Well, it turns out that photographing the completed kit was harder than building it! I realized I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. The camera is an old fashioned reflex type with manual focus. When I focused on some detail of the model other detail would go fuzzy! Very frustrating. I have no flash lamp so I took the pictures on the balcony of my apartment almost freezing to death. It was a bit too sunny with the light reflecting off the model annoyingly but in exchange you get very accurate color reproduction (because there’s no camera flash).
If anybody can give me some tips on photographing models I’d really appreciate it.
Anyway, here’s a kit summary.
Trumpeter 1/35
White metal individual track links (Friul)
Turned alluminum gun barrel & white metal muzzle brake (forgot manufacturer)
M.V. products lenses for the headlights
The tank commander figure is from Tamiya’s “Russian Tank Crew at Rest”
The display case is a standard, cheap 1/18 diecast car case. Works great for armor.
During the construction I have received dozens of very helpul hints from forum members, thank you all very much.
So much work went into the individual track links though and to be honest I think it doesn’t matter in the end because so little of the track is visible. The eyes naturally focus on everything except the track.
Looks SOLID and really INTIMIDATING! Looks real and it is great. I have seen this kit and now at least I know what it can look like when built. Thanks for the pics Monster.
That’s a lot of investment for after-market products, good works!.
I also have Trumpeter’s JS-3M on show on my site : http://www.falconbbs.com/model15c.htm
It’s been built right out of the box, and photographed using 20-years-old SLR.
With the help of 2x and 4x filters, I could take close-up pics like these :
MonsterZero (and ModelManiac), your IS-III is awesome. It’s a favourite AFV of mine and you both did it justice. I started the Tamiya kit a while ago… I need to get it finished somehow!
Very nice! What a powerful looking tank the IS-IIIm is, especially photographed from the top. These things were designed to fight the Tigers but were still in action in the early 70’s!
I’ve got one to model as an Egyptian IS-IIIm of the Fourth Egyptian Armoured Division. The Trumpeter kit’s hull is widely regarded to be more accurate than the Tamiya, by the way.
The treads look great. Hey, did the Friuli tread lengths curl? I’m curious about this. My Tiger II treads did not, but my Panther treads did, sending me into quite the tizzy. [:p]
