Hello everyone! Seems like I'm on a roll getting the various pieces of this diorama ready to be emplaced. This little car will be towing a small trailer full of ammunition to the T-55 during a lull in fighting. All I have left to do is paint the T-55 and two figures + random objects and bits of scenery. This morning I finished up Trumpeter's UAZ-469, which was pretty standard Trumpeter fare. Let's get into it.
The Build
Trumpeter seems to have three tiers of quality, Very Good, Terrible, and Middling. The UAZ could have been terrible, as there is quite a high parts count and some tricky sub assemblies (and never mind that soft skin vehicles are a pain to build and paint anyway!) but I'm pleased to report that it went together pretty well.
I had one snag, which were the rear bumper guards which Trumpeter supplies as PE parts. I would have been happy had they made the part a single length of PE that must be bent into shape, but no, they decided that we needed several cuts along the sections to be folded, which led to a wonky bend that was too angular to match my reference images. I'm okay at PE, and even with the right tools, annealing the parts, patience and planning, I still couldn't get them into a neat curve. So I did what any reasonable person would do and balled them up and threw them away. I decided to design my own guards in SketchUp and converted them to a printable STL file which I printed out on my Saturn 4. While I was at it, I though the front tow hooks looked a bit soft in detail, so I designed and printed out a set of those as well. The rest of the build was fairly standard. I skipped the engine because it won't be seen and my plan already called for detailing enough things that would end up hidden in the end.
I painted and detailed the interior first after installing and masking all the windows. For this I took measurements and drew out the masks in GimpShop, then imported them into Cricut Design Space and cut them out. They were a perfect fit and I didn't have to spend ages tracing around small details with a hobby knife. I used AK Real Color Russian Protective Green 4BO for the interior, but I lightened it with a touch of US Interior Green because things will get pretty dark in there once it's closed up. I used some 3D decals from Quinta Studios (I know, I know. This kit and accessories was purchased in 2021!) to replace all the dashboard details. I rebuilt the various transmission shift levers with .3mm wire and a blob of UV cure epoxy resin. I did this because the figure I wanted to use would not fit with the levers in the way of its legs. The seats were painted with AK 3rd Gen after a white base layer to emphasis shadow and contrast. Speaking of seat, I didn't like how my figure sat in the kit seat, so I designed one and imported it and my figure STL into SateLite. I used a Boolean Operation to remove the parts of the seat that the figure interacted with when sat properly on the bottom cushion and back rest. I printed the seat and was happy to report that everything fit as intended.
I painted the canvas top separately because like almost all vehicle canvas roofs in injection plastic, the details were so-so and I needed to focus on creating shadows and highlights. Once primed, I gave the whole roof a once over in AK Real Colors Buff mixed with Portland Stone at about 70/30, then applied AK's Dark Brown Wash over the whole part. I applied it thinned about 50/50 with white spirit and let the enamel settle into the crevasses. This would be my shadow coat. Next, I mixed up Buff again with Portland Stone, this time at 60/40 and thinned it way down. I misted this over the canvas roof from a "straight down" angle. Then I added two drops of flat white and sprayed on the highlights.
The car's body was done in AK RC 4BO darkened with Olive Drab. VMS Gloss varnish went down and I applied the decals from Star Decals. These were meant for another Croat T-55, but there's nothing wrong with a little creative liberty. I applied a few more layers of gloss varnish over the decals because they were quite thick even after Tamiya MarkFit Strong, and then a final layer of satin. Basic weathering was done by mixing up a light gray to simulate the grime from driving on snowy roads and I sprayed this lightly over a couple coats of AK chipping fluid. Once it was chipped to my liking, I mixed Lamp Black and Ground White oils to match the chipped layer and refine everything. I was pleased that I was able to color match the initial sprayed layer exactly. At this point I permanently attached the roof and removed the window masks. The fit of the roof onto the car isn't great, and I encouraged it as much as humanly possible without serious surgery. I found a hard top STL for this model, but it's fit was even worse so I just filled the largest gaps with PVA glue so they weren't totally open.
I used AK Snow Sparkles and Snow Sprinkles to simulate frosted glass. I'm like... 60% happy with how that came out. I think there is a lot of potential with those products, but the learning curve is steep! I think the frost is my least favorite aspect of the finish, and if I had to do it again I'd probably just do a grime wash on the glass and call it. I once again used my Cricut to cut out a window wiper mask for the front windshield, stippled on some thinned grayish oils and did the frost effect over that. I used AK Snow for the deposits of snow on the windshield base, the bumper, and spare tire and gave it a dusting of Microballoons. I thought about doing a few runs of Tamiya Clear to simulate melting snow, but I figured since the engine was running, it'd create enough heat to evaporate any snow melt that may happen. I replaced the vinyl tires with DEF Model resin examples and gave them the same treatment as the rest of the car, and that was all she wrote!
I started both the UAZ and the T-55 at about the same time, but past the barest of assembly steps, the UAZ required paint so I figured I'd knock it all out in one go. Comparatively, the tank ought to require far fewer steps, though it will be much more work!
As always, thanks for looking!
