Heres the start of a long build but it just has to be done theres no way around this one if your Canadian. I'm not gonna lie but this is a great build the kits I'm working with are top shelf.

Tamiya Leopard 2A6
Storm minatures Canadian Leopard upgrade
Eduard Leopard 2A6 PE detail set
Eduard Slat armor PE
AFV link tracks
Perfect Scale Modellbau Leopard 2A4 upgrade
Echelon Canadian 2A6M decals
Lion Roar Baskets for Leopard 2
Barrel depot barrel
Detail bits from:
Maple Leaf Models
Legends
Acurate Armour











Please help with pictures,suggestions,Ideas and anything else you can think of.

Lots more details to come.

Lookin' good.

Why the cover on the PERI-R 17A2 sight?

Hey thanks Jason.The reason I covered the sight is I saw it done on a model and wanted to try it. I'm not sure if I like it I have the PE to detail it nicely.

The cover may be fitted to the sight if the tank was being transported or parked non-operationally but in the field it would not have a cover. Just something to keep in mind as you plan your project.

I know that and it will limit options. Are you trying to tell me it looks bad or detracts from other details? If so please say so Because one little thing like that can kill an end result. When you put as much work into a build like this Leopard you want it to be looked at.

I recommend that you leave off the cover and detail the sight.

You appear to be spending a bunch of time, effort, and money on this project so make it an operationally deployed vehicle equipped and fitted the way it would be in combat...i.e. leave off the sight cover. The sight would look very nice with PE details and the optics.

The sight is a stand out detail on the 2A6M turret so you should show it off.

If you are going the route of a tank in combat then you should have the doors to the gunner's sight housing open as well...unless the primary sight is broken and the gunner is using the secondary sight the doors would be open to use the sight and the laser.

you've convinced me I do want to put this on a base with ground work. having it hanging around base is not going to be that interesting.
About the cash layout for this model your right its going to be a pricey one.

I'm not so sure that the "hanging round" the base idea would be so uninteresting. You could have it undergoing maintenance in KAF, throw in a couple of vehicles like that "NATO" front-end loader, some mechanics, and the obligatory HESCO, I think it would make a really cool diorama. Fair enough, the sight cover would still be off most likely, but just a thought.

I was actually thinking about doing my latest LAV parked in a FOB or leaving the front gate.

You're giving me a lot of inspiration for my upcoming leopard project btw

Trevor by the time I get done with the amount of PE on this kit I won't be laying down all those other vehicles but you never know. I saw a good pic on Combat Camera of a Leopard C2 and a LAV overlooking a valley I think that would make a good diorama.

Hey Chris, coming along nice. nice pics too. Why are you using resin wheels?

Thanks Graeme. The wheels believe it or not are Hobby Boss I used them because the tires are more accurate then the Tamiya wheels in my opinion. The hubs are a little cloudy but they will have a dust coat in the end.
As for the pictures I bought a good camera to get into photography I did a little barter with a friend to get a Nikon 35-70 lens. I like shooting models so far but there is so much to learn.

Can you expand on what you mean?

the detail on the Tamiya wheel hubs are a little crisper. The Revell and HB tires are sharper edged and smaller I think they look more like the real thing but I'm only going by pics I have never seen the real thing.

Here's my Leopard to date. It going slow due to the best summer in St.John's in the last many years. I know lots of people are hungry to try this build, people have been sending lots of emails. its surprising how many people are going to build this. That's the cool thing its bringing lots of attention to Canada's effort in Afghanistan, in the world of modeling anyway.

Music inspiration for this build "Invaders Must die" The Prodigy, Goggle it!

So far looking good.


Cheers


Anthony


"Gone toe to toe with the Taliban,and won."

This is a crazy build the track from AFV Club have 3 parts per link now all this micro metal folding that I'm doing. Its going be a long haul.

Belly plate



Tracks on and some brackets



Looking pretty sick though.

After I build this no PE can ever discourage me.

Some of the Slat brackets were to flimsy and also hard to fold properly so I made some from card. I laminated three sheets of card together and then sawed of each arm. It was faster and I think the end result will look better.
some PE and a few I made.


Here I mounted a couple

I'm starting to connect the slat sections its very fast building the slat. the only part that has to be thought out is the attachment points. When I do this build next time I will measure and mark all the bar attachment points before I build the turret. The way I'm doing it now is hard getting around the detail.

How are you attaching the slat sections to the support arms on the tank?

