This was the worst part (so far, lol) (Patreon)

My friends! Oh, how naive I was to think that I'll assemble the mortar on Tuesday, the cradle on Wednesday, the loading tray on Thursday, and finish the walkways today! 

The cradle is as large as a regular 1/35 tank and it has LOTS of tiny and fragile parts. And it seems that Trumpeter decided to put all the flash they could in this area. What's worse, there are ejector pins in visible places, but they're ridiculously hard to remove. Forget about filling and sanding, your only bet is to use a chisel and remove the plastic around them! 

But damn it, the model sure does look impressive with all the mortar controls in place. I'm keeping the model broken down into sub-assemblies: hull, cradle, mortar - so it's all just dry-fitted together for now. 

This model is the definition of good old modelling - filling, sanding, removing, scraping, polishing, trying not to break stuff, etc. I knew that I'd have to partially half-ass the build if I wanted to get it done in a reasonable amount of time, but if anyone decides to build this model with no deadline on the horizon, there's plenty of stuff that can be remodelled and improved in 3D! 

Anyway, I might assemble a part of the loading tray tonight, but the rest will need to be finished between the holidays. I'm gonna enter Christmas mode tomorrow, as there will be plenty of family visits, reunions, the whole nine. In other words, extremely socially and mentally exhausting! 

Also, my initial plan to get the build and the video finished before holidays totally fell apart, but getting stressed about this kind of stuff one more time this year would probably lead to a mini breakdown, and I had more than enough of those this year :D So for those of you getting early videos, next week we'll have a QnA, and I'll make a separate post for that. 

Last but not least, I wish you all very peaceful and enjoyable holidays!