I haven't built a kit for ages. 1990/1991 must have been my most 'recent' one until now.
I am an avid World of Tanks XBOX player and I am interested in WW2 tanks in general.


Actually, it all started again with a Dragon Armor 1/72 Jagdpanzer IV diecast ready-made model I bought recently. I have totally fallen in love with it and 1/72 in general because the scale still features intricate detail, while it's small enough to remain challenging at times. Although the little Jagdpanzer is exquisite, he looked a little lonely.



Then the storymode singleplayer World of Tanks War Stories Sea Lion landed, and that's when inspiration hit me: "I need a Churchill Gun Carrier to go with the Jagdpanzer!". Thank to WarGaming, for the inspiration !

Because, let's say an alternate Sea Lion really happened, those Gun Carriers might have actually been used to fight off the invaders.



"So where to get a 1/72 Churchill Gun Carrier?" I knew options were rather limited. I found Black Knight Studios sells pre-built resin kits. Those look pretty good, but the price is even more extreme than what I paid for my Dragon Jagdpanzer. Also, the base kit they use features the kind of exaggerated detail like those Plastic Soldier Company models have ; which looks cool, but it sticks out like a sore thumb when displayed next to a non-table top gaming 1/72 model.

Then I found a conversion kit by Modelltrans for any Dragon Armor Pro 1/72 Churchill kit. It's basically a resin kit, based on those same Dragon Churchills.



Of course, since WOT War Stories features this alternate history thing, I decided my Churchill Gun Carrier has to be something special.

Imagine these Churchill Gun Carriers defending the white soil Dover coastline. It would really help if they could create the best ambush positions for themselves - and this is how I came to the idea to make

my Churchill Gun Carrier based on Dragon's Churchill AVRE MK IV kit ; these feature the H-bracket and appendage mounts to equip them with stuff like a dozer blade. The gun has 15 degrees of elevation

so it would not collide with the dozer blade. The dozer blade would enable the Gun Carrier to create ideal positions for itself on that hilly coastline,



Which brings me to the following idea : what if this were to be a WOT premium ? It could feature a special crew with a special perk "Dozer Man". In reality, a little dozer created dug-out would take the same - or less time, than fixing a broken track. This perk would enable you to create a better spot for an extra 2 or 3 degrees of gun depression. The ingame amount of time would take 7 seconds.

Of course, the actual dozer blade wouldn't have to be seen ingame. Hence, I name this the Churchill AVRE Gun Carrier MK IV



Anyway, this was my first time experience with a resin kit. Strange material. Feels like a cross between plastic and wax. Since I hadn't done a model kit for so long, I haven't kept up with new techniques either.

I decided this would be my first try at the hair spray chipping method. I found out, I didn't like the gun, for its base connection was roughly casted at the mold injector piece. You'd basically have to carve it out.

So I designed a gun of my own and had it printed out by Shapeways. In scale, it is larger than the 3in 20CWT stock gun, but not long enough to be the 3.7in we have ingame.



Hence, I came up with some ideas of what kind of gun this could be :



- a converted Bofors 29M in either 75mm or 80mm variant.

- perhaps in alternate history, the British might have captured blue prints for the PAW 600 gun and derived their own version



Either gun would be really nice, if this would be a tier 6 premium with PMM, like the British Bulldog.



Onto the pics (lots of them):



Oxide red primer:



Pre-shading:



After the hairspray method was done, onto top coats, chipping it and applying decals:



And finally, tank tracks painted and glued on:







Together with the Jagdpanzer IV



Together with friendly forces, the Churchill MK III

 

Yeah, I know... it's because I did the dry brushing FX for the dusty Dover soil after I applied the decals. But yeah....please do keep in mind this thing is fairly tiny at 1/72 scale : it's only about 4 inch long. I had some nerve wrecking moments constructing and painting this little critter LOL

 

Thanks !

Although, if you look at the "3A" on the other side you can see a little bit of the 'A' was broken off due to me dabbing that area with the short bristle brush. That was a mistake which made me go "Awwwwww   " Lol

 

Great build! I am always interested in seeing other people's alternate creative outlets. I myself enjoy painting oil on canvas, playing music, and l love model kits as well. Really dig this !

 

Thanks !

Yeah, in past years with all my Shapeways Transformers creations and painting/dyeing them, I always referred to my old dabbings in scale modeling, which I actually hadn't done for ages. lol.
The hairspray paint chipping technique was pretty nifty btw... but it almost went wrong because I sprayed the stuff from more than a feet away, which apparenty caused many of the particles to
dry up beefore landing on the model.

So, the first coat of paint turned out super coarse - like sand paper coarse. Now I know a tank doesn't have an automotive paint finish, but for this scale, the surface was way to coarse.
In desperation, I submerged the model in a bowl of water for..about 6 hours straight. Lucky me, that it magically evened out the surface. The actual paint chipping was kinda hard though - but I did notice
it to become easier after several paint sessions.

Tiny stuff like the commander's sighting vane didn't come with the resin conversion kit, so I had to use the one which came with the Dragon Churchill ; which meant glueing such a miniscule styrene plastic piece onto resin.
With a small pair of tweezers, CA glue and iron nerves, I got it to stick. Yeah, good lessons learned.

 

Nice work! Modeling is where I got my start customizing toys. The weathering is great, really looks used.

 

Excellent paintwork! The Churchill was one of my favorites in WoT when I played.

 

That weathering is amazing! The gun carrier and the Jagdpanzer look great together.

 

Thanks & tanks guys !

I can highly recommend small kits like these as a way to refine and expand your own Transformers customization skills; such as keeping up a bit with scale modelers' techniques.