Trevor I'm gluing it all so far and its fine. I replaced some brass with plastic to firm it up. Have you stared yours yet?

My LAV III got bogged down with the coming of summer and plus 35 degree weather in Victoria, so I'm trying to finish that off right now. I've collected all my parts and whatnot for the Leo (Except the cam covers), so I'm reading as many blogs as I can to avoid any trouble areas once I lay down the hull.

Trevor one thing to do first is locate all the support arm locations, make sure your measurements are right. Then Mark them. mainly on the turret. Do this before you put any detail on. It will save you about 5 hours of tedious measuring with delicate detail in the way.Plus your slat will end up being more true.
For the Cam cover I have some stuff in the works and plan to do another Canadian 2A6. By the time I have this one done the tanks in country will have all the slat beat off them and I'll won't need the PE set for my next Leopard.

Got a coat of prime paint on the turret. I used Tamyia grey,this stuff is very nice, it gravitates to the plastic. Looks good at this point. This is the best part, covering all the parts to to one color. The support arms are a little wonky but they will all come together when the slat goes on also much of the crew gear will cover in the arms.

The coax gun barrel was replaced with metal tube.



You can see here the arms I made from plastic.

to mix up the rest of the build I'm going to paint the turret and crew gear. I think I'm going with strait from the bottle Tamiya NATO colors,Does anyone have any suggestions about that?

I build a light box heres a picture



I think its alittle blue.

In my opinion both the Tamiya NATO Brown and the NATO Green are a bit too light. I always darken them up a bit with the NATO Black.

I had a few hours to spare so I did a little work on my Can. Leo. Its been hot lately so not to much into modeling. There's been mostly talk of real 1to1 stuff on here lately so I thought I'd bring us back to 1/35.

I want to get the lower haul done before I finish with the haul brackets and slat.

A little CM here I'll cover that better later with the turret and upper haul.



Some shading, I'll cover that as well later, I think I have a few new tricks to get that dust right.Just a little pre info I spread some acrylic flow release on the model and then sprayed on some thinned Vallejo in the dust color.


I use this stuff from tri-art the same way I use Model air from Vallejo. I mixed their retarder to give myself more working time and it helps as a pigment sealer. I added a little of tri-art Naples Yellow and Mig light dust to a mix.






The oil was done with what else but oil paint I mix three colors in three different viscosities. This help break up uniformity. I don't have a paint sponsor supplying me paint, so I get the cheep stuff.


Next I'll finish the build and start the CM on the model.

Any help here would be good Thanks

Getting through it,I'm on the home stretch for the build. I think everything is in order. I've had a good bit of help from everyone here this helps take the guess work out of it.

Nice job on the cat Chris, it look very nice...paint is next ?? One day I will finish mine.....just after I complete my Grizzly.......

Luc Desormeaux
http://www.campmapleleaf.org

Yeah its a tough one to focus on. Its got to many small parts I'm like Rodney Dangerfeild in Back To School with this one.

I still have a long way to go yet.Some pics

Very nice....but the NATO brown looks very light in the images.

too much PS, oh well.

Started the painting of details and color toning. Any thoughts on the tan color? I think it wants to be a little lighter.

Nice work,
even in Italy I'm finishing the same subject
Just one question, the launchers are not Wegmann last type 6 above and 2 below?

hi
Fabrizio

They are the Wegmann 76mm launchers.


Cheers

Anthony

"Gone toe to toe with the Taliban, and won."

Fabrizo there were some,or one sent, with 4x4s. I think the one with the 4x4s was sent back to Germany for repair.

Here's a pic of the Turret in Germany last fall.


If you are looking pics of the Can. Leopard serch for CombaCamera.ca plus there are alot posted here.

After you finish your Leo 2 have a stab at the Can. C2 with Mexas.

Chris

Thanks Chris for the clarification
I saw the picture of your tower during painting, and I noticed that you've just painted the sand next to the generator exhaust and not the hatch below

P.S.
How do I insert a photo as an example?

I got tired of the detail painting and left it for another day.

to post pics host in Photo bucket and drag the url up to the post window

Could you post some pics of your Leopard?

Moving right alone.












More info on these stages on Armorama

I did some more washes and did a dull coat. I painted on a orange panel on the box. I saw this in a pic so I figured why not.









I started a Cuda version with Leopard scrape parts. It going to be covered in cam cover anyway.

Nice weathering....keep it going.

Chris, try cranking your f-stop a bit higher. You need to be in manual mode, or aperture priority most likely. That will help with your depth of field.

