AHHQ 1/16 M113 ACAV R/C Conversion

[Ad Lav]

I love the look of these M113’s!

[Meter rat]

I sit here in wonderment of your skills.

[tankme]

I love the look of these M113’s!

I do too. If I didn't have so many projects already I'd get one. Great build.

[MonsieurTox]

Thank you very much guys !

Painting has begun.

I found a picture of an ACAV with a drawing on the shield I liked. Unfortunatly I don't have any more pics of it.

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I drew it on the computer then printed it at the correct scale (and that's where you see the kit part is not 100% accurate !).

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I printed several in case of mistakes.

I then taped it on masking tape and carefuly cut the letters and the butterfly with an X-Acto.

Cutting took some time but putting every bit of the letter outer mask took me 1 hour.

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The Butterfly was pretty much straight forward and took me much less time.

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As usual for the red, I never use pure red as it just looks wrong. The red is mixed with a few drop of light grey. Before applying the red, I misted some white (because red, like yellow, does not have a very good coverage and otherwise the olive drab wouold show through, the red would be too dark).

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I then painted with a brush the yellow stripe. I should'nt have used Tamiya paint for that job, it was a PITA to brush and does not look good. Lesson learned. However it looks good enough and makes the handpainted look of the original, even if the stripe is much thicker than it should be in 1/16 (it should be less than 0.3mm).

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I love that sixties vibe !!

[MonsieurTox]

The model was primed with Tamiya primer as usual. I used the grey one because it's going to be helpful for the next steps.

I then preshaded it with flat black.

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Next, I will use yellow on the center panels :

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And finally orange, on the center of the yellow. It's going to be the first step of the weathering, simulating red Vietnam dust.

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[Herr Dr. Professor]

Atop the remarkable "Iron Butterfly" accomplishment, you have managed some of the most effective pre-shading I have seen, noticeable, but not heavy-handed. Clearly you have a good sense of the interaction of different colors and light.

[tankme]

That Iron Butterfly is great. I'm trying to figure out how to use my girlfriend's Cricket cutter to do stencils for my builds.

[MonsieurTox]

Thank you guys!

Yes a cricut would definitely be helpful for doing masks!

I'm always thinking about buying one... I should have!

But since I did not, once again I cut by hand the number and the kind of unit flag for the side.

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The registration number and US Army stencil was 3D printed. I should repaint in white the small tabs that were holding the center of the letters.

I wanted to do the same for the "Lift here" markings, unfortunatly they were too small and printed badly so I'll pass on them, they are missing on several M113 btw.

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I then started to add dust and mud. To be honest I'm not satisfied with the result so I gonna try to improve it.

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I haven't started on the tracks yet, it's difficult because I don't want to remove them (I need to remove the sprocket and that's something I don't want as it's too much work). I had to paint everything with the tracks in place... I can't use white spirit on them for the weathering because it would damage the styrene pins so I'll have to work with acrylic only. Can't use my mud product as it would lock the tracks so I'm pretty limited to acrylic wash and pigments.

Foe the hull I used oils and pigments but I'm planing to airbrush a very thinned dust layer on it once everything is finished to unify the whole model.

[Herr Dr. Professor]

MonsieurTox: I note here something with which you already are most likely familiar and I should remember: if one finally sprays a clear flat acrylic or lacquer as a preservative (as I always do), the effect of the weathering will be greatly diminished. Just last week I sprayed a final coat on my rather stock but weathered Challenger 2 and again winced at how the weathering is diminished.

[MonsieurTox]

MonsieurTox: I note here something with which you already are most likely familiar and I should remember: if one finally sprays a clear flat acrylic or lacquer as a preservative (as I always do), the effect of the weathering will be greatly diminished. Just last week I sprayed a final coat on my rather stock but weathered challenger 2 and again winced at how the weathering is diminished.

Yes you are right ! And flat coat also lighten the whole model while glossy clear coat darken it. Lots of things to remember when painting a model ! Flat or glossy almost make any pigment work barely disapears