Tamiya 1/48 Abrams almost finished

[Keith_Rob]

Lots of things I screwed up here.  But since it's the first model I have completed in several decades I did ok.  First time with an airbrush. . first time at weathering.  In 1973 weathering was not the thing it is today.  I give myself a C.  

Attachments:

[JCON]

Looks great to me!!!

[Keith_Rob]

I also made my first diorama.   

[JCON]

Nice base!!!

[Beekster]

Well done, especially after a several-decade hiatus. Yes, weathering has changed a lot. Probably too much, really. I see many models with a several shades of chipped/faded/scratched paint; a similar number of colors of rust, and the same for dirt, dust, and mud. Is it visually impressive? Absolutely. But I find it to be over the top, for several reasons:

1. Paint was often more durable than modelers realize. US equipment in WW2 had good quality paint baked on in ovens, just like all our cars today.
2. Good paint would fade, but that takes a lot of exposure...
3. Many vehicles didn't last long enough in combat to really fade.
4. What looks like scratches often aren't. Often such marks are not scratching the paint but rather exposing it. Think branches scraping accumulated dust from a surface, like your finger run across the surface of a dusty car.
5. Multiple shades of mud & dirt are possible; fresh wet stuff darker than older, dried stuff. But be careful about this. When it's dry, mud dries quickly such as after fording a stream in summertime. When it's wetter, and the ground is damp, the stuff never really dries out except near places where heat from the vehicle itself would dry things out.

And finally...

6. Keep in mind scale effect. Sure, we can see lots of color variation on derelict cars when we're looking at them up close. That same variation would not be something we could distinguish on a model from the appropriate scale distance. In 1/35 scale, if we are looking at the model from a foot away, what we see should approximate what we would see when viewing the real thing at about 35 feet away.

Of course, there's artistic impression involved and different subjects call for different presentations and when it's known that poor paint quality or application is involved then some of the more dramatic effects are called for. Same goes for models of derelicts. But your Abrams? It should look dusty to dirty depending on the environment, and it does. Not heavily chipped (the unit motor pool officer would never allow that) or rusty (same). Some fading and chipping if it's been a long time since a major repaint, or if the paint job was temporary for an exercise. But exercises last a few weeks, not months or years and the maintenance cycle once back in garrison tends to deal with problems fairly quickly. So don't obsess over what you see others produce or feel that you need to buy six dozen bottles of various fluids to get a good looking model.

[Keith_Rob]

Thanks Beekster. A lot of good food for thought here. I'll admit that I like weathering, but I am careful to not go crazy with it.

[rustybaer]

Agreed, weathering is often what takes attention away from the model itself, IMHO. Sometimes heavy weathering is appropriate, but it's rare. I've gone both ways there, and honestly, a couple of recently finished models of mine have been dinged for not being "weathered enough". Go figure. In the end, do what you enjoy, it's your model, have fun. Nice M1 by the way.

[Dukemaddog]

Keith, I'd give you much higher than a 'C'. You did an exceptional job for not having built a model in decades. I've been building for decades and I'm still trying to achieve a level of quality equal to this.

[JED]

Nice work Keith

[Robbo]

Very nice. I had a lot of fun with one of these a long time ago, I got a big resin stowage set and really loaded it up

[Robbo]

Don't know why that photo is so small