Soviet Shermans

It's all gone a bit Scutari really

I'm at home at present, sick in bed and thoroughly browned off with the whole experience.  The local sawbones says I should be back in action shortly, but it's very irritating.  In the meantime, I've done some work on two Armourfast Shermans that I dug out for the Kursk game, before Donogh came to the rescue with his T-34's and I realised that there weren't any Shermans at Kursk. 

These are common or garden Sherman M4s with a 75mm gun. They were sprayed with a Tamiya spray for Russian armour and then given a slight highlight. Tracks were painted a dark grey, mixed by hand, as I couldn't find anything suitable from my paintbox. 

Decals were by the redoubtable Plastic Soldier Company from their Russian decal range. I am new to decals and I find applying them a nerve wracking business, but these seem to work alright. I only tumbled to the dodge of adding gloss varnish first after watching this video tutorial.

I have tried adding it to the blog entry, but Youtube doesn't seem to be co-operating. 

I must thank reader Mr E for his kindness and patience while teaching me the rudiments of applying decals. 

The other new departure was trying out some pigments for weathering. I added MIG Black Smoke to the muzzles of the guns, which seems to have worked somewhat. The MIG European earth, which I mixed with a few drops of water and then dabbed on doesn't seem to have come out as well. I haven't varnished the tank yet, so perhaps that will darken it somewhat. I know some painters use gloss varnish as a medium, so I might give that a try. 

Lastly, I also tried some chipping though I think I may have been a little too cautious about it as I don't see it in any of the photographs. This essentially was trying to represent areas of chipped or worn paint by dabbing grey onto the tank with a sponge and then highlighting with a pencil. 

I'm still not sure I'm happy with the weathering, but we shall see if it is improved by a coat of varnish. I fear that once I've added this much detail to some of my tanks, I'll have to do the lot.