dragon t-34 in 1:72 vignette

8/19/2019 Dragon T-34 in 1:72 Vignette

1/69

Dragon T-34/76 mod. 1940 in 1/72

Started: January / 2009Finished: July / 2009

m not a bit fan of Russian AFVs. However, the T-34 - and all it represents by helping to hold the Wermatch in its East Campaemains to as a mythical weapon, as a book title says. Being not much sure about how to proceed with the weathering o

d.Kfz.253 in the small scale, I decided to try a few techniques in another model. So I pulled the Dragon T-34 model 1940 fromash, and a quick examination revealed a very good kit with excellent molding and detail level. Except for the flexible tracks (DraS, which can be glued with regular styrene cements), the little tank convinced me that it could be a fast model, and yet proviseful proving ground for new weathering techniques without having to push the finished model to the trash can. I wish I had somnd length tracks, but that is the only negative point of the kit. On the plus side, Dragon used sliding molds to produce one piece heels, saving me a lot of time. On the other hand, the driving sprockets and idler wheels came with recessed holes, so it is a ea to drill them all the way through for a more realistic appearance. I will not review the model here, but believe me, it is a ood model for its (relatively low) price.

he T-34 model 1940 is probably the less known type of the famous tank, and the one which saw less combat, too. The model ad some unique characteristics. In particular, a T-34 with the SPKO commander's periscope in the (non-circular) roof hatcharly type periscope, the L-11 gun and the welded early-type turret most probably will be a model 1940. All these detaiccurately captured by Dragon. Only 117 (115?) of these vehicles were produced by KhPZ No.183 factory in 1940, plus 1540 in 1hey were responsible for fighting the with the Wermatch in the beginning of the war in the East, but are curiously not veryocumented in comparison to the other versions of the tank.

. Basic assembly

started by assembling the model after the instructions, finding absolutely no problem in fitting the parts together. Onlccessories, roller elements and the exhaust stacks were left out at this stage. Small seams were filled with Mr. Surfacer 500 andxcess removed with a cotton swab and Mr.Color Thinner.

http://www.ratomodeling.com/finished/t34/wip/sdkfz253/sdkfz253_72.htmlhttp://www.ratomodeling.com/finished/t34/wip/sdkfz253/sdkfz253_72.html


2/69

followed the instructions and installed the photo-etched grille of the engine compartment. It fit nicely in its slots inside the owever, photos T-34 in combat show clearly that the grille should sit over the hull. If you are going to build this model, consanding the raised details on the grille perimeter and installing the photo-etched grille atop the hull, ignoring the instructions. Anouggestion is to glue a couple of vents before the grille to avoid the see-through. I didn't do it, and it is virtually impossible to corr

ithout damaging the photo-etched part. What I did was to install plastic strips to make the grille frame flush with the hull. I planneot install one of the stowage panniers on the left side of the hull to add a different touch to the model. So the corresponding locugs were sanded flush with the hull, and new supports were made using small pieces of Aluminum sheet (the supports are mol with the kit panniers, not on the hull - hence the new ones):


3/69

o finish off with the turret, I added the missing lifting eyes on the top of it (see the tip for making them). Interestingly, Dragonepicted them on the box art, but not in the kit. Anyway, now I see that I installed them aft of their correct position - they shouightly ahead of the edge of the curved plate behind the mantlet. I put them aft of that edge... ces't la vie. I also drilled the two olded with the turret for more realism.

ext, the seams left after assembling the turret were deepened using a needle, and these were used as guides to glue pieceretched sprue. These will simulate the prominent weld lines of the early T-34 turrets:

http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/plastic_rings/http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/plastic_rings/


4/69

sing good amounts of liquid glue, the stretched sprues were glued along the seams and pressed with the blind edge of a hobby o simulate the weld texture. Once dry, the excess was trimmed and the welds were gently sanded with fine graded sandpaper:

t this stage, since the basic assembly was finished, I added the accessories to the hull sides (jack, toolboxes, etc.). The shove


5/69

e spare tracks were left out for easy painting.

