Peugeot Char 1918

Although a devoted artilleryman, there is just something about a curvy tank. This little guy is the French Peugeot Char 1918. Peugeot wanted to get in on the action that Renault was getting with their FT tank. they teamed up with an engineer from the artillery branch, Captain Oemichen, to produce a 75mm cannon equipped two-man tank in 1918. It was envisioned that this would be part of the mosquito swarm envisioned by the French high command. Unfortunately, the 75mm also fit in the turret of the FT which provided many advantages. The Peugeot Char 1918 never made it past the prototype stage before the war ended.

This is another esoteric 3D printed offering from Vargas Scale Models. As with most of his kits, the parts count is low, and the assembly is easy. The suspension system is nicely detailed, and it was a shame to hid it behind the armored side-shields. I solved the problem by leaving the shield off on one side.

The photos and videos of the prototype seemed to show it as a single color. Deciding that this was boring, I decided to depict it in 5-color camo and unit markings as it might have been had it gone into production and battle.

After cleanup and assembly, I sprayed it first with Mr Surface 1000, a nice self-leveling, sandable primer to make 3D print lines disappear. After touch-up sanding, I sprayed it black as a preshade. I used the Tamiya XF53 Neutral Gray as the base coat. I lightly sketched on the camo pattern with a pencil and then broke out my egg of hot-pink Silly Putty covered the patches that were to remain gray. I next sprayed the XF18 Medium Blue patches. I then covered the blue patches with silly putty and broke out the XF60 Dark Yellow. Next step was to cover the yellow patches with silly putty and spray the AK Real Colors RC080 Nato Green patches. Finally, I covered the green patches with silly putty and sprayed AK Real Colors RC065 Braun. At his point I removed all of the silly putty. The whole silly putty cam process was completed in a single 5-hour long session. Silly Putty is impacted by gravity. If you leave it on the model overnight, it will be sagging off onto the workbench by morning. After letting the paint dry overnight, I added the black interline with a 1mm Molotow Blackliner and touched up around rivets and details with XF1 Black and a 3/0 brush.

My track treatment is pretty simple. Brush paint the tracks with Tamiya XF84 Dark Iron then give it a heavy coat of AK Track Wash followed by AK Light Rust Wash. I dot filtered the vehicle with various Winsor & Newton oils. I created custom decals in MS Word for the playing card symbols. The registration number is from some old Verlinden dry transfers. I tried using the Mig Shaders Star Ship Filth to tone down the decals and provide a bit more depth to the shadowed areas. After applying the decals, I sealed everything with a coat of Alclad II Aqua Gloss in preparation for weathering.

I applied a pin wash of AK Steaking Grime and cleaned it up with a makeup sponge. I streaked with AK OIEF & OIF Streaking Effects and AK Kursk Earth. After everything was dry I applied Model Master Flat Clear Lacquer to take out the shine. I lightly drybrushed the details with Winsor & Newton Yellow Ochre. I did a heavy drybrush of Model Master Chrome (I love that stuff) on the tracks to represent the shiny bits. I dropped in a mix of AK pigments about the suspension and fixed them with Mineral Spirits.

Enjoy!