Please tell us about your first armor model....

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

Lately, there has been new guys starting with their first armor model as well as guys celebrating some milestones in their modeling life. These certainly bring to mind our own humble beginnings in modeling armor. I for one was reminded about my first armor when I did the Dragon’s M4A4 Sherman Firefly VC. Some of us have been modeling for years while others just started recently and it would be good to hear about how everybody started and what was the experience like.[:)]

Actually there was a thread somewhat like this here last year but with the coming of new members maybe it is good to start all over again.[:)]

OK let me start the ball rolling.

I tried modeling aircraft when I was in college but only occasionally because I really can’t afford buying kits. I just waited for shops to come out with bargains and whatever fits my budget, that’s the one that I get. I built about 3-4 total.

After about 10 years, or about 2 years ago I decided to get back into the hobby and picked myself a tank kit.[:D]. Yes, my first armor model is Dragon’s M4A4…the one with individual track links.[B)][:p]. Pior to this I was already reading some FSM issues and looking over the web so probably that got me interested again…but this time in armor.

Well, I assembled the kit in 12 hours (yes, including tracks[:0]) and painted it using spray can. Did not weather it as I was not yet familiar with weathering techniques. After some months or sometime last year, I finally tried weathering the tank and here’s how she looked. I didn’t bother correcting the flaws of the kit as I didn’t know much anyway but it still gives me joy to see it.

How about you guys? Can you share about your first armor model?[:)]

2

First one that I actually tried doing well on (I was only about 13 or 14 then) was an old 1/32 Monogram M48 Patton. It was pretty basic and soft on detail. I even tried putting it in a diorama with some really bad figures in a snow scene. I tried replicating the scene from Red Dawn (that kinda gives you the time frame, mid-late '80s) where they are fighting on the plains in winter and try to take out a tank. It looked pretty bad, but I enjoyed it and only got better.

3

Wow, I would have loved doing armor at that age if only I had the chance. Thanks for sharing about your first armor model, Gino.

4

When I was a kid it was wwII American bombers , and the occasional fighter , a bit later I did a m-47 patton , I think that was my first , probably had model cement fingerprints all over it by the end , hey if a little is good half the tube must be better right ?[:D]

5

[:D]
Hhmmm…I won’t tell you where the fingerprint marks are on my tank[:-^]

6

Mine was a Bradley made by Lee. Have never seen that brand again. Saw it about a year ago when I was laid up following a sudden stop in a car involving a drunk. I knew nothing about weathering and even less about tanks but wanted something besides the same old cars. It was not one of my best attempts but has to be one of my favorites since it hooked me good. A year later and I have no idea how many I have built.

7

MY first kit was Tamiya’s Krupp Protze & pak 37 I loved that kit and realized that armor models were a very good replacement of legos, I had just started to get bored with them.

8

I’m really dating myself, but my first armor model was a Bandai 1/24 Panther. Does anyone else remember when Bandai was making armor in this scale? This was along about 1977.

I actually got started in modeling while in the Air Force back in the late sixties. Did a lot of airplane kits, but they rarely survived the many moves brought on by frequent reassignments that were common for military personnel at that time.

I got into armor after I got out of the Air Force when I met a guy at work who was an avid armor modeler. I was never particularly interested in armor up till then because most of the stuff available in those days was small–1/35 and 1/72, and not real good on detail. However, my friend began to sing the praises of a 1/24 scale Panther which had just hit the market, and so I went to a hobby shop for a looksee. I was immediately impressed, and shelled out the asking price of thirty bucks ( a considerable sum of money in those days).

I was not to be disappointed. That kit was really something! It had complete interior detail, working torsion bar suspension, individual track links, held together by metal pins–even a small section of wire for the antenna. Although by today’s standards, I suspect that some of the surface detail may have been a bit sketchy. However, I do remember that the floor of the turrent basket had the correct diamond-shaped tread plate pattern. There was also a compressor in the engine compartment.

I gave this Panther a coat of zimmerit by applying modeling putty with a paint scraper and then scribing it with an exacto knife. I even enlarged a photo of a Panther to get the zimmerit pattern right. I was pretty proud of this Panther, and am pleased to report that it took an award at a local model show.

