Construction
The build was started with the main hull. The tan coloured plastic goes together with no issues at all. The main tub was assembled and the top deck added. There are four suspension units to build, each carrying three road wheels each.
No problems here, everything went together beautifully well.
With no aftermarket parts to worry about, construction was pretty swift. I also assembled the turret at this point ready for the next stage – paint.
Painting
Once the hull/chassis and turret were dry and cleaned up, the paint stage was started. I decided to go with an overall coat of Alclad Black primer. The finish you get with this primer is superb, and gives a good smooth surface for the next stages.
The hull, turret and side skirts were left overnight to fully cure.
For the main colour, I used a custom mix of Tamiya acrylics. After a bit of research, I found that these tanks were finished in colours called Light Stone No.61 or Portland Stone No.64. I attempted to mix my own colour using Tamiya XF-57 Buff, XF-59 Desert Yellow and XF-49 Khaki. I also added a bit of white and yellow to the mix until I thought I had a good representation.