Empress BMD-01 progress

 As mentioned back in February, I received a BMD-1 from Empress.

It is now assembled and base painted.

So the detailing included an aerial on the left rear deck, cables attached to fittings on the hull nose and stretching back to the rear of the hull. Rubicon cable ends were used, the cable is brass wire. Holes are drilled into the hull a distance from end point (the distance being such that the cable ends will hook over the bracket and the ends of the wire). This secures the wire (the hole at one end is made very deep so that the wire can be tensioned by pushing the wire into the hole) and gives the impression the cable end is attached to the cable.

Notches were filed into the nose for the two bow mounted machine guns.

A rotating periscope on the rear hatch. A piece of thin plastic card is placed into a paper punch and a circular piece cut from the plastic. A piece of Slater's 0.06" microstrip makes the periscope.

The aerial is a piece of 1mm brass rod. The base is made from a piece of Plastruct rod.

It was at this point I noticed that the model was missing the periscopes just behind of the turrets. Again strips of Mircostrip provided the periscope heads.

The periscopes were painted with Humbrol 34 White acrylic (shown in the above photographs). They were then painted with Army Painter Deep Blue. The headlights are also Humbrol White.

This is the base painted model with Rubicon Soviet Tank and T26 decals. The numbers are from the Soviet Tank set (DCSV01) and the number in a triangle from the T26 set (DCSV05).

The grills have been shaded with Citadel Camoshade, as has the periscopes and hatches.

It now awaits final weathering and shading.