M4 High Speed Tractor

1
May 31, 2019
Alclad 2 black gloss
2
May 31, 2019
Alclad 2 black gloss
3
May 31, 2019
Alclad 2 black gloss
4
May 31, 2019
Tamiya red brown, then some orange on top of that in some spots.
5
June 1, 2019
Neutral grey for the interior...
6
June 1, 2019
Seats, and all important fire safety equipment. Holy hell 1/72 is small.
7
June 3, 2019
Second coat - Olive Drab. The salt stuck nicely with just water, and my hope is that it comes off easily with just a bit of brushing. Now on to the final blue coat...
8
June 8, 2019
Final coat added (sky blue). Wow, that's really blue. The salt rubbed off easily and the chipping looks good. Not much green shows through, but I'm reasonably happy.
9
June 8, 2019
You can see the green in the bed a bit, but not too much.
10
June 8, 2019
Detailing is coming along now... My daughter asked why there were bicycles in the tracks! It's a pedal powered tractor, sweetie. Everyone's going green these days...
11
June 9, 2019
Getting dirty with some mud and grass from Vallejo.
12
June 9, 2019
And now some splash mud!
13
June 11, 2019
More mud & pigment.
14
June 11, 2019
Glamour shot.
15
June 11, 2019
Bask in the muddy glory...
16
June 11, 2019
Does this mud make my butt look big?
17
June 11, 2019
Ready to roll.
18
July 5, 2019
The beginnings of the diorama base. This is my first, so I'm keeping it simple. This is a piece of 1.5mm plywood with some shaped styrofoam to mimic berms or hills. I then coated it all with some AK Natural Earth texture mixed with Vallejo paints.
19
July 8, 2019
20
July 8, 2019
More grass! It's gonna need to get mowed before this is all done. I'll have to build a working scale lawnmower.
21
July 11, 2019
Here's where the fence will go... still working on grass.
22
July 11, 2019
Unfortunately, I think the fence is too big. The boards are 35mm long, which is a bit more than 8 feet high in scale. At 1/4 inch wide, it's almost 18" in scale. I think I'm gonna leave it though. It looks okay.
23
July 15, 2019
Back side...
24
July 15, 2019
Coming at you...
25
July 15, 2019
Front side! Now I need to make a box for the base...
26
July 21, 2019
Much nicer with the balsa base!
27
July 22, 2019
Almost done! Just a little more glue & ground cover around the edges to tidy things up. Not bad for a first diorama!
28
July 24, 2019
Final photo shoot!
29
July 24, 2019
30
July 24, 2019
31
July 24, 2019
32
July 24, 2019
33
July 24, 2019
34
July 24, 2019
35
July 24, 2019
36
July 24, 2019
It's been a fun project. Thanks for following along!
37
January 20, 2020
Holy smokes my friends, this little guy ended up in the reader's gallery of FSM!

Comments

1 31 May 2019, 13:56

Nathan Dempsey
Nice! This is going to be a quick build.

31 May 2019, 14:35

Olivier
A high speed build, you mean...

31 May 2019, 14:53

Bryn Crandell
Interesting color for this subject. Looking forward to seeing more.

31 May 2019, 14:54

Paul Juliano
@ Nathan and Oliver: Oh, this is gonna be high speed all right... hahahah!

@Bryn: This is an undercoat of rust colors so I can do some salt chipping. My plan is to do some layering: rust, salt, OD green, more salt, then blue (civilian repaint). That should give me some good layers and make it interesting visually. Well, assuming I can pull it off!

31 May 2019, 17:01

Nathan Dempsey
Cool idea Paul.

31 May 2019, 19:10

Chris Greathouse
Interesting subject.

1 June 2019, 22:25

Paul Juliano
@Nate thanks! And @Chris this was a total impulse purchase, believe it or not! Just wanted to try something new and this guy just caught my eye.

1 June 2019, 22:28

Chris Greathouse
What blue did you use?

8 June 2019, 18:30

Nathan Dempsey
Looking good Paul.

