I’ve been thinking for a long time about building something other than an airplane. I admit that I was tempted to go back to the time when I was about 17 years old and I eagerly built tanks in 1/35 scale. A few years ago, I impulsively bought a few boxes, but I never found the courage to start any of them. I was discouraged by the number of parts, the complexity, and first of all, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time with something that should only serve as a form of rest from aircraft building. I ended up just looking into the boxes with models. Still, it didn’t work for me, and I looked for some other way to get off the planes for a while, and a solution was finally found. I will build the tank in my favorite and only correct scale! I used to turn my nose up at tanks in 72 scale, comparing the details to a larger scale, and was skeptical about the possible outcome. After a discussion with my friends, I decided to give it a try and buy my first 1/72 tank. For starters, I‘ve chosen the well-known line World at War from IBG company, which is more for wargaming, but the level of detail, number of parts, and easiness of construction is absolutely perfect for someone like me. I liked the shapes and I was also attracted to try camouflage on such a small scale, so I chose the A10 Cruiser. British interwar tanks are just as ugly-beautiful as interwar French planes, for which I also have a weakness.
The model went together really fast, the parts fit well and the only downside is used plastic. I’ve already noticed on IBG aircraft that their plastic is tough and hard to sand. Fortunately, the construction is really simple and there is basically nothing to do after two evenings. I replaced the cannon with a tube, BESA machine guns are from the Master company, they definitely worth it. I added the etched grille on the exhaust cover and replaced a few handles with wires. The last modification was a drilled reflector on the tower, which I glazed with clear epoxy.
Since I don’t know much about tanks and their camouflage schemes either, I decided to buy a set of paints from AK 3gen for the “Counter Scheme”, used on British tanks in Africa. The paints spray well, just as they work well with a brush. I have to say that I fell in love with these colors quite fast. Although they are not very resistant to abrasion, I do not want to make any judgments in this regard, because I do not use any primer or surfacer. Basically, all you have to do is paint the model and the problem with durability is solved. The advantage is both the ease of working with them and the choice of shades and almost zero odor. I tried to find some tips and tricks regarding weathering from other modelers, different magazines and I found a lot of information on internet. For the first time I tried to use pigments and painting of little scratches, two things I haven’t trained too much before. It didn’t turn out so badly for the first time, but there’s definitely space for improvement. Anyway, I am satisfied with the result and I really enjoyed the whole build. I’ve already bought a few boxes so this is definitely not the last tank from my table. However, next time it will be something that flew in the clouds, or rather what was supposed to fly 😊