Update
So the build is complete, and it's got some paint on it.
To be honest, getting it to this point was a bit of a slog. The lower hull and running gear and upper hull all went together without issue. The turret however didn't; it felt like the moulds for the turret parts had fractionally slipped out of alignment. There was a huge amount of clean up to do on every part. There are also ejector pin marks all over the place, even on the smallest most fragile of parts, so it's taken an age to get it all together.
I would suggest you do what I did and paint the tracks/running gear before the upper/lower hull are joined up else it's almost impossible to get in to the top run of track, and also makes painting the sprockets that more difficult as they're obscured by part of the upper hull. To be fair, you can't see much of the upper run of track, but if it was just left unpainted, or painted after the hull was joined together, then where you can see it through the side armour and such, it would just look odd.
Anyway, incoming pics:
Turret completed
But there are some alignment issues with the turret halves that leaves gaps and some nasty join seams in difficult to get to places and the bottom half of the turret stands proud somewhat. Plenty of clean up and filling and sanding here. I would also suggest that you leave the gun off whilst you do this clean up as I think with it attached it would make the job far more difficult.
The main gun however, goes together without issue and looks fantastic.
The rear turret basket is a complete nightmare. IRL it's one continuous pressed sheet steel part for the frame with mesh in the bottom. In the kit it's 3 parts that don't fit together properly, and when you do finally get them together, they leave massive join marks on the sides and they look horrible. Cleaning these down both outside and in was a real chore as the parts are fragile and have a habit of breaking if you manhandle them too much whilst cleaning them up. I've lost a couple of the ball/chains, but I'm not overly bothered by that tbh; I'd guess that I spent maybe 3 or 4 bench sessions just getting the basket together and attached. There's also a grab handle that runs the entire length of the basket from one side of the turret, around the back of the basket and down to the other side of the turret. This is moulded in one single piece, is horribly fragile (mine broke maybe 4 times?) and doesn't line up with it's attachment points. It was a complete ball ache to get it attached.
Anyway, on with the rest of the show.
the 50cal comes in two parts, split as you see above; a really strange decision imho, which makes clean up of this part more difficult than it should be.
So now skip forward to some painting of the markings; all masked and painted.
And after paint:
little bit of paint bleed on the chevrons there, but nothing that can't be cleaned up. Paint went down without any issues and I used AK Real Colour RC095 Sinai Grey 1982 in two shades; straight out of the jar and slightly lightened with white for some post shading.
It's got a gloss coat on now and is waiting for that to dry and some weathering.