8 June 2019, 20:48

Paul Juliano
Thanks @Nathan! @Chris This is Tamiya's Sky Blue. I've applied some Abteilung Light Sand oil pant over the centers of the panels to add a fading effect and tone down the intensity of the blue a bit. I'll post some pics later!

I gotta say, this is the most supportive, non-toxic community on the entire Internet. Go us!

9 June 2019, 13:41

Alec K
Very nice work Paul, and awesome chipping effect 👍

9 June 2019, 14:17

Nathan Dempsey
I keep looking at this and wanting to build one in 1/35...

9 June 2019, 17:05

Paul Juliano
Thanks Alec! Nate, you should! Hell, I'm thinking about doing one in 1/35...

9 June 2019, 21:59

Chris Greathouse
You certainly covered your tracks on that one. 😄 I like the nice and dirty with the chipped blue. Great Tank!

9 June 2019, 22:09

Nathan Dempsey
Really liking the looks of this one Paul. Great work on the mud.

9 June 2019, 22:46

Martin Oostrom
Even the rivet counters are courteous at SCM, Paul.
You're doing a great job with this build. 👍

11 June 2019, 20:52

Nathan Dempsey
Ohh nice. A base for the little blue one.

5 July 2019, 16:59

Neuling
Nice dio!

9 July 2019, 09:37

Chris Greathouse
Nice mudball dio!

9 July 2019, 12:07

Paul Juliano
Thanks guys. The grass is slow going, as I'm gluing it on in clumps by hand. I've been placing some scrub in there among the grass clumps too. I figure I'll cut it down a bit when it's all there. If I go any shorter I can't grip it, and using tweezers yields more of a fan shape than a clump.

9 July 2019, 12:40

Paul Juliano
Ok, I think I just need to build some sides to finish off the base, and maybe hit some parts of this with a flat coat after I add some dust pigment to the grass. Some of the bushes and such are woodland scenics, but some of them are lichen I found on a branch, and...

I'm likin' the lichen.

Sorry! Couldn't resist.

15 July 2019, 13:26

Slavo Hazucha
For a high speed tractor diorama, I expected something more like this 😉 😉

[img1]

But as the picture confirms, your depiction of the static mud is most excellent!

Just joking - seriously, looks great, I like all types of dirty, broken, muddy and rusty stuff and this is a fine little example! 👍

15 July 2019, 15:21

Paul Juliano
Stick a fork in this one, boys & girls. It's done!

24 July 2019, 13:54

Nathan Dempsey
Beautiful result Paul!

24 July 2019, 15:34

Alec K
Very nicely done Cosmo 👍😉

25 July 2019, 12:44

Paul Juliano
Well, I can't believe it! I submitted some pics to Fine Scale Modeler a while back and as I was flipping through this month's issue, look what I stumbled upon! Can you believe it?! I thought the images might show up in the online gallery someday, but I never thought I'd get in the magazine. Crazy!

20 January 2020, 13:21

Olivier
Did you get paid ? I sure hope you did.

20 January 2020, 14:26

Łukasz Gliński
Really nice dio 👍

20 January 2020, 15:24

Nathan Dempsey
Nice Paul! I love when this build comes up in the feed...

20 January 2020, 20:24

Alec K
Congrats Paul 👍

21 January 2020, 13:49

Tom ...
Score! Nice one, Paul!

21 January 2020, 22:22

Album info

With a maximum speed of 35 mph, I'm thinking this should have been named the M4 Moderate Pace Tractor. Well, I suppose, if we're comparing it to other tractors...

Regardless, this is going to be a re-purposed civilian version of the vehicle. My plan is to put on some salt (for chipping), paint it OD green, add some more salt and then paint it blue (for my daughter, it's her favorite color and she wanted Daddy to make her something...). This should give me a really good layered chipping effect, revealing both the original OD green and some rust.

This is my first armor (if it's even armor...) so any tips, tricks, or critiques are welcome.

M4 High Speed Tractor (3-in./90mm)

37 images

1:72

Completed

1:72 M4 High Speed Tractor (3-in./90mm) (HobbyBoss 82920)

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