Here is my Tamiya 1/35 M4A3 Sherman, build straight out of the box. It’s pretty much done except I’m adding some gear and equipment to be strapped to it and need to do a little bit of drybrushing on the metal parts to simulate a wear and tear. Other than that, I’m pleased with the results so far. What do you all think?
I took these photos with my 3.1 Megapixel camera with a digital zoom (make sure if you buy one, get optical zoom, much better.). I will post final pics from my buddies camera soon (6+ megapixel with optical zoom). Interesting how a flash can make even a totally flat paint job have shine!! The pictures are a bit deceptive in that regard.
Looks awesome, but maybe you need a dirty wash before the drybrush? Not trying to tell you what to do. It looks like it just rolled out of the factory. A real eye catcher.
I did a wash with artist oils (bit of indigo, burnt umber and raw sienna mixed with a turpentine substitute) so it looks fairly grimy in good light. It’s a bit more noticable in the last two photos. [:)] Unfortunately the digital zoom makes the images a bit grainy so it’s hard to see it.
Nice job Scott, and we sure understand the problems with trying to capture the real look of your work with a camera. Your Sherman looks well put together, and will only be enhanced even more when you’ve added the gear. Thanks for sharing. Semper Fi, mike
Looks good Scott, nice and clean. You may want to hit all the high areas with a drybrush of a lighter shade of OD, that will pick up some detail. Keep em rolling.
The tracks were just the vinyl ones straight out of the box. I’m please with the way they turned out. Not bad considering it’s my first finished model in over 20 years. [:)]
Great job. I just finished the same kit a couple weeks ago. I can’t tell from the pics if you did this or not, but on the real thing the chevrons on the tracks are rubber and should be a blackish-gray color, different from the track itself. You are right about the flash- kills the pic with artificial shine
Actually, there are two different varieties of the chevron tracks that were used with the Sherman (others were used as well, but I’m just going to talk about the ones with Chevrons)
There is an excellent reference to all the different tracks used on the Sherman on page 18 of the Squadron Sherman in Action #16. One type (and the one most seen in photos) is the all rubber chevron. The other is steel with chevrons. If you you have access to the Squadron book, it’s a great reference. You can find photos of the steel version of the chevron tracks on pages 37 and 45. I found two nice pictures that show them on the internet and have included them [^]
I’m not sure what I like better, building the model or doing all the fun research [:)]
Cool! Thanks. Previous to my build, I had no idea what was what. Shermanfreak pointed out to me that the tank I did had the rubber chevrons. I did Classy Peg from Tamiya’s recent release of the M4A3 75mm
Probably the easiest way to tell which one’s you have in the kit is to look at the pattern. The rubber chevrons pattern is much wider than that of the steel. [:)]
Here is a photo of the rubber ones
Thanks for all the feed back everyone, great stuff [:)]
I’ve been looking at the photos in the Squadron book and the rubber ones also appear a little move V shaped than the steel. The steel has a longer flat section at the bottom of the V or so it seems. [:)]
