Tamiya 1/35 Sherman M4A3E8 Update 5-29-16

[John Rixon]

Pretty close is good enough for me!

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely in the "good enough for me" camp. The point I was making was, that we kid ourselves that anyone actually has the
magical "right" colour for anything we build that comes from 60 odd years ago. Firstly, any photographic reference is flaky at best, secondly, no single
manufacturer would have been capable of producing all the olive drab needed to paint every US military vehicle, which means that the likelihood of there actually being a "standard", as we understand the term these days, is very doubtful! So, if we accept that we can mix a good olive drab from black and yellow, the next question would be "which yellow?" The debate will go on!
This site - http://olive-drab.com has some useful points, all of which point to the credence of the "good enough for me" camp, and can I say how delighted and amused that there is a web site of this name!
Of course, this theory extends to pretty much all of the paint schemes on everything WW2.





I brush painted this Tamiya T62 (an abandoned Winter camo tryout) as an experiment, to see if I could emulate the painting process that Grumpa uses - i.e. these craft paints used in many very thin layers:



using just these colours, I was able to make many subtly different tints of olive drab, which I layered over each other. The yellow is a very warm one, and I now have
a lemon yellow (cool colour temperature) which would give even more diversity. Being a russian tank, I did err on the yellow side of olive drab, but I've just mixed the same two colours and made an OD very similar to Tamiya's XF62.


Bottom line is, if it looks right, it'll do just dandy!

 

[Hellcat]

First of all put 6 tanks in a line all different Olive Drab and no one would be able to choose or recognize the "official" olive drab.


The most important point is to produce a tank (or any model) which, as far as possible, is an authentic looking tank with effects which


project it's look as it would be in action using the artistic ability, that you are blessed with, to apply effects in paint.


Or to produce a pristine looking tank straight from the factory with out effects.

 

[CharleyGnarlyP290]

Getting close.


After I got the kit painted, I sprayed it with Future to give it a gloss finish for the decals and washes/weathering.


I used a combo of kit decals and Archer Fine Transfers...my first time for these. I wanted to use the dry transfers because I wanted to replicate a vehicle from the 6th Armored Division when they were attached to 417th Infantry Regiment, my grandpa's unit. The Archer transfers worked great, and are pretty easy to apply. I think I will do a separate post on how I applied them, and outline the method I used.





Here is a pic of one of the applications. Each number and letter is separate which allows a person to apply what ever he/she wishes.





Next, I gathered some of the extra stuff I am going to use and the tools that need to be painted. The only extra stuff I will be using is the kit supplied jerry cans and some Verlinden resin duffle bag/pack bits from a set I bought in '89.





I also got the kit supplied figure ready for paint.





More coming soon.