Unfortunately, once again, a change of address was the undoing of my Panther. Prior to this move, I had carefully boxed it up, with the intent of transporting it on the car seat beside me. Somehow, though, the box with the Panther got shoved into a corner, and I overlooked it. The next day, realizing it was missing, I frantically called my former landlord. He replied, “Oh yeah, that box with the beat-up toy inside. I tossed that into the dumpster this morning, and the trash company came by later. Sorry.”

Presumably, my Panther is in a landfill today. I often wish Bandai would revive that kit!

9

Oh boy,my first armor models.Well Dwight that brings back memories.Lets start back in the late sixtys for this,in which I had two kits that I built at the same time.Both of these kits were made by Linburg[talking about old]and both were in 1/72 scale with wind up motors in them.The two kits were the T-38 Stalin and the M-4 Sherman.They didn’t take long to biuld and not much on the detail side ether but they were sure fun to play with once put together.After that I worked on Monograms armor kits like the PZ VI assult tank destoryer and the M-48 both in 1/32 scale.Thats the way it was.Digger

10

I was about 9 years old and my friend was big into military modeling. He had a Monogram Panzer IV painted by hand in the worst looking camoflauge of testors black and red that you ever saw. He lost the tracks for it. However that is what got the ball rolling for me. Regardless of it’s accuracy, it was a blast to play with along side the old fashioned little green plastic army guys. I eventually got one myself and built it after I got home from the store. I stayed up late to finish. I doubt I ever was so excited to build a model before. I didn’t even paint it for the longest time. Sadly it is now melted plastic in some landfill somewhere.

11

Some fine stories there, Chris, Digger, ddayomaha, seventrs and Eric. It is really nice to hear about the different ways you started to model.

12

hmmm since it is about armor i guess my first kit would qualify. my uncle bought me a tiger 1. it took me about three hours to build and about a hour to destroy. the sherman was the first tracked vehicle since that first kit.

joe

13

My truly first armor kit was over 20 years ago as a kid…I don’t even recall the manufacturer but it was a 1/35 scale Duster. Completely hand painted…I remember having the hardest time finding the little square bottle of Testors Gold for the shell casings because my supply store consisted of Wal-Mart and Toys R Us at the time.

I recently came back to armor in the last couple of years as my 2nd “first” was Tamiya’s 1/35 Matilda Mk II. I was playing World War II Online and one of my squad buddies fell ill and was in the hospital. This vehicle was his vehicle in game and so the squad decided to pitch in to buy him the tank…but no one knew how to build it. I had a lot of experiece with aircraft and offered to do it. I took still shots in game of the color scheme, ordered the kit through E-bay, hand assembled and painted it, and personalized it with the squad insignia using AM decals purchased at my LHS. The result turned out so nice that one of the other squaddies asked me to build a kit for him. I then decided to build all the vehicles available in the game I could find and my obsession went from there. I’ve learned quite a bit in the last two years and won’t even give the aircraft aisle a second glance in my LHS. [:D]

14

AHHHHHHH the fond memories of trying to build an entire kit in a few hours !!! I remember it well , and also the throwing of the entire project against a wall when it crumbled before the glued sections dried ! Hey how about the first attempt at clear plastic and adhesive ? Remember that foggy appearance when you got testors cement on the canopy ? And once again leaving a fingerprint trail ! ( can’t tell I have done all of this before huh ?!)

15

My first armor kit I owned was the Monogram 1/32 scale Patton. My dad built it for me and it fought many a hard battle supporting green army men against the evil German soldiers.

The first tank kit I built myself was the 1/48 scale MBT70 by Aurora. This was one of the original issues with the vacuformed base. I still have this kit and rescued it from my mom’s house. I even rebuilt it using a parts kit I bought during the early days of eBay. While I do not remember the exact year, this kit was first issued in 1969-75 (I would have been 5 in 1969) so sometime during this timeframe I would have built it. Best guess would be 1970 or 1971.

16

I’m a relative newbie to armor modeling. None of the models built during my teenaged years were armor…or military vehicles for that matter.