he last job before loading my airbrush with paint was to improve the aspect of the headlights. After checking several photos, I fut that these are very sparkling items in early T-34s. Apparently, no type of cover was usually used to conceal them. So I holloe lights using a spherical blur tip. Then the inside of the lights were rubbed with Rub'n Buff metalizer using a cotton swamulate the reflexive shell:

also added a few bolt heads here and there:


6/69

nd the lights were masked using small disks of plastic temporarily attached with Microscale Adhesive Foil. The final details wdded after painting and weathering. The final touches consisted of adding some damage to the front and rear fenders. I sibused of them using round tip pliers, and smoothed the final result with gentle sanding and liquid glue:


7/69

. Painting

ainting time... finally. It started pre-shading the whole model with Tamiya XF-1. Pre-shading is barely effective in weathered odels. The main objective was to assure that all recesses and tight corners received some dark paint to act as false shadowsaking easier the overall coverage with the main camouflage colors:

fter that I coated the hull undersurfaces and track spaces with a dark green mix of Tamiya acrylics. I also applied this color span the upper surfaces to provide some color variation after the final color was applied:


8/69

ext the overall camouflage color was airbrushed. The olive green 4BO oil paint used on the T-34s seemed to vary with the amf fading, dust, etc. accumulated over the vehicle. I simply mixed Tamiya acrylics XF-13 and XF-5 to produce a basic colorrbrushed it very thinned to cover all areas:


9/69

he basic color was then lightened with the addition of XF-59 Desert Yellow and misted over the areas more exposed to the sun.

ix was further lightened with XF-59 and applied again, even more thinly, on selected panels. The same treatment was used onrret and the main gun.


10/69

he wheels were painted dark gray, and I was fortunate to find a drafting template that matched precisely the inner diameter oubber bands, making the painting of the road wheels a breeze. Note that the idler wheels and driving sprockets were already dt this stage:


11/69

order to protect the basic painting from the abuse that would come during the next steps, a good coat of Model Master Metaealer lacquer was applied over all painted parts. I like to use this product as a gloss coat because of its durability and fast d

roperties, and... Well, the truth is that I still have a half dozen bottles of the stuff in my stash.


12/69

. Washes

ext came the washes. I used the usual recipe of artists oils thinned with white spirit. Raw umber, burnt sienna and natural shaere the basic colors used. I used almost pure black on the engine vents, and a lighter brown tone along corners and recesse

mulate accumulated dust:


13/69


14/69

he same treatment was applied on the wheels and the turret:


15/69

. Filters

he next step was somewhat new to me: dot filtering. I do not think enamel filters are effective in small scales as they are in herefore, I jumped the wet filtering and applied random dots of oils in various colors over the turret and the hull, concentratinffect on flat areas. Using a flat brush wet (but not flooded) with white spirit, the oils were spread with vertical strokes of the bntil they faded almost completely. During this step, it is necessary to clean the brush from times to times so that the different cend only partially between each other, preserving the different hues from one area to another.


16/69

lthough this was the first time I tried the technique in an armor model, I am satisfied with the effect obtained, and like any ethod, it is easy:


17/69

found the method more difficult to be used on some areas of the hull due to the limited space to work with the brush, but in the managed to produce visible color variations on the glacier, fenders and hatches:


18/69

retrospect, I think I could go over again with some even lighter filters, but decided not to overdo the effect. After all, I woul

sing use pigments later...

. Dry-brushing

he final flat coat was airbrushed over all part using Humbrol Matt Cote for a dead flat finish. Contrary to what I have read aboutroduct, it does dry, it is just a matter of shaking the bottle until your arms fall from your body. From my own experience, if you doir the stuff very well, it will remain tacky for years. Another hint: since this is lacquer paint, it is possible to add some sfterwards by scrubbing a toothbrush or a piece of paper over the desired areas. More on that later...


