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This is the Tamiya M4A3 kit built out of the box. I thinned the fenders down a lot by scraping with a knife and sanding. The fenders were then dinged up a bit. The fenders are way too thick. I added some Tamiya jerry cans to the rack on the back, tied down with model ship rope. I also attached a few odds and ends from the Tamiya Allied vehicle equipment set painted white (and dirty) or shades of green and khaki. I also added some tissue paper and white glue bedrolls/tarps again finished in khaki or green. These were painted and washed several times with raw umber oil resulting in a nice canvas looking effect. IMHO the tissue paper creations look WAY better than the plastic things.
The overall colour is spray-can Testors Olive Drab with some other olive drab patches in some areas. I did no drybrushing. Pencil lead was applied in lots of places to make it look used. The whitewash is supposed to look field applied and a bit worn. I used a couple of coats of Tamiya matt white thinned to different amounts for each wash. I used a fine brush for most of the whitewash, and I tried to leave a few brush marks to scale. In some places the paint was really slopped on, and I tried to do it so the painting "direction" would match the angle at which a crewmember would have applied the whitewash. After the white wash dried I applied more pencil lead for worn patches, then I applied a few washes of raw umber oil to the hull. This resulted in a nice dirty appearance to the whitewash.
The tracks were painted with numerous washes of raw sienna, raw umber, some black and then pencil lead for the metal bits that would be worn. I then used raw umber and gold ochre oils diluted with thinner a very little bit to simulate mud and grunge on the tracks, hull, running gear and fenders. I was quite pleased with the end result. This was the second armour kit I've completed in my return to armour modelling.
I have just added a few more photos of this kit, taken by my wife outside our house using a 35mm SLR with close up lenses.
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