Hi Jakko
That is looking very good. Seems that all the different paints and washes have worked well together.
Jim
That is looking very good. Seems that all the different paints and washes have worked well together.
Jim
G
Thanks, all 
The wash that went wrong did end up giving a very nice weathered paint look, yes. Though I’m not happy with the surrogate white spirit-like stuff I made it with, the outcome does make me think it’s worth a try on another model but with a different thinner.
The wash that went wrong did end up giving a very nice weathered paint look, yes. Though I’m not happy with the surrogate white spirit-like stuff I made it with, the outcome does make me think it’s worth a try on another model but with a different thinner.
G
After painting the few details that needed it, I started searching through my big box of leftover decals for suitable ones for the star on the engine cover, the chassis number on the nose and the arm of service marking.
I found a star of the right size on an old sheet from the Academy M10 tank destroyer — the ancient kit that was a Tamiya copy, not their more recent effort. I made a believable chassis number from a WD census number on the decal sheet of the Revell 1:72 Cromwell, of which I cut off the last two digits and the lut the 1 that was in that part, in front of the T to make 1T1878:
View attachment 427400
I don’t know if this was the chassis number of the real bulldozer, because it can’t be read in the film, but D7A chassis numbers all began with 1T and another dozer at Westkapelle was 1T1128, so I think this is at least plausible — if completely pulled out of thin air.
As you can see, though, the star silvered really badly. I ended up scraping it off with a blunt sculpting tool and scrubbing the remains off with a brush:
View attachment 427401
This went fairly well because the decal was very thin and fragile, but not a great job to be doing. That done, though, I applied my second (and only remaining) choice:
View attachment 427402
This one is from the Italeri Dodge WC-62 1.5-ton truck, which I hadn’t used first time round because I feel the ring is a little thin.
For the arm of service marking, which will be 344 with a diagonal white line, I’ve found some numbers I can use in WD numbers on the Tamiya 1:35 Cromwell’s decal sheet, but I’ll need to paint the blue background and the line myself. I began by masking the area and painting it white, to make it easier for the blue to cover well later:
View attachment 427403
I found a star of the right size on an old sheet from the Academy M10 tank destroyer — the ancient kit that was a Tamiya copy, not their more recent effort. I made a believable chassis number from a WD census number on the decal sheet of the Revell 1:72 Cromwell, of which I cut off the last two digits and the lut the 1 that was in that part, in front of the T to make 1T1878:
View attachment 427400
I don’t know if this was the chassis number of the real bulldozer, because it can’t be read in the film, but D7A chassis numbers all began with 1T and another dozer at Westkapelle was 1T1128, so I think this is at least plausible — if completely pulled out of thin air.
As you can see, though, the star silvered really badly. I ended up scraping it off with a blunt sculpting tool and scrubbing the remains off with a brush:
View attachment 427401
This went fairly well because the decal was very thin and fragile, but not a great job to be doing. That done, though, I applied my second (and only remaining) choice:
View attachment 427402
This one is from the Italeri Dodge WC-62 1.5-ton truck, which I hadn’t used first time round because I feel the ring is a little thin.
For the arm of service marking, which will be 344 with a diagonal white line, I’ve found some numbers I can use in WD numbers on the Tamiya 1:35 Cromwell’s decal sheet, but I’ll need to paint the blue background and the line myself. I began by masking the area and painting it white, to make it easier for the blue to cover well later:
View attachment 427403
G
Thanks, hopefully you’ll think it will get better with the following
For the star on the nose, I made a template rather than trying to paint it freehand. I first cropped the picture of the real bulldozer to get just the nose, then tinkered with it to remove the perspective and size it to the correct with and (estimated) height. Next, I drew the star over the photo, aiming for a close fit, and printed that out. Then it was a matter of cutting it from the paper to make a template and tape that to the model:
View attachment 427459
Rather than spray the star, I hand-painted its outline by using the template as a guide for my brush:
View attachment 427460
All that remained was to fill in the outline and paint the markings above it freehand:
View attachment 427461
The star looks like it doesn’t cover very well here, but it looks better in the flesh, because I had to take this picture as an HDR photo — with a non-HDR photo, the whole star was white as snow, which is just as misleading. It still needs some work to get rid of the brush strokes a bit better, though.
