The Other Armourfast Su85

Having completed one of the Su85s, I went and finished off the other.  I thought I'd go further with this one though and add a bit more clutter.

Working it out with a pencil

This included a barrel made from a bit cut off a pencil, with some strips of paper glued round it, and a roll of material made from a a piece of old T-shirt rolled up and tied off with thread.  There is also a piece of spare track on the front.  It's not quite right as T34/Su85 track section but it was the best I had to hand (made from some old Airfix Tiger tracks, cut down a bit).

This Su85 has been depicted a lot more beat up and muddy than than the first one I painted.  I also left the commander's hatch open, until I can find a figure to go in it.  I had wanted to leave the driver's hatch ajar too, but that would have been a bit more fiddly.

Not sure what's up next, although I expect that it will be these KV-1 babies.  Looking forward to these as they seem a bit more detailed and for the first time ever (after being brought up on Airfix and Matchbox tanks), gravity seems to to be having an effect on the tracks in a realistic manner.

After this, it seems I've run out of Soviet tanks to make, although the Pegasus early KV-1/KV-2 combo, plus their T34/85 and even their T26, are beckoning.

Armourfast Su85

Following on from the Armourfast T34/76 models I made and painted earlier this year, here is the Su85 tank destroyer.  I'd actually painted another T34/76 this week as well, but you've seen one of those already.

It is rather a spiffing model with nice details such as separate handrails and four fuel tanks.  I put another one of my bespoke hawsers on this one.

Paint scheme was the usual Tamiya XF-13 J.A.Green with a black wash, followed by some light dry-brush highlighting with buff paint.  Decals came from ebay after I decided that my hand wasn't steady enough to paint the numbers.

I didn't make this one as weathered as my T34/76 as they are the 1941 versions so I reckoned that this one hadn't been in the field as long as they had.  I have another Su85 to make and paint (Armourfast kindly put two in a box) and then I can move on to the Pegasus KV-1, or perhaps another project...