So I have my friend Alex coming and saying "As long as you model a tank,  why did you spend so much time building such a dog of a kit while the Tamiya BT7 builds so easely".

Well for the same reason that i won't model the Bismark or the Yamato for starters -and also because I believe some shapes are better for dioramas than others.

BT-7 look like a winner and is also a very long tank with nothing much going on throughout much of its length -It looks like a matchbox, teh eyes slip on iot and go elsewhere while the T-26 is shorter has a more obvious hotsopt in the shape of this huge turret comparted to the rest of the tank.

It also looks more lousy. Let's be clear, I never model winners, i model pathetic, the T-26 looks unfit for war and that suits my needs. As for the soldiers I always model them as victims. Someone said "War are done by people who don't know each other that kill each other for the benefits of people that know each other but don't kill each other".

Here is the interior of the tank as painfuilly scratchbuilt.

T-26 interior

fater that time to paint the interior, glue the 2 halves of the tank together -that was a real mess!! part because the Zvezda kit is so-so, part because the deformations I made to the hull led the whole gluing buisness to be a very tricky affair.

In case you wondered that postion of the fenders I picked on a 1941 picture

T-26 completed

The whole rear of the tank is scratchbuilt as it will be obvious on other pictures. i didn't fixed the wheels or the turret yet.

And here I prime the tank..

Well, I first primed it with some Tamiya grey primer, and then I covered the parts that will end up being lit by the sun in white Vallejo primer while I added some black ink to that same primer in order to prime it in dark grey where the sun doesn't shine -behind the wheels etc..

T-26 primed

Next it's going to be fun! painting and weathering at least :)

And extra thanks to Dimitris and Vittorio for finding about those *two* figs that had two left hands eh..

Okay so how many people who might fall on this post did I actually meet? Actually 7 it seems. Some still seem to find it hard to understand how an honest father of two, happily married and all can actually model these kind of things.
I have always been sort of annoyed by some sort of pink colour modulation haze surrounding the realms of model making. yes you can model some soldiers having  a cup of tea near the tank, but you can't model the people they will kill nor can you model them after having been killed.

Like or not like tanks, they're here to kill, that's war. You can't take a part of it and ignore the worst of if. And this time I am definitely here for the worst.

Now since a few short years, I have been noticing a raise of the dead in diorama making. My brother Nicolas Cabaret is particluarly apt at showing this. Usually though, the dead stay polite, are nice, lay on one side and seem to have had a peaceful death -which is another way of taking back all the fangs from death.

Well, my dead are evil, they are ugly, they are violent -well at least that's what the way I wanted to show them, with limbs fixed in various off positions, everything about them would be violent. Up to you to say me if I succeeded.

I have been taking my sources for those various deads on several pictures I found on the Internet so that they could look like the real thing.

Credits are : ICM and Tamiya for the portyankis end boots, Hornet for faces and hands (got lazy on that one), Hornet and Tank again for the helmets, tank for the rifles. The rest if magic Sculp, homemade photoetch  and Duro.

T-26 and soldiers

Thanks to Dimitris for making out that one: I used 2 left hands eh.. T-26 and soldiers

I didn't do much modelling this week, my kids gave me their various diseases. So i have been spending time writing articles for two different european mags (no, not French).

Well still to make me forgive for the fact the site was down for a whole day, and also to test some facebook->rss feature, I put up this thread which is about that Complekt Zip turret I tracked down from Russia, thanks for some advises I got on Armorama.

Well, it took the gentleman one week to send it by post, and then 2 extra weeks for the postman to deliver it, but then I didn't regret it.

Having no experience about resing kits whatsoever, it took me less than 45 mn to build this very beautiful turret. No flash, no bubbles, ultra clever placeholders, so much easier tio build than the Zvezda turret, a real bliss and  highhly recommended (and I don't recommend highly a lot of mail orders or companies)

Actually I was in doubt because of stuff I read, indeed Zvezda's kuit made some engine cover that doesbn't match the turret, so either I kept the turret and scratchbuilt a new turret vent, or I changed the turret and kept the engine.

well I choosed the second solution, half because of laziness, the other half because I liked the look of that conical turret, looked a bit pathetic actually, an dthe whole of my diorama will be dead pathetic.

Anwyay here are two pictures

Complekt Zip T-26 turret

T-26 turret

Friul T-26 tracks are really very small, you need a lot to do the whole of the tank. I still have 10 cms to do.

Very expensive to buy, Very tedious to build but they really look awesome in the end.

Friul T-26 tracks

.. So when I get bored with those I keep on sculpting my figures. One tank pilot and 3 soldiers.

Magic Sculp and Duro green stuff as usual.

russian soldiers sculpting in progress

Fitting yes. I think that's one of the thing that lack the most in diorama making. You've got some terrain, some guys standing, some vehicles.. But the only real attempt at making the whole fit is to make some foot or tracks traces on the floor.

I try to go a bit beyond that lately, first by completely integrating the ice in my Pam Azova, this time by integrating *people* on the vehicle. But then it's fig sculpting and this is not my strong point.

Anyway, here's a close to slip guy as integrated on the rear of the T-26

dead of T-26 tank

More figure sculpting (there is 4 on the workbench right now)

dead man in 1:35