19/69


20/69

he flat coat prepared the model for a very gentle dry-brushing. This old technique seems to be relegated to a secondary plac

astic modeling, but I still think it is an important step for detail highlighting. To me, the secret of this technique is not to overdo ailing to leave the correct amount of pigment in the brush or by using too bright colors like pure white or yellow. Another hint I least recently: never use a flat brush for dry-brushing - use a round one with short, smooth bristles. In the present case, I used areen color applied over corners, bolt heads, lockers and other details. Much of the effect will be lost after the application of pigmut not all of it. The photos below show some spots highlighted after dry-brushing:


21/69


22/69

. Paint chipping

With the model flat coated and dry-brushed, I started to add chipping effects to the model. Older, oxidized chippings were added fine brush and a mix of Hull Red and Black from Vallejo vinyl paints. Recent paint chipping and scratches were simulated usin

nd 2H pencils:


23/69

he use of water-based paints (or vinylic, in our case) provides a safe method to simulate paint chipping, since you can remoasily before it dries. Sometimes, rubbing it down with your finger produces interesting effects and, being a dark brown color, it r

oks like dark rust accumulated over old scratches. As for the pencils, to me it provides the most controllable way to simulate hipping. Scoring the lead over the edges and round corners allow you to obtain very realistic high contact areas. Note thahippings produced with the pencils are still bright in the photos below, what is not strictly correct. Another, very thin coat oarnish will be applied later to dull more or less the effect in each area:


24/69

or instance, the lifting eyes on the top of the turret can remain relatively shiny, since it would be under constant contact with oots etc.

then reloaded my airbrush with Humbrol Matt Cote highly diluted with lacquer thinner and went over the chipped areas to cu


25/69

hine. On a few particular spots, I intentionally left some shine to depict recent wear. Time to proceed to the weathering:

. Mud and di rt


26/69

hen I started with the dirty part: adding dust and mud to the lower hull areas and wheels. I must confess that this is somethingo me, as the last time I did something similar was back in the 80's, when pigments and all where simply non existent. The lessarned with this T-34 will be applied on my Sd.Kfz.253 diorama, which will also refer to Russian battlefield.

started by applying a very thin mist of Tamiya Buff (XF-57) along the front, rear and sides of the hull. This first step had the objef simulating fine dry dust accumulated all over the vehicle. Next, I had to consider that Russian earth is a very dark one, so I have some identity to the dirt. This was acomplish by overspraying Tamiya Flat Earth (XF-52) randomly over the areas previoainted with Buff color.

used the Buff color on a few selected places on the upper hull too, but taking care to make the effect more constrained:


27/69


28/69

k. I postponed the next moment as long as I could. Muddy time... My feeling that I could scrap all the work so far due to my la

nowledge on this technique rapidly fade away. I started by mixing flat acrylic varnish, fine sand and various pigments to produoderately thick dark brown medium. This mixture was applied by dabbing it over the surfaces using an old brush.


29/69

While the mud mix was still wet, I went over and applied two or three brown and dark earth pigments. Some spots of the suspennd transmission received a touch of Tamiya Smoke (X-19) to simulate oil and grease runs.

he only place where I really had to take my time was the transition between the upper and lower hull in the front and the rear oehicle. In those areas, you can not have a hard edge transition, but at the same time the dry/fresh mud spots must be clearly visnting that the lower hull is much more dirt.


30/69

n the aft area, behind the engine, I made soot marks using black pigments, subtly blended with the mud below the exaust pome oil leaks were added under the pipes by brushing small streaks of Tamiya Smoke:


31/69

While the hull was set aside to dry, I finished with the smaller items: towing cable, shovel, spare tracks and the machine gunshown here):

he running stuffs alse received their share of dust and mud. This time I wasn't much shy, as these worked closer to the groometimes I overdid the effect, but instead of removing the pigments (something I found pretty difficult to do), I just went overome green pastel chalk to retrieve some of the original camouflage:


32/69

he idler and driving wheels didn't have rubber bands, so I metalized the outer rims using a piece of graphite lead and rubbedheels with my thumb afterwards. Way easier than painting with metalizer paints:

t this point I cemented the missing details to their positions around the hull and retouched the dust with more pigments.


33/69


34/69

When cementing the rear end of the towing cable to its position (right ahead the spare tracks), the part slipped from my tweezersnded on the side of the hull. Of course, the superglue followed the Murphy's law and dried immediately (something I never get wwant to!). Definitely this is not the standard position of the cable. I could remove it, but sanding and repainting would be neededritical area with the model almost finished... Noooooo way. I'll live with that. Field modifications were not common at this first stf the war in the east, but to my favor, I have at least a photo of an early T-34 with the cable stowed in that position. Anywayonsidering adding a small length of chain to help to conceal the fault.


