But things can be fixed. I softened the plastic with Tamiya cement and stipled the cast texture on. I also cut a little slit in the front part of the cylinder to make it look like a periscope
I added the reinforcment ribs on the turret front using styrene strips which I glued to the front with a little overhang and then extended them backwards by glueing another strip to the turret side plateand having it meet up with the front plate. I then sanded everything thinner and gave it a slightly rounded edge. The strips I used were roughly 7x1mm
The kit includes some basic photoetch, which was glued in place here. The grab handles are not supplied with the kit, but are spares from an UM T-34 (I think) and were cut to size. Using plastic helped me save some time fiddling with wire and does not look too bad 🙂
I proceeded to add some mesh to the side of the vehicle. I also 3D-printed myself a nice 7x7cm round base on which the vignette will sit. This photo demonstrates the layout and shows the absolute superb quality of the figures
I brushpainted the faces with a very light flesh-tone and gave them a thinned coat of a Vallejo-wash to give them a some more life-like appearance. Still got a lot of painting to do though
The metal parts and exhaust will get some rust-wash later on. Even with all of my best effort, the decal still had some silvering showing. Hopefully some streaking etc. will tone that down
Some painting and dusting has been done. Scatter and grass were also applied. I really have to get my hands on one of those static-grass applicators...
I also handpainted the signs on the signal mast. They are (from the bottom): "Pinsk" (city name), a weight indicator for a bridge and a sign announcing a checkpoint ("KPP")
I will likely do some touch-up on the upper sign. Even though I thinned the balsa wood, it seems a little thick from certain angles, thus I might resort to using styrene for some signs in the future
UM Models sometimes are a real blessing, as they offer some very interesting Soviet WW2 vehicles in 1/72. Such is the case with the T-80 light Tank from 1943 that was developed as a replacement for the T-70 Light Tank and sported a very cool looking two-man turret with very high gun elevation.
The vehicle will be placed in a vignette with two figures that will depict one of the tank crewmen chatting with an infantry soldier in front of the tank, possibly relaying information gathered while scouting.
For the build I chose to upgrade the basic kit a little with a few addons build from scratch or leftover parts from older projects. The changes made are the following:
1) I textured the drivers hatch, which is the only prominent cast part on the tank to make it stand out a little. I also refined it´s rudimentary sight a little.
2) I added handles cut from leftover handles of an UM T-34. Thus they match the plastics green color but are NOT included in the T-80 kit. I had to change their lenghts a little to make them fit.
3) The exhaust were textured with glue and a stiff brush.
4) One of the stowage boxes was left slightly open with a piece of tarp hanging out to give a litttle more interest to the model.
5) The kit turret lacked the prominent reinforcement-ribs-things on the edge of the front-plate. I scratched them from plastic-card and sanded them to a round shape
6) There was missing mesh detail on some air intakes on the side, so I added Eduard PE mesh to make it look better
