So, a while back I mentioned picking up platoon of Battlefront Miniatures Arab/Israeli Wars "Fate of a Nation" T-54/55 tanks for us on the Arab side of that conflict in 15mm game form.
Well, I have an update!
You can see I printed out Takom/Mig's free paint guide, and I scaled a photocopy of George Bradford's "AFV Plans: Cold War Armored Fighting Vehicles" from Stackpole Books. In this case, it was the older T-55AM update to the venerable system (skirt armor, additional turret armor, electronics) which was the update closet to what I was looking at. At any rate, the scale drawing gave me a great template from which to measure.
For the skirt armor I used .042" sheet styrene (Evergreen). I approximately scored the the seams where the skirt plates are separate with carbide tipped scribing tool (mostly used for machining where you layout your metal parts, but re-purposed for the hobby bench like most other hobby tools). These sat around for a couple years with the rest of the kit. Finally, a couple weeks ago they got pulled out and super glued to the resin body assembly of the Battlefront kit. After these parts dried, I pulled out good ol' green stuff two part epoxy and went to town sculpting the ERA (explosive reactive armor bricks). While the green stuff was curing on the hull assembly, I worked on the turret ERA and laser designator/enhanced optics over the main gun. I had done the main gun a while back with the skirt armor. It was by far one of the easiest tasks for this project.
I'm not entirely happy with my lack of detail. But then, they are 15mm game miniatures. There must be a bit of compromise between detail and ability to pick it up and move it around on the tabletop battlefield. That, and I just wasn't up to the task with my life in its current state of perpetual busyness. I wouldn't compromise the parenting part of that for the world. After all, my older sons follow along to the game shop and play games, that or pester me at home! So, I'm 1/3rd complete on the conversion side! Sure, it takes me more time to do so these days, but that is fine. The point is to keep doing it because I love it. It's a hobby, not a job.
Well, I have an update!
You can see I printed out Takom/Mig's free paint guide, and I scaled a photocopy of George Bradford's "AFV Plans: Cold War Armored Fighting Vehicles" from Stackpole Books. In this case, it was the older T-55AM update to the venerable system (skirt armor, additional turret armor, electronics) which was the update closet to what I was looking at. At any rate, the scale drawing gave me a great template from which to measure.
For the skirt armor I used .042" sheet styrene (Evergreen). I approximately scored the the seams where the skirt plates are separate with carbide tipped scribing tool (mostly used for machining where you layout your metal parts, but re-purposed for the hobby bench like most other hobby tools). These sat around for a couple years with the rest of the kit. Finally, a couple weeks ago they got pulled out and super glued to the resin body assembly of the Battlefront kit. After these parts dried, I pulled out good ol' green stuff two part epoxy and went to town sculpting the ERA (explosive reactive armor bricks). While the green stuff was curing on the hull assembly, I worked on the turret ERA and laser designator/enhanced optics over the main gun. I had done the main gun a while back with the skirt armor. It was by far one of the easiest tasks for this project.
I'm not entirely happy with my lack of detail. But then, they are 15mm game miniatures. There must be a bit of compromise between detail and ability to pick it up and move it around on the tabletop battlefield. That, and I just wasn't up to the task with my life in its current state of perpetual busyness. I wouldn't compromise the parenting part of that for the world. After all, my older sons follow along to the game shop and play games, that or pester me at home! So, I'm 1/3rd complete on the conversion side! Sure, it takes me more time to do so these days, but that is fine. The point is to keep doing it because I love it. It's a hobby, not a job.