35/69

. Tracks

he tracks were painted next. Being of the vinyl type, I decided not to run any risks and painted them with acrylics thinned ubbing alcohol, avoiding more agressive products. I'm still not convinced about the durability of this type of tracks. The years to cill tell. Unfortunately, I have no photos of the tracks being painted or installed. Everything was carried out in a single modeection, and the only chance of me removing them from the model is to replace the tracks for a link-by-link one. More on that late

nyway, the tracks were painted with a very dark gray color, than misted with rust color in random patterns. After an acrylic ash, I applied four coats of pigments. Dark rust was the first one, followed by light rust. I then applied a heavy coat of dark earth

o match the color of the tracks with what I planned to be the terrain color. The last pigment step was to mark the inner track here the road wheels run using black pigment. I will return to the tracks for touch ups once the terrain is done to make everyatching better.

nce the tracks were fully dry, I started to install them. In my first attempt, I installed the driver wheel and all the road whe

xpecting that I would easily fit the idler wheel in place, tensioning the track in its final position. To my horror, I discovered thaould be impossible, even after heating the vinyl parts with a hair dryer. Switching to plan B, I glued the driver and idler wheels,stalled the tracks. The stuff barely could make it, applying an excessive stress on both wheels. So I removed the driver wheels

eplaced their locating pins for brass rods and repeated the assembly. The idler wheels were clearly over stressed, but this teated up the tracks and left the model resting for 48 hours. Being a viscoelastic material, the vinyl track would relax enoughould install the remaining wheels.


36/69

wo days later I returned to the model and carefully installed the road wheels in the sequence below. By installing the first andoad wheels first, they naturally provided room to install the inner ones comfortably afterwards. It worked, but in retrospect, I shave added a brass rod to the front wheels, too. God knows if I won't wake up and see them broken one of these mornings...

still have to deal with my Sd.Kfz. 253, which also has vinyl tracks. But these will be my last tracks of this type. I hated to install t addition, if you look carefully you will notice that they bent transversally over the idler and driver wheels (which are narrowere track) - something unacceptable in any track, in any scale.

nother bad thing is that the area where the track ends were connected deformed in a strange shape under the tensile load. onceal the problem later on with mud and grass. On the other hand, after a few days, I noted that most of the ugly spots minished, proving that the tracks actually relaxed (or it was just me getting used to them?).

Dragon will insist in their DS tracks, they could at least make a good use of slide molding and make their vinyl track in a sece. Another suggestion, this time for the modeler using these tracks, is to subject them to a tensile stress, by leaving the tranging suitable weights during several days. This would result a slightly longer piece to work with, and more straight too. Wnough complaining, on to the photos. As you can see in the photo below, there is no sagging, as expected. This can be correctepplying tiny spots of glue on the top of the road wheels and pressing the tracks against them. It will be done only after the basainted, in order to use the same paint mix of the terrain in the inevitable touch-ups. I will also add bright metal spots here and the


37/69

xcept for these too many problems, the final aspect is acceptable. I know that most Braille scale AFV modelers prefer to instalacks and wheels before painting. I must add that it is ok, but my sequence gives more freedom to paint and weather the trheels, and the lower hull as well.

t this point I still had to work on the headlights and correct the tracks' position. The later was adjusted by carefully lifting the t

om the road wheels, adding a small drop of carpenter's glue, and pressing the tracks against the wheels. Small pieces of ruoam were stuffed in the space between the hull and the tracks to keep pressure while the glue was setting.