A little over a year ago, I was in a hobby shop for work - picking up x-acto blades that were used to cut fiberglass and composites. I nosed around a bit and noticed all the latest model kits. Since I hadn’t built a kit in over 20 years I decided to pick one up - it was Tamiya’s Tiger I (Early). I built it up over the course of about two weekends (and the week in between) and was so impressed with the enjoyment, that I was hooked. I now have over 150 unbuilt armor/military vehicle/gun kits sitting in the closet waiting to be built.

Enjoy your modeling…

17

He-he-he. Or even the clear windshield of jeeps and trucks. Oh the memories…

18

The first military vehicle model I built was as a kid of… maybe 10 or so. It was the Tamiya M3 Lee; my Dad gave it to me for Christmas and I soon acquired a set of Tamiya figures to go along with.

Eventually I put the tank and figures into a diorama on a base that was WAY too large and the whole affair was done rather poorly, if I remember rightly. Although, at the time, it was the neatest thing I had ever done!

Painted the base with different tempera colors; brown to represent dirt and some god-awful cyan-blue-green-teal or whatever color to represent the river that these adventurous souls of my creation were about to cross, throwing grenades and laying down covering fire as they went…

Anyhoo, that was the only armor piece I had built until about 6-8 years ago when I built this thing, my first ‘serious’ armor model:


Direct Link

'Tis a Tamiya T-34/76 that was meant to be totally SOB, but I couldn’t resist adding a few things here and there as well as thinning most of the edges down to something close to scale. Also added a few bullet and/or shrapnel holes in the thin-skinned areas.

Some additional things that I added, replaced or enhanced:

  • Drilled out gun barrels (no-brainer)
  • Thinned many, but probably not all, appropriate edges, including exhausts and fenders (no-brainer part 2)
  • Scratchbuilt antenna mount; originally had an antenna made out of a cat whisker, but it’s since disappeared. I figure that many Russkie tanks didn’t have radios to begin with, so no-biggie…
  • Added an electrical wire to the driving light
  • Replaced all grab handles with something that looks way underscale, but I still like the way it looks…
  • Replaced the various tie-down hooks with copper wire and flattened .010 solder wire
  • Fuel tank straps made out of rolled and stripped foil from a wine bottle

There may be a few things which I’ve forgotten, but that’s the gist of it…

The paint… green… enamel… Testors… maybe OLD Pactra…

I really dunno fersher what green I used, it’s just a green that kinda looked like it belonged on a Soviet tank. Doesn’t really matter anyway; once the weathering was done it didn’t look like the same green… [;)]

The few markings were hand-painted. At first I was disappointed in the way the ID marking on the turret looked, but then I realized that the real deal probably wasn’t all neat and perfect either…

The weathering was done with a combination of spraying gradually lightened tones of the base color, washes and pastels. I used alotta the RUSTALL black on this thing, as well as some black and dark brown enamel washes.

Doesn’t really show too well in this shot, but many areas of bare metal were achieved using both the old Monogram-Humbrol ‘Polished Steel’ (buffable) and a pencil. The areas which do show clearly in this shot are simply spots where paint was scraped off to show the real metal (foil) underneath.

At some point I decided to put this thing on a base and experiment with muddy terrain and give the tank itself a mud treatment. The mud on the base is a mixture of celluclay and I dunno what else; I use alotta stuff I have lying around for this type of thing and almost never take notes. I also added some static grass and worked it up onto the model along with the rest of the groundwork…

The mud on the tank is real mud with varying applications of Future to simulate the transition between wet and dry. Also went back with pastels and one of my ‘scrub’ brushes to cover up and/or remove the tell-tale crystalline particles which are present in dirt of all sorts and which scream ‘OUT-OF-SCALE!!!’ whenever someone uses real mud on a model…

Uh… lessee… oh, yeah. Last, but certainly not least… the foliage came from a plant which was growing in one of the gardens in the yard.

So that’s my first ‘serious’ armor model. The tail-end of the 222 which you see on the right belongs to the second ‘serious’ armor model I built…

Fade to Black…

19

Thanks for reminding me, I have finish my first kit, or any for that matter…

20

lol … would a BMW that i built as a james bond car - with missile racks and machine guns taken from plane models - count as armor? that was a great project.

[:p] [:D] [8D] [}:)]