The kit contain 8 light grey plastic frames with a lot of small details (including complete interior) plus separated two parts superstructure, piece of brass wire and nice touch - the engine cover with glued in PE. The parts are very nicely molded with ejection pin marks on places where don't matter or are easily filled and sanded, with only one exepion that beats me - the tracks has the on every second track piece from the outside! The only way how to cope with this is mud.
The decals are for six different machines, but only one is actually pictured in the separate instruction sheet. The folded assembly instruction sheet has 12 pages and is quite clear but is missing the colour guide for interior. I guess this is before lack of the information, as I looked through the internet just to get more confussed.
I started with cleanning up of the ejection pins on various parts. Then the assembly of the interior began together with painting. Finally, I decided to use as colour reference the pics of interior of the Trumpeter 1/16 T-34. I sprayed the inside walls with Gunze H325 Gray and then did some wash and dry brushing. Most of the interior won't be seen anyway after the hull and turret is closed. There are some fitting issues but nothing serious.
To glue the hull together takes some test fitting. At least I came across problem with firewall being to high, so I had to sand it off a bit. .
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There was one of the first TV series in Eastern Europe inspired by a book called Four tankmen and a dog that was very popular. The T-34 in the series was the 85 mm gun version, but in the book originaly the 76 mm was the heros' machine until it was destroyed. I picked this machine for my kit. The tank had the russian green camo with white polish eagle markings and tactical number 102 on the turret sides. The name "RUDY" was on the left side of the hull as well as the prints of the hands of the crew. There is a decal sheet in scale for T-34/76 from Polish company Armo that contains the acceptable numbers and eagles. The mask for RUDY was made of Tamyia masking tape. The crew hand prints were hand-painted.
I sprayed the model with Gunze Green H303 as the base for the green, Then I used few filters of the same green lightened with the yellow H4. The I used oil colours of different browns and CMK Stardust pigments for the dust and mud on the wheels and exposed places of the structure. As the Rudy T-34/85 was new machine, I didn't want to overdone it to much. The oil stains were made with black oil colour thinned with Humbrol thinnerOn few places I make stains with the pencil to simulate the scratches on the steel.
June 2011