Saturday, February 2, 2013

T90

Back in September 2011 I bought a T90 MBT by Imprint Models (available from Empress Miniatures).

The mouldings are very good, there was only some work needed under the turret bustle where a piece of the  feed needed filing away.

With the exception of the combination of overenthusiastic superglue and minor incompetence (the first track unit is placed incorrectly, the resin just loves superglue - forming a bond stronger than the resin - it looks like it has just performed a crash stop), it went together very easily.


I then undercoated it with the traditional Citadel Chaos Black aerosol.

And then I got distracted.

It sat on the top of the computer desk, only receiving some paint when I was painting anything else in Vallejo Russian Uniform Green. Eventually it had its green basecoat.

And then we had the cold weather, meaning no more spray painting, so a reduction in distractions.

A while back I had bought the Main Battle Tank T80 (ISBN(13) 978 0 071 10 3238 5) published by Ian Allan. Though the T90 is derived from the T72 family, I thought that the green-sand-black brown camo pattern shown in a number of the colour pictures would be suitable.

The base green is Vallejo Russian Uniform green, Vallejo Desert Sand provides the sand tone and Vallejo German Cam Black Brown provides the border colour. The material covering of the mantlet was Leather Brown.
 Vision blocks are always  difficult to paint. I tend to use Citadel Mechrite red for my modern British, but decided on Citadel Ice Blue (mainly because of the picture on page 83 of the T80 book showing the Shtora laser detector showed blue lenses - the Osprey modelling guides show a number of different interpretations of vision blocks, some quite garish).

Weathering and mud is a combination of Citadel Stirland Mud, Vallejo Burnt Umber and Leather Brown, lightened with some Vallejo Old wood with a final dry brush of Desert Sand. Citadel washes (two flavours of sepia and one of earthshade) overall plus Citadel Nuln Oil provided exhaust and fume shading.
Overall, it is a very nice and easy to build model.

Now, to finish the BMP3 (and Warrior, and another technical, then to order another Scimitar and convince them to do some more CVR(T) family vehicles).