. The base

eanwhile, I started working on the display base. Everything started with a box made of plastic sheet, and reinforced on the inith pieces of sprue. The sides of the box were trimmed in an irregular shape, following the terrain relief I had planned. The reliefas obtained by stuffing plaster soaked newspaper strips inside the box. It wasn't made all at once. It is better to work in ladjusting the terrain profile with your fingers and a spatula. Once finished, everything was set aside to dry for a couple of days. S

mperfections were corrected by sanding or adding small blobs of plaster. In my case, since some areas would not be covererass, so I sculpted the relief on these areas directly on the plaster using a knife. In particular, I planned a small pool collectingater pouring from the higher area of the terrain, so I had to carve the pool and make the corresponding erosion marks on the ea

nce satisfied, track marks were made with a thin layer of wood putty, and the base was covered with sand and small rocks. ep was finished with a coat of flat black to shadow everything. Here are the basic steps so far:


38/69

f course, everything was measured during the process, using the T-34 model to check track aspacing and to assure that noould be floating in the air:


39/69


40/69

he base was then airbrushed with several tones of dark earth. Russian earth is known to be very dark, so I tried to mimic that. reen colors were lightly airbrushed around the pool area to simulate slime commonly found in wet, shadowed spots.

he plan was to insert a couple of small pines on the upper side of the base, plus some small trees and bushes here and there. ea was to try to achieve a somewhat dark spot of a forest. For the pines, I decided to use an interesting type of plant I've

ollecting over the years. Don't ask me what it is, all I know is that it makes an interesting type of conifer. It is already dehidratedpainted it anyway in order to seal everything. Here is the stuff:


41/69

s for the trees and bushes, I used my dried root stock, and selected some. Of course, they would be trimmed and adjuccordingly to their size:


42/69

small trunk was added to add interest, and it is worth to note that the vegetation here will be more dense than the photos buggest now. This is just a layout check:


43/69


44/69

nd, of course, I couldn't resist to put the small tank in action (those red things you see in the photo below are rubber foam puffed over the tracks to keep them in position while the glue sets):


45/69

nother point before proceeding: I've tried Mural acrylic colors for the first time in a serious modeling project. Let me tell youverything up to this point was painted using this brand. I cannot recommend enough these paints. They are cheap (around R$7ome in 60 ml (that's a lot of paint!) squeeze-type plastic bottles, and leaves nothing to be desired in comparison to other imporands. Interestingly, they cannot be thinned with isopropyl alcohol, just like Vallejo - that's why I suspect they are not exacly acut vinylic paints. I thinned mine with Vidrex (Windex) and they performed ok in both, airbrushing and hand brushing. Insteaasting a lot of money in Tamiya paints, try Mural colors next time. You will not regret.


46/69

he pine and tree armatures were looking a bit skinny to my eyes. I could add some more roots to the trees, but that would not with the pines. After looking at Jerônimo's dioramas, it became clear that the problem was that I was trying to use the wrong typcenic material. Unfortunately, I didn't have the correct type (or size) of foliage, nor the correct color (conifer green). So I hamprovise. In fact, much of what I did here was the result of much experimentation. Here is the list of materials used during this st

Noch© grass glue: One of the best glues for grass and foliage. It is water soluble and dryes flat. I like to thin it in watespray using those small trigger spray bottles.

Noch leaves: I love the sense of scale this product gives to small scales.

Tinted Noch leaves: Since I had Noch foliage in only a couple of colors, I tinted small amounts of it using dyes with va

shades of green and brown to avoid monochromatic tone .Scrubbing pad: I used an industrial type, but any Scotch-Brite type would do.

http://www.ratomodeling.com/gallery/teixeira/http://www.ratomodeling.com/gallery/teixeira/


47/69

he Noch leaves would be used for the trees. As for the pines foliage, I made my own by scrubbing small blocks of florist's green color) over a metalic strainer. The result is a flocked material which rivals any Woodland Scenics stuff for making foliageushes - anf for a fraction of the price:


48/69

ext I had to visualize the type of pine trees I was looking for. After consulting reference photos on Russian battle ground dpring/summer, I checked my previous article on making trees from wire and decided to depict pines more or less like the ghlighted in the catalog below:

hat is where the scrubbing pad enters. I chopped a good amount of it into small pieces (1 to 2 or 3 mm) and glued it on the ranches. This would give some volume to the foliage that would be impossible to achieve glueing the foam stuff directly overanches:

http://ratomodeling.com/articles/base1/base1.htmlhttp://ratomodeling.com/articles/base1/base1.html


49/69

applied the same method to add small twigs to the trees, but used slightly larger pieces of chopped pad:


50/69

very thin wash was applied over the pine trunks before proceeding, followed by a gentle drybrushing with light gray artists oils.ghlighted the already nice texture of the plants used. The foam foliage was applied next. I intentionally left some twigs almost ef foliage, following what I saw in the photos:

he final effect is quite convincing, particularly taking into account the scale:


51/69


52/69

his finishes the work with large vegetation. Small stuffs would be added later... Time for another check:

nce satisfied with the general layout, I used my usual method to reduce much of the sintetic brightness of the static grarbrushing light mists of greens and browns after the grass glue was dry. This is a very fun step, as you can control the shaesired on each area by using darker or lighter tones of each color. No special recipe here... just mix the colors right into the airbup and shoot away:


53/69

urther, localized regulation of the colors is achieved by drybrushing artists oils over selected areas. This also helps to recover sone differences in places leveled by airbrushing:

fter posting a couple of photos on internet modelng forums, I received some constructive criticism regarding an exceonochromatic aspect of the base. However, I must disagree that this is wrong. One of the photos I have used show how too gl

one variations are not necessarily correct. The photo below show captured T-34s in a marshy quagmire near Tolotshin, on theiver, circa summer 1941. This scan does not show yellow and red flowers as in the original photo, but helps me to make the p


54/69

lso worth to note is how excessive paint chipping can be wrong in this case, particularly in 1/72 scale:

he pines were then finally glued to the base, as well as the remaining of the vegetation. I gave a final touches on the water pooe base of the small cliff by airbrushing a greener color to depict slime, and pouring "thickened" Future to simulate the wat

ecided not to use any kind of resin to simulate the water due to the small volume required, and using resin could be messy and o I left a small cup of Future open during a couple of nights until it had a thicken consistency, and applied it in three layers (thene tinted with brown acrylic paint), until only the top of the rocks inside the pool were visible. Once the Future was fully drbrush thinned Future around the perimeter of the pool to give that wet look:


55/69

t this point, it is important to set your project aside for a couple of days and return to check it with a fresh mind. It is very eaose the perspective of what is overdone and what needs to be emphasized during the process. Finally, dead leaves were scatnder the trees (see the article about my He-170 base) and I declared the base done. The protective masks were removed and

http://ratomodeling.com/articles/base1/base1.htmlhttp://ratomodeling.com/articles/base1/base1.html


56/69

errain was glued over one of my standard wood bases:


57/69

0. Back to the T-34

he tracks of the T-34 were checked, and another round of glue/rubber foam was necessary to ensure they had the correct sagar as the vinyl allowed). I used a soft pencil to expose the bare metal of the tracks in a few places. The disks protecting the ghts were removed, and I finished them by adding the bulbs and the lenses. I used a different method to scratchbuild the lightse result was very satisfactory concerning the characteristic relief of the lenses. This is subject of another article, in preparatio

orn radio antenae was also added from stretched sprue.

nd here is the little fighter:


58/69


59/69


60/69


61/69


62/69

1. Finishing off

he T-34 was just laid over its base. What I have learned with this project? Well, I learned a lot about camouflage color modulaith the airbrush, how to better use pigments, how to keep paint chipping subtle in small scales, a nice method to make head lind that vinyl tracks are not worth when compared with their link-and- length/link-by-link counterparts. Except for that, this xcellent kit. And of course, I improved my skills in making terrain and vegetation, but this is a never ending learning curve, you kat. I hope you enjoyed this project, and that some of the techniques shown here can be useful somehow to you. Here are the

hotos:


63/69


64/69


65/69


66/69


67/69


68/69


69/69

Technical file

Kit: - Dragon #

Addi tions:

Basic colors: - Primer: Fast drying automotive acrylic primer - 4BO Olive Green: Mix of Tamiya acrylics (XF-5 + XF-13 + XF-59)- Flat Black: Tamiya XF-1- Gloss finish: Model Master Metalizer Sealer - Flat finish: Humbrol Matt Cote- ... and lots of Easy Colors pigments

Notes: - If you can, avoid using the kit's vinyl tracks.

dragon t-34 in 1:72 vignette

Documents