(As an aside: the “8LCT” refers to the landing craft that this bulldozer was carried in. The 8 is the Loading Table Index Number, or LTIN, which was a number used for Operation Infatuate II for purposes of loading the landing craft. LTIN 8 was LCT 980, a craft commanded by Sub-lieutenant A.P. Gurnsey from New Zealand. I don’t know what the “E1” refers to.)
On the left side, I added two small strips of tape to make the white line above and below the AoS number, then painted the whole field blue:
View attachment 427462
For the star on the nose, I made a template rather than trying to paint it freehand. I first cropped the picture of the real bulldozer to get just the nose, then tinkered with it to remove the perspective and size it to the correct with and (estimated) height. Next, I drew the star over the photo, aiming for a close fit, and printed that out. Then it was a matter of cutting it from the paper to make a template and tape that to the model:
View attachment 427459
Rather than spray the star, I hand-painted its outline by using the template as a guide for my brush:
View attachment 427460
All that remained was to fill in the outline and paint the markings above it freehand:
View attachment 427461
The star looks like it doesn’t cover very well here, but it looks better in the flesh, because I had to take this picture as an HDR photo — with a non-HDR photo, the whole star was white as snow, which is just as misleading. It still needs some work to get rid of the brush strokes a bit better, though.
(As an aside: the “8LCT” refers to the landing craft that this bulldozer was carried in. The 8 is the Loading Table Index Number, or LTIN, which was a number used for Operation Infatuate II for purposes of loading the landing craft. LTIN 8 was LCT 980, a craft commanded by Sub-lieutenant A.P. Gurnsey from New Zealand. I don’t know what the “E1” refers to.)
On the left side, I added two small strips of tape to make the white line above and below the AoS number, then painted the whole field blue:
View attachment 427462
G
I finished the Arm of Service marking with decals from the Bronco Comet sheet (not the Tamiya Cromwell as I thought earlier), and also installed the tracks:
View attachment 427541View attachment 427542
The one on the left side, that I put on first, went better than the one on the right. I’ll need to hide the worst gaps with clumps of sand or something. The links don’t fit all that well together, and the ribs on them are very fragile. I half-broke several and had to glue them back on.
View attachment 427541View attachment 427542
The one on the left side, that I put on first, went better than the one on the right. I’ll need to hide the worst gaps with clumps of sand or something. The links don’t fit all that well together, and the ribs on them are very fragile. I half-broke several and had to glue them back on.
Coming along nicely.Looking at how rocky that beach is they would probably be a bit bashed up anyway.
G
I think you’re mistaking our lovely beaches for those of southern England
View attachment 427545
This is the modern beach in the area where the photo was taken, after Ciara paid a visit last year. All beaches around here are fine sand, so I think I’ll add some sand-coloured washes over the tracks and lower parts of the bulldozer, with probably a few larger bits with tall grass sticking out to camouflage the gaps in the tracks.
View attachment 427545
This is the modern beach in the area where the photo was taken, after Ciara paid a visit last year. All beaches around here are fine sand, so I think I’ll add some sand-coloured washes over the tracks and lower parts of the bulldozer, with probably a few larger bits with tall grass sticking out to camouflage the gaps in the tracks.
Yeah fair enough,second photo is a bit deceiving .
