A quick aside:
Why do I have so many unfinished kits?
Well there are lots of reasons. Beyond the very standard What-If practice of abandoning a cool idea because you want to start on an even better cool idea you just thought of, and couldn't sleep because you kept thinking of even more things to add to it-- Which I believe we suffer from more than other conventional modelers-- There is what I call the "chess theory."
Building a kit with sometimes wildly different aesthetics and paint and plans means there isn't always a step by step guide or instruction booklet you can turn to and sometimes it requires a lot of planning and there is no reference if you "lose your place" for lack of a better phrase. Multiple projects require a lot of mental effort as its like playing several chess games at once, each in a different place and different scenario. The worst thing is taking a half done kit and putting it aside for awhile as when you dig it out you may find yourself playing detective as to exactly what your idea or strategy was based on how the pieces were laid out or sketches you made. worse yet, pieces may have broken or become lost. It can get a little tiring. especially with a vexing problem you still don't know how to solve, or when you finally figure the puzzle out, you remember why you boxed it up in the first place (10 hours of PSR to go? Back into the box with you!) It can be very time consuming trying to figure out where you left off and despite all the clues and notes I leave for myself its not always clear, or of course you change your mind entirely!
OTOH, This tank is one that I have yet to find what made me box it up, it seems straight forward. I wonder if I was being too fussy about a few details, luckily I am in "just get it done" mode which can help clear away a lot of the perfectionist need that just leads to procrastination.
Original Post January 16 2011:
I was originally planning to put this on the Armorama What If GB but it fell well behind schedule, and I didn't even post a single pic!
I love the T-80 and T-64 and the Abrams of course so this is a natural for me. My backstory is that a frustrated Soviet tank designer looks at the new American Abrams and the old T-34 and realizes that the Russians have moved too far away from their roots of sloped armor. So a with a little copying (borrowing
) Of the Abrams style with soviet design results in the T-83:
this is supposed to represent an early version of the T-83, with new Kontakt 5 Reactive armor and side skirts retrofitted. The majority of Russian pieces are from a DML T-80U kit I got when I was 11(!) and has been scrapped along with removing the paint for spares. T-64 road wheels, sanded and adjusted to fit the abrams hull (All 28 of them :banghead: ) T-64 Kontakt 5 from SP designs. There are some Challenger and T-72 pieces there as well too.
Still a lot of work to do, but finally to phase where I can show something!
One move and taking up far too much space in hot garage later I am here to show some progress:
The resin warped from the long term hot storage^
So i got the kettle going and got a few tweezers I was extremely nervous about bending it too much and breaking it, and then something amazing happened:
I poured the hot water on it and it just righted itself. I never even had to touch it. Magic water. Easiest fix I have ever had in my entire history of modelling.