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This is the Emhar Whippet in 1/72 scale. I wanted to build something, finish it, paint it, and get it all done in short order. So I finished this over the course of less than a month, really in a couple of building sessions and a couple of painting sessions. The kit is simple, with few parts, and looks pretty good painted up.
I drilled out the gun barrels, exhausts and built it OOB otherwise. The fit is pretty good, although there are some way over scale edges and parts. I adjusted these as much as possible. Minor gaps were filled with superglue. I had dry-fitted the hull to the two sponsons, and then decided to work on the base. It's celluclay mixed with artist's medium, dirt, acrylic craft paint, tea leaves, white glue and a bit of water. I sculpted a shell crater under the front, building up the base so the Whippet is on a slight incline. I had sort of forgotten the kit wasn't done, and left it in place to dry so it wouldn't end up sitting on top of the mud. The dry-fitting thereby became permanent!!! I had also smeared some of the base mix over the tracks, hull etc. The tracks look OK, and with liberal mud, they look fine.
With the major assemblies bonded securely to the base, I finished most construction (actually with so few parts, that was pretty much it) and hand painted it. A base coat of Pullman Green was followed with oil-paint washes of lamp black, dust, burnt umber and some reapplication of the pullman green. I used some lighter oils and raw sienna to weather the tracks, add a tiny bit of rust etc. The decals worked ok with lots of microsol and microset. The red/white/red flash decals are too big and thick, so I just hand painted them. The ones on the front of the sponsons are just dabbed in, with weathering to finish them off. The front was masked and painted carefully, but the mud applied afterwards hides some of the errors. The puddle in the crater is just layers of white glue and some paint.
I finished off by dabbing on burnt umber and sepia oils for mud, doing some heavy washes on the kit and base to blend them together, and a little bit of detail painting.
I know the kit is available in 1/35 scale too, but heard/read the details aren’t up to scratch. In 1/72 scale, it looks great. I always think it’s going backwards (the ‘bridge/turret’ is at the back in reality), but it’s an interesting little tank. [View discussion] [Discuss my model]
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