GD

I've been having some problems with that lately. I am set in
aperture Priority. I'll play around with the F-stop. I'm at work right now so I'll try with the next round of detail shots.

Thanks

I've been having some problems with that lately. I am set in
aperture Priority. I'll play around with the F-stop. I'm at work right now so I'll try with the next round of detail shots.

Thanks

I got it worked out. Thanks again Graeme.







A little more fine tuning with light,settings,editing and maybe a photo-box.

Chris

The yellow looks to dark, any plan to lighten it up a little ?

Anthony

Its going to be tough now.Maybe once the slat and dust is on it will be lighter. I'll figure out something.

I need a little opinion on this dust. I'm not overly concerned but I got so much into this model I want to get it at least half right.
Duty Afghanistan is tough to model.

It isn't too much Chris but the tide marks take away from the effect....how did you apply it?

Jason the dark brown marks are the dark pigment I mixed into Gulf sand to darken it up. Its separated and made the lines.I can deal with that. The light ones, I'm trying to do to the effect that you sometimes see when dust adders to the brown and green but not the black of the camo paint (check picture) I've seen it on Abrams as well. I used lighter fluid as a fixer, it dries quick.
When you say not too much do you mean I should put more on. I do plan to lay down lighter color layers.

In my opinion, you can't have too much dust, especially if you are depicting it after crossing the desert. I remember the Leopard's cam paint being hardly distinguishable at all. The dust over there is mostly like a powder that sticks to everything. I've enclosed some photos of a "gently dusted" Leopard from April 2008.





Can't believe these photos are over a year old.

yep, hard to believe a year has gone by eh!

Man those are great pics. Got any more?

I've got a ton, anything you need in particular? FYI, my platoon didn't get along with the tankers so I don't really have any "walk-around" photos- I wasn't allowed to show interest in the Leopards- hahaha! I've got lots of shots of them out and about though.



kind of a sample of what I have

I'm looking for pictures on top of the turret. These photos are great all the same. Keep posting.

Question- aren't the tanks there for infantry support? If you don't like each other.....?

I remember trying to build t-72s,Abrams and Chieften models back in the 80s and you couldn't even find one decent photo.

Yeah, I know what you mean they are are bunch of over gravy filled crewsuit wearing snobbish cowboys.............wait a minute.............I was one and I hated gravy and never wore the crewsuit.....


Ha

It's a long, convoluted and immature story of why we and the tankers hated each other- not so much suited to a public domain model building forum

Changing the subject, here's another top down shot from on top a hill at an undisclosed FOB (that's my lip service to OPSEC)

the only people the grunts dislike more than black hatters are herbies!! that is till they need a fire mission.
" Hey FOO!!"

Excellent, Trevor,

can your other pictures be seen anywhere in the net?

Thanks for sharing.

Harald

Thanks Trevor great pictures there. Heres a update pic.

Wow I'm excited. I'd say its almost ready to roll down Hwy 1 in RC South!

that's the nice thing about modeling current gear, you know exactly what the real thing looks like. I think this model has a realistic look mainly due to the kits that have been assembled together theres not one bad part.. The main distinguishing feature being the add on boxes,t-mounts and slat.

I repainted the slat a lighter color. It was to yellow. I have it laid up here.

I'm going to build a jig with wood on the table saw to make sure the slat goes on straight. if it works good I'll post some pics.




Everything is looking sloppy right now but I'll pull it all together in the end.

I didn't really need to make this but handling this model is getting harder.

full account of this build. the jig was a total necessity it made it easier to line things up. I'm going to eat my words now and say that Tamiya's wooden Deck Tan is the the absolute best match for the tan color, right out of the bottle.

I Got all the lower slat on finally plus all the brackets. They were a little tough but I persevered. just got to add the finishing touches and weathering. Then its round two-the turret.





Any suggestions for the base plate on this model? I'm entering it in a local show.

Here's a photo I found of the slat starting to look beat up. (around April or May 08)

As for a base- I'd suggest it rolling down a road or pulling up into a run up (like the photo) I guess it depends on how much work you want to put into the base.

That's a good one I could dig out my Shepard Paine book and figure out how to do rock like that. The picture gives me a better view of the orange air recognition painted panel on the box. I was unsure of that.
As for bent up slat I'm going to do another model of the cuda covered Leopard with much of the slat gone altogether.

new picture:

Dusting done.

Looks good Chris....don't forget the antenna for the driver's rear view camera.

I added it on. Thanks.