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George Williams
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Battle of France / Battle of Britain Group Build – 1/35 Tamiya B1 bis French battle tank

October 30, 2014 · in Armor · · 29 · 2.5K

Well, I'm not sure what time/date it is in iModeler land, but where I live it's 11;30 am on 31st October! Here's my contribution to the group build, 's kit of the French battle tank B1 bis. Being a Tamiya kit it was easy to build, the only alterations I made were to leave the crew door open

, and to add a radio aerial. This is my first attempt at camoflage painting, and, I'm afraid my weathering technique is a bit heavy handed. As opposed to many other comments on this site, weathering is definitely not my favourite part of modelling. If you'd like more information on the prototype and the kit please have a look at the WIP thread in the group build. Anyway, here it is. Many thanks to Seamus and Martin for organising this, I wonder what the next group build will be?

Thanks for looking, George.

Reader reactions:
4  Awesome

10 additional images. Click to enlarge.


29 responses

  1. Looks pretty good from where I sit, George...and I don't believe you CAN overdo weathering on a battlefield tank. 🙂

  2. Excellent George! I like the camouflage and finish on this one!

  3. Now that's a cool tank George! You did a magnificent job on this. Great pics also.
    California Steve

  4. Nice work on a good looking model. Well done.

  5. Great looking tank George ! Flawless and well done, i like it a lot. Nice pictures as well 🙂

    ( iModeler time, German chapter: high noon )

  6. George, this looks great - I don't think the weathering is 'heavy handed' at all. Well done - your work in progress report on this encouraged me to get a tank kit, which I did recently.

  7. Excellent work George. I'm with Craig on the weathering. Hard to overdue it on a tank. You must be getting the itch to do something shiney by now.

  8. Great looking Char, George. Nice job on the hard edged camo, looks super.
    I'm going to pile on with Craig & Al about the weathering, it really is hard to get a tank to dirty. What's next?

  9. Nice George as usual, a very well built kit from you.
    As the above comments said on the weathering, it`s hard to over-do it.
    Well done mate.

  10. Cheers, Simon, Tamiya kits are usually easy to build!

  11. Great work George. Did you mask and airbrush or hand paint it? I have that kit and want to finish it in the same scheme you chose. I'm good for a tank every 7-8 years.

    • Hi John, thanks for your interest and compliments. First I gave it a thin coat of Tamiya's rattle can white primer. Second I airbrushed it all over with the sandy colour, then masked it and airbrushed the olive green. The masking was the time consuming and fiddly bit. I did it by lightly applying the masking tape, drawing a pencil line where the masking should be, then removed the masking tape to the cutting board and cut along the pencil line, then re-applied the tape to the model. It's a tip I picked up on this website! Hope this helps.

  12. Nice tank! Lovely clean build, it looks cool with the outdoor photography.

  13. Ya man, the tank looks awesome. And you said it was your first time with camouflage, did you attempt a camo primer?

  14. Great build George. Well done on the camouflage and weathering! Your weathering isn't heavy handed at all. The tracks look great and the tank has a nice overall dusty look to it. I don't have a Char B1 in my stash but it's something I'd definitely want to eventually get to.

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