Everything in place (Patreon)

My friends, I don't know if the photos work (again) because as I'm posting, I can't see them...

Anyway, I've got everything that's made out of plastic ready and glued in place (well, except the exhausts but those are also ready). Now I can finally start adding photoetch! 

Probably the most tedious part were fenders. To give them a bit of "character" I had to thin them down with a rotary tool from the inner side... all the way! That took a while because they're very long, but once it was all done, I could add some small dents here and there. It's not as good as denting photoetched fenders, but better than nothing. 

There were some fit issues when I was gluing them to the hull, especially in the rear section where exhausts will be. I ended up "cheating" and filling the gap with a small weld bead even though it shouldn't be there. It's not going to be very visible once the exhausts are in place, but the gap definitely would be! Let's make that our little secret 😁

The storage boxes also needed some work. In reality they're welded  from not-so-thin plates, it's visible in photos that they're quite sturdy. So I spent time cleaning up the glued joints and rescribing each lid to make it more pronounced. I also added some minuscule texture for good measure. 

The rest was kinda regular stuff... gun cradle was textured, detailed with a few plastic circles and then welded to the rear plate. Fuel caps textured, detailed, glued. Headlights cleaned up, filled, drilled out, welded to the hull etc. Electrical cables are made from lead wire as usual. 

Now I have the whole workbench cleaned up from all the plastic shavings and dust (there was a TON of it), so it's time to finish the model with photoetched details 😁