Generally speaking, I'm
not a big fan of armour or aircraft with whitewash finishes.
This is partly due to the fact that I had little confidence
in my ability to pull off a convincing whitewash paint
job and partly because, well, they're usually kinda boring.
The jury's still out on whether I succeeded or not in
this case. I managed to find a picture of this actual
T-28 and, as I have a soft spot for Finnish subjects and
I already had the decals in my possession, I thought I'd
give it a go just for something a bit different to add
to the collection.
Paint is Humbrol 86 Light
Olive overall with Tamiya Flat White brush painted on
top. I tried to replicate the sloppy brushwork as best
I could, though I did make mine a bit dirtier than the
tank in the picture which looks to be freshly painted.
Interestingly, the national insignias seem to have been
painted very neatly over top of the whitewash finish,
rather than the latter being painted around the insignia
as is more often the case.
Mud is Humbrol Dark Earth
weathering powder, a product I am quite fond of for reproducing
mud and dirt. Markings are from Star Decals which worked
fairly well. The cute little flag was hand painted on
a piece of cigarette paper and super glued to a chunk
of Albion Alloys 0.2 mm nickel silver rod. Clear varnish
was used to set the droopy shape.
The Finns used a different
mantle to the one that came with the kit so I scratchbuilt
this from plastic sheet, rod and tube. The kit gun was
used with a bit of modification. There was also no antenna
array circling the turret on this tank (very few Finnish
T-28s seem to have had this, judging by the many pictures
I found online) so I removed the mounts from the turret
sides. I'm not sure if the large star moulded on top of
the turret was a feature only found on Russian T-28s but
I couldn't be bothered sanding it off so I left it in
place.
Back
to 1/72 Armour Main