Royal Australian Marines Vickers Medium Tank Mk.II* (With painted figures)

[Old Wombat]

And I lost a headlight!

Escaped from the small parts container ?

It will be worth it once you can start dusting your hands off and cleaning the bench for the next project

No, it escaped from the model, when I was trying to remove some of the excess weathering powder.

I heard it bounce a couple of times & thought I had an idea of where it went but after 2 hours searching ... Nope. Nothing!

I've just gone with the missing headlight & a few spots of metallic grey paint.

[Old Wombat]

Coming to the end of the build!

Starboard tracks are on but they've given me a bit of grief.

Anyway, throwing together some figures while I wait for glue to dry, then I'll have a go at the port side tracks.

Then I'll have to re-attach all the little bits that have been knocked of in the struggle with the tracks.

[Claymore]

Stay the course and may the force be with you! 

[Buzzbomb]

Starboard tracks are on but they've given me a bit of grief.

if they are anything like the Bronco individual link set for the Matilda... I hear you, loud and clear.

It will be worth it at that push the chair back time.

[Old Wombat]

And here we are, at the end of the main build! Still working on figures, though.

So, being the nice chap I am, here are some photo's for your perusal*:
















With two of the crew (driver & TC/C^oy CO), commander of my next build (RR Armoured Car - Meng), & a Staff Officer#:






Thanks for following along!



[*: I think the photo's make her look better than when viewed directly but I haven't taken her out into natural sunlight, yet, so I could be biased by the lighting in the modelling room.]

[#: Either the GOC (Brigadier) RAM Armoured Corps or the GOC (Lt. General) RAMs. I'm leaning towards the latter, because in my History the GOC RAMs has a much more "hands-on" approach than most.]

[Buzzbomb]

Yep... got there. All the excellent paintwork under the mud

I like the choice of figures as well  :thumbsup:

[Old Wombat]

Thanks, BT!

Like I said, I went a bit overboard with the weathering. ... Again!

The figures are a mash-up of the MiniArt British Armoured Car Crew [Special Edition] (35387) & British Tank Crew [Special Edition] (35332) sets with helmets & accessories from the extra bits that come with those "Special Edition"s.

[Claymore]

Wow, great work and I like the finish! 

Many years ago I managed to throw a track while driving a CVR(T) Spartan on an MBT driver training course - really should not have been there but the instructor said it would be OK! Anywho, with the track firmly wedged underneath the hull, we slid down a slope onto a very large and extremely muddy pool.  By the time we had extricated ourselves and the wrecker towed us home, there was so much mud everywhere that it was almost impossible to identify our ride as a Spartan let alone what colour scheme it was underneath - we weren’t exactly pristine either! 

[apophenia]

... there was so much mud everywhere that it was almost impossible to identify our ride as a Spartan let alone what colour scheme it was underneath - we weren’t exactly pristine either! 

Great story! 

... I went a bit overboard with the weathering. ... Again! ...

So, yeah, Guy ... no such thing as over-weathered armour   

[Old Wombat]

Thanks, Andrew & Stephen!


But I still think I went overboard, certainly for the look I was trying for (I really need to learn when to STOP!).

[Frank3k]

I think it looks good. What environment was this tank going to be active in? You could break up the weathering by making the lower half dusty/muddier.... or just leave it as is.

The figures should look good, too!

[Old Wombat]

Thanks, Frank!

I wish my weathering worked that way, there is actually only about a third as much weathering on the upper & front hull areas as there is below the track guards, & only about half as much as there is on the rear.

The red weathering powders seem to have gripped much better that the others &, when varnished, have come out stronger, while the others faded to almost nothing ... It's annoying.

[Buzzbomb]

Make it an exercise in the Pilbara region.
That iron ore dust from up there really sticks. I still have a red hue in a bag I had in the army after K83 way back in 1983 from up there.
Washing the bag was a bad idea.. it just set the dust.

[ChalkLine]

Make it an exercise in the Pilbara region.
That iron ore dust from up there really sticks. I still have a red hue in a bag I had in the army after K83 way back in 1983 from up there.
Washing the bag was a bad idea.. it just set the dust.

The 'Vietnam dirt' paints really capture that well.

I have a very comprehensive vignette I want to do there set in the 1920s, some nutter drove a Guy Roadless half track across the area. I'm slowly gathering material for it but on the whole it'll be either entirety scratch-built or printed. I'm going to do it in the spinifex gullies. So it's that orange rock and spikey bastard plants gummed under the vehicle.

[Old Wombat]

MIG's "Vietnam Earth" & SMS' "Red Earth" were the two red pigments I used, & both of them tend to be really grippy.

I'm working on the four figures, at the moment.

I'll pop up some photo's when I've finished them & put the two Mk.II crewmen in their positions.

[Old Wombat]

Remember these guys?



Well, now they look like this:













Now, which smarty-pants' can tell me their ranks?

Pictures aren't perfect, but, then, nor are the figures.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Nice work on all of the figures. 

[Kerick]

What? Nobody pointing off to the horizon?
This looks excellent to me! Much better than I could do.

[Buzzbomb]

Remember these guys?
......
Now, which smarty-pants' can tell me their ranks?

Pictures aren't perfect, but, then, nor are the figures.

Very nice job for the figures. I think you have a great technique. They are not going head to head with figure figures, if you get what I mean. Perfect for setting off a vehicle.

Oh, my take, you have a Major and a Brigadier. Red Staff band indicates staff level officer and the crown and three pips gives you a Brigadier. Coming from a guy who was the Brigadiers Operator at one stage of the Army career.
Getting the red in the crown is spectacular work.

I would hazard that the garnish on the cap brim is the Navy crossover for Marines.

[Old Wombat]

Thank you very much, gentlemen!

Spot-on for the officers, BT!

Now, what about the other two? (They are a bit harder to see.)



I've figured out some techniques which don't really work & some that do, combined with other techniques I've tried over the years I think I'm getting a better handle on how to improve my figure painting.

I may even try to do one over the next couple of weeks to enter into the Expo at the end of the month ... We'll see.

[Frank3k]

What? Nobody pointing off to the horizon?

They're Australians, not Germans!

Great work on the figures, Guy! I would try painting the driver's mustache.

[Old Wombat]

What? Nobody pointing off to the horizon?

They're Australians, not Germans!

Great work on the figures, Guy! I would try painting the driver's mustache.

Precisely! The horizon's too far away in Australia to bother pointing at it.

I did paint the driver's moustache, Frank. It actually shows up better on the figure than the photo's would indicate.

And I found a brilliant technique for the goggles that has them reflective from some angles but able to see the base colour (that of the helmets) from others.

[ChalkLine]

Will you have the Vickers pushing a tree over?

Of course all official images of an Australian tank in testing have to at least one image of the vehicle pushing a tree over. This is an iron law that I suspect may be in the constitution. For some reason you see them from Matildas to Centurions and every vehicle in between (even Sheridans!) pushing some poor tree over. No wonder the koalas are dying out, it's the bloody ADF.

[Old Wombat]

No, I don't think so, I'd rather leave the perenties something to run up to get away from the wombats.