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This was just my second attempt to build an AFV, completed in February 1998, just after my 'conversion' away from making skeet. It was built as an entry in the special theme category at the first Maritime Modelers' Meet "Salute to the Stuart".
It is the old Tamiya M3 Stuart, built in Russian markings as most, if not all of the lend-lease Stuarts were the more rare deisel beasts, as the Tamiya kit depicts.
To the kit just a basic amount of PE was added. These bits included deck grill, headlight guards and machine gun attachment pintle.
I also added a field mod stowage rack to the rear of the vehicle from styrene and spares box bits. The machine guns were hollowed out, as was the .30 cal cradle, but neither the tracks nor the turret were replaced, and both should be for true accuracy(the tracks are poor, and AFV makes a good set, and the turret is noticalby too small by 9 per cent).
The finish is Tamiya acrylic. No pre or post shading at all (I just wasn't there yet). Some drybrushing with a light buff shade was done (check out that raised rivet detail on the side armour!), and a tad of weathering with mud was attempted on the lower hull and tracks.
I have seen many pics in which Russian (and, for that matter, German) AFV crews have undertaken some sort of make-shift winter camo. So here I've tried to represent a crew using chunks of scavenged rock-chalk to hastily afford their mount some sort of protection for winter warfare. I mimicked this process by whittling down an actual piece of chalk and scribbling on squiggly lines. Pretty smart, eh? At the time I thought it was OK.
Not unespectedly, the kit didn't provide Russian markings, so the decals you see are all pilfered from a Stormovik decal set that A/C guys would probably recognize. Looking back, I should have at least trimmed the white from the red star on the turret. Oh well, I had lots of fun, and I still like the stowage.
Despite the accuracy problems with this kit, I recommend it. Not only can advanced modelers improve this kit dramatically, through scratch building or with the resin upgrades, AFV tracks and PE available, but it is also a particularly good kit for beginners: Great for practicing dry brushing, very good fit, excellent instructions, inexpensive and not too hard to make into a half decent looking kit of an important vehicle.
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