That Didn't Take Long......!

Of course, I dropped everything and rushed the shiny new T34 and tank riders to the front of the painting queue!

(Arty-farty B&W version of one of my pics to make it look like a period shot!)

Quite simple to do the tank - I had done some pre planning and purchased a small (very small for what I paid but that's how it goes I guess!) aerosol can of Tamiya generic dark green paint - I tried getting a specific Red Army Green, but it didn't seem to exist, which is odd. 

I think we all know, the Russians did not have any standard colours anyway - some of their AFV's are a very dark green, some more like the olive green of the US and British armies, and others a much lighter, brighter shade - so I could have gone with any of a wide variety of colours - but after my experience using a spray can of the Blitzkrieg German vehicles, I had decided that was the best way to go, rather than using normal miniatures paint with a brush, so I was limited by what was available in an aerosol can, and in stock at the bricks n mortar hobby store I went to.

The result is much darker than the painted example from the seller's web site that appeared in my previous post. The tank number and air recognition markings are deliberately a bit slap dash - because most of the images I have seen of Soviet vehicles seem to look like they were painted on by a ten-year-old! This is fortunate, as I probably could not have done a much better job, even if I wanted to! Initially, I was also looking to add a nice pointy red star on the turret too but a) I don't have any and neither do any of my friends and b) seems like it was quite rare for the red star to appear on WWII Russian tanks, anyway. Problem a) solved by solution b)! Now - on to the eye candy, PB&J part:

T34/85 traversing a market square in E Europe or Prussia....

I took advantage of our routinely nice weather to do an al fresco photo session!

Now here it is on my ultra realistic Russian Steppe terrain cloth!

Then, I went back inside, painted the tank riders Saturday evening, and on Sunday morning, took the toys out into the garden for another photo session. It was sunny again!

Quite a lot of images for only one tank and four figures, but I was having fun taking pictures from different angles, and our nearly dead from too much sun, recently cut "grass" did look about the right length for the 28mm tank - in my opinion, anyway!

I am not sure where I will go with this - as i said, this was a purchase of opportunity - I would really have preferred an earlier 76mm gun version, but for the price, I wanted to see if this was a decent model - and I think the answer is yes. Will I buy more of them - not sure - I might stick to one tank and a few infantry for small scale, solo skirmishes at this stage - no one else has late war 28mm, so a collection of 10-15 vehicles seems an illogical extravagance at the moment......but when has that ever stopped a red blooded wargamer?!