rust that some *weathering * makes the vehicle look like it was left unattended on a firing range and shot at for 5 years, then miraculously rolled away again. Nope, not in the Army I was in and with my sergeant, not if I intended to live anyway.