We do have some nice beaches lol
G
I can’t say they seem overly inviting to me, and I found them very hard to walk on, even more so than a dry sandy beach Anyway …
View attachment 427839
I applied a wash to much of the suspension, made from a greyish sand colour paint that matches the local beach sand here reasonably well. I took care to really only put it on the tracks and horizontal surfaces nearby, as it’s intended to represent sand, which falls off, rather than mud, which sticks. After it had dried, I enhanced the effect by painting the same colour neat into areas where more sand would build up, and the mixing it with thick, acrylic structure gel and some stiff hairs cut from a house-painting brush to represent the tall grass that grows on the dunes around here (this is planted there deliberately, to prevent the sand from being blown away by the wind). I painted it first of all over and into all the ill-fitting and damaged parts of the tracks, to hide the defects, and then into other areas where even thicker sand might build up.
To put in the stowage racks, I built four boxes like those that can be seen in the film clip of the real bulldozer:
View attachment 427840
These were mostly made with my chopper tool, by cutting a 6.5 mm wide strip of 0.5 mm plastic card into 13 mm lengths for the top and bottom, and then cutting lengths of 3 mm wide strip to form the four sides of each box. After glueing them together, I cut thin, narrow strips for the little planks that form the edges of the short sides, and when the glue on those had dried, I filed them flat to get rid of the seams between them. That done, I cut diagonal seams in the corners, as this is much easier than putting two 45 degree corners onto sixteen bits of strip and hoping they fit together as they should.
Anyway …View attachment 427839
I applied a wash to much of the suspension, made from a greyish sand colour paint that matches the local beach sand here reasonably well. I took care to really only put it on the tracks and horizontal surfaces nearby, as it’s intended to represent sand, which falls off, rather than mud, which sticks. After it had dried, I enhanced the effect by painting the same colour neat into areas where more sand would build up, and the mixing it with thick, acrylic structure gel and some stiff hairs cut from a house-painting brush to represent the tall grass that grows on the dunes around here (this is planted there deliberately, to prevent the sand from being blown away by the wind). I painted it first of all over and into all the ill-fitting and damaged parts of the tracks, to hide the defects, and then into other areas where even thicker sand might build up.
To put in the stowage racks, I built four boxes like those that can be seen in the film clip of the real bulldozer:
View attachment 427840
These were mostly made with my chopper tool, by cutting a 6.5 mm wide strip of 0.5 mm plastic card into 13 mm lengths for the top and bottom, and then cutting lengths of 3 mm wide strip to form the four sides of each box. After glueing them together, I cut thin, narrow strips for the little planks that form the edges of the short sides, and when the glue on those had dried, I filed them flat to get rid of the seams between them. That done, I cut diagonal seams in the corners, as this is much easier than putting two 45 degree corners onto sixteen bits of strip and hoping they fit together as they should.
G
I enhanced the sand effect using Vallejo Weathering Effects Light Brown Mud that I applied with a fine brush to build up more sand in specific places and give it more texture. In real life the sand is so fine you wouldn’t see any texture in 1:35 scale at all, but it looks better on a model if you do. A wash of Tamiya Flat Earth then brought out the texture. I took care to only put sand onto surfaces it wouldn’t immediately fall off of — fine, dry sand doesn’t stick to vertical surfaces like mud does, after all.
View attachment 428893
In the racks and on the back, I added stowage from stuff I found in my various parts boxes. It’s not exactly what was on the real thing, largely because that’s impossible to really say from the available pictures. My excuse is that the model doesn’t represent the dozer as it appears in those, but at a slightly later time because else it wouldn’t have grass stuck in its tracks
View attachment 428894
And with that, it’s on to the completed models section
View attachment 428893
In the racks and on the back, I added stowage from stuff I found in my various parts boxes. It’s not exactly what was on the real thing, largely because that’s impossible to really say from the available pictures. My excuse is that the model doesn’t represent the dozer as it appears in those, but at a slightly later time because else it wouldn’t have grass stuck in its tracks
View attachment 428894
And with that, it’s on to the completed models section
Legal Notice
scalemodelling.co.uk is a privately operated online discussion forum. All content posted by members reflects their own views and opinions and does not necessarily represent those of the forum owners or administrators. While reasonable efforts are made to moderate content, no responsibility is accepted for user-generated material. By using this site, you agree to comply with UK law and the forum rules.