I will make a plastic model of TAKOM for the first time. I chose Turtle, an armored car of the Czechoslovak army. I stock the tank Lee and Grant kit, but this is the first manufacturer for me, so I will try to make a small car with fewer parts.
It looks like a four-wheel-drive car. The front and back shapes are symmetrical.
I’m making it while temporarily assembling it to see if it fits the upper part of the car body and chassis. Probably there is no problem.
This point was the biggest concern. If the chassis is not parallel to the ground, I think it won’t be easy to do anything in the future. The parts fit well, so there was no problem, but now I think it was one way to reinforce it with plastic rods.
(2020/08/03)
The round turret is divided into four parts. Four machine guns.
There was a lot of space between the round turret in the center and the car body, so I had to fill it up with superglue and putty. Also, the door on one side was bent; I corrected it a little.
It was completely symmetrical from the beginning to the end of the assembly. I made two or more sets of the same parts. It’s a unique car.
You can also make the wheels move when you assemble them. It can be fixed.
(2020/08/05)
I roughly drew the pattern in white to make a rough decision beforehand. If you use a dark color, it will remain. It seems better to draw the black line at the end. At first, I was going to draw a line faithfully following the painting example of the kit, but in the middle, I got tired of the details and drew with feeling.
The underside of the chassis has been painted dark gray.
Vallejo paints don’t get uneven when you paint with a brush, so drawing patterns is fascinating. The bright paint didn’t come out well unless I had painted it several times.
This time, as a Czechoslovakian military vehicle, it is painted with a unique camouflage pattern. I will paint most of it this time with a brush of Vallejo Modelcolor.
(2020/08/07)
I don’t know why, but this kit indicates only the color number of MIG Paints, so I choose a color close to the Vallejo Model Color. It seems easy at first glance, but it’s a difficult choice. These days, I can choose from a wide variety of colors of the Vallejo, but if I don’t have any of those colors in my hand, I put them in a closet and wait.
The selected camouflage colors are Vallejo Model Colors: 70890 Refractive Green, 70916 Sand Yellow, 70905 Blue Gray Pale, 70846 Mahogany Brown, and 70881 Yellow Green. I chose the approximate color of the painting and, finally, my taste.
The tires are made of rubber, so I thought it would be better to apply a light matt coating instead of painting, but I put the Vallejo black on the pallet too much, so I tried painting it. I think it’s better because it’s easier to wash weathering later.
I painted the back of the light with Vallejo silver. I don’t think the color of this silver is that good, but I don’t think I need to worry about it that much as it is behind the clear parts. I think it looks like a matte aluminum color of Tamiya Enamel Paint.
(2020/08/09)
Skoda PA-II Turtle is completed. Because of the unique camouflage pattern, I used a brush from the beginning to the end. It’s pretty tough.
Skoda began production in 1923 and received an order for 12 units. Vienna police bought three in 1927, and the Czech police bought nine in 1937. Germany, which annexed Czechoslovakia in 1939, took over the PA-II and used it as an armored radio car. Come to think of it; this kit has a large circular antenna part at the top if I chose the German painting example. As long as you’re not a hard German tank enthusiast, the Czechoslovak military’s camouflage paint can be enjoyable.
The car marking is the 1937 police headquarters of the Czechoslovak military. By the way, the Czech Republic, which used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, became independent as the Republic of Czechoslovakia after the merger of the Czech Republic and Slovakia after World War I. In 1993, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were separated. This car is from that time.
The crew consists of five people, including the driver. The maximum speed was 70 kilometers per hour. It was armed with four MG08 machine guns. This is a water-cooled machine gun used by the German army in World War I.
It has a round form with the gun barrel sticking out in all directions. It looks like the car will appear in the animation produced by Studio Ghibli.
Even though the car looks weak at first glance, it still threatens the demonstrating citizens.
I could have painted a little more weathering. Maybe I’ll make it dirtier the next time I build a tank. But this time, it was a car without a caterpillar, and it was almost like a passenger car, so I wondered if it would get dirty in such a complicated way. I want to make more tank kits of TAKOM in the future.
(2020/08/11)
