Company of Heroes

Tamiya Cromwell Mk IV 1/48th
Scale - Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts Replica

While it still needs a few touch ups and is missing some details, I just could not keep this to myself anymore. The Juicy Fruit is to give people an idea how big it is and has nothing to do with the ten thousand dollars that just appeared in my offshore Swiss bank account. I have a lot of pictures to share and hopefully imageshack will be able to handle it... *fingers crossed*



Well here she is. The Cromwell is turning out pretty well for my first model in over 10 years I have learned and relearned a lot of things about making models while building this project and it continues to be a hell of a lot of fun.



This is a zoomed in picture of the one above highlighting some of the finer detail on the front (and also some of the touch up work I need to do but I'm hoping that the fact that I've spent far too many hours staring at this thing lets me see the flaws better)



I am really pleased with how the mud turned out. The effect was mostly achieved by dabbing with a cut up piece of sponge. I refrained from putting mud in the tracks because the in game tank does not show any. I get the impression the mud stains have been there for quite some time but the mud has worn off the tracks during its march across Europe.



No doubt by now those more familiar with the Cromwell in game have noticed several things missing. I was lucky to be able to paint the mud on before needing to place the lettering because in game 'L4ND5H1P' is super imposed over the top of the mud. Some of the other detail was not so lucky and got a mud bath. I was very thankful to find some of the decals I needed included with the kit.



Heres a closer look at the above picture. Some other details are missing too. Several of the triangular shapes and the large yellow circle with 30 written in black were not in the kit so I am going to have to figure out a way to hand paint them on. Speaking of hand painting everything you see here was hand painted - I do not yet own a airbrush so I had to do it all manually.



The flash is being a bit merciless with me. The black discolouration on the wheel is barely noticeable under normal light. That is there because I had to reglue some track which had came apart and some glue got onto the paint. I could not be bothered mixing up another batch of the black/dark green paint I used on the wheels so I just dipped my brush in black and touched it up. Of course now it looks hideous and its going to bug me till I fix it.If you look closely you can see that I foolishly did not paint under the Normandy landing hood before I glued it on. (Its the curved thing over the top of the engine exhaust to stop sea water getting in.) I keep forgetting to touch it up because its not usually visible.



Here is a closer look on the rear end.



This is a bit more top down. You get a good look at the canvas rolls which I had to make up from scratch because they are not part of the stock kit. They are made from cloth which was rolled up then stitched closed. I then used my normal Tamiya acrylics to paint it. Its currently one of the most unfinished parts of the model for several reasons. I need to buy some lighter colours so I can put some highlights on the rolls to make them brighter than the hull camo (You can see why in the reference pictures I put on the end) They are currently just sitting on the hull till I work out a good way to attach them and I also intend to add on some ropes made out of thread. I also need to put an aerial on the tank which I am going to try to fashion from a guitar string.



This shows off the wear and tear around the turret hatch. The in game tank has a lot of wear around here from people entering and existing the tank. I am perhaps proudest of this effect out of everything I achieved with this model. You can also see the blue British symbol on top which was an absolute nightmare. I masked it off using paper that I had cut up with scissors then made a stencil held together by modeling masking tape. It did not fit properly but somehow I managed.



This is the last image showing it off from another angle. Once again I really had fun doing this and I look forward to my next project which is the 1/48th Firefly I bought at the same time as this Cromwell. I'll definitely move on to 1/35 after the Firefly because 1/48th is really quite tiny.

I'll finish up with a few of my reference shots I used while making the model to give you guys a better idea of how my model compares and things that are still missing. Its not perfect but I should not really expect to get it right first go







This post has been edited by Finch49th1stAIF: Nov 26 2007, 17:15 PM

Awesome, if i was as half as good as you i'd be proud. I have 2 m10s, a churchill Arve with bridger, and a Firefly. all 1/72nd scale.

looks amazing, well done!

Very, very cool. Thanks for sharing.

sounds funny...a 1:72 bridger...ToH signature or what?


@topic:
brilliant paintshop! looks so professional....i had a stugIV, a jagdpanther and a m7priest and none of them looked even half as nice as your cromwell does. mad props from me!
you used some kinda finishing coat?

Thanks guys

No finishing coat - just regular Tamiya acryclics with a little bit of thinner. I did use surface primer which may have something to do with how well it turned out.

That looks very nice

You know, you can also upload images directly to gamereplays, it makes the topic load faster, by cutting out the middle man

Looks very good. What kind of base coat did you use?

My own personal experience is that, when painting war machines and soldiers with lots of cracks and crannies, it is best to spray paint the whole piece with a thin coat of flat, black primer, hitting the piece lightly from every angle possible.

Then you can touch up the cracks with black paint. After that, it's best to start with your darkest main colors, and move to the lightest colors. The blue stripes and circle look fantastic, though! I always have problems putting light colors over dark colors, and have to dilute my paint and do many layers to get it perfect.

As for the canvas rolls, the best method I've ever seen for simulating rolled up cloth is to get a pack of gum with aluminum foil wrappers (That Juicy Fruit, perhaps...?), use the gum, and then fold the edges over on the long sides, and roll the whole thing up. After that, tie it with thread. This way you can use primer without cloth absorbing your paint, and you can even paint the thread rope-colored.

Loving the juicy fruit.

Nice tank too xD

Heh I did not even think about using the space on GR

The base coat was a thin layer of Tamiya Surface Primer. The grey liquid version that was painted on with a brush. Judging by the result I think it was well worth the effort. The gum idea sounds good I did not even consider anything like that.

+1

This is incredible... I'm sending this to the team.

awesome job, very cool

Hope they get a kick out of it Buggo Your help with identifying the 'soldier blankies' helped build it.

Wow, that's amazing. Thanks for sharing.

Nice work! You've got some cool texture in the weathering and mud application, lots of neat little shapes. The turret is especially great! That's a lot of detail, especially at such a small scale. All my modeling work is of the digital kind, but I love to look at scale modeler's work for inspiration

Put it on missing-lynx!

This post has been edited by jodonnell: Nov 26 2007, 21:54 PM

Holy shit. That looks amazing.
Wheres a good place in Brisbane to find these kind of things, coz ive just started holidays so this looks like a pretty cool kind of thing to get into. Man that looks damn fine, even though i dont like cromwells.

I found it hard to find scale model stores when I went looking Kaos. I did in the end find this place.

Hobbyrama

They are located at Stafford and have more stock than the online catalog would suggest. I went in there and there were walls and walls of kit boxes. Been back several times to score stuff even though its a cross town trip for me.

I also recently found this place online.

Hobbyone

They are at Mt Gravatt but I have not yet checked them out so I do not know how good the store is.

edit: p.s. I will forget what you said about my baby

This post has been edited by Finch49th1stAIF: Nov 26 2007, 22:40 PM

Damn you finished your's waaaaaay before mine lol

I've hardly worked on mine's at all

Nice work, looks very cool

Awesome job man.