T-62 Main Battle Tank + Willys Jeep (Anti-Government Forces)
The finished model:
In the manga:
The Soviet-made T-62 is the main battle tank used by the Anti-Government Forces. Although it appears throughout the manga story, it is prominently showcased in both the opening scenes of the story as Shin swoops in and destroys a number of them in his F-8E Crusader. However, it’s most memorable scene is probably when Rocky tries to avenge Sara’s death by jumping in a handy Wiilys Jeep and challenging one to a deadly game of “chicken” [Chapter 009 (v01c09) “The Horizon of Anger”].
I also included this scene in my build titled A Game of Chicken, which is part of my Area 88 1/144 scale project .
The kit(s):
- Russian T-62 Main Battle Tank Mod.1972 by Trumpeter
- Light Vehicles Of Allied & Axis During WWII (Willys Jeep) by Academy
The build:
First off, let me just admit that I don’t really know how to build tanks.
That being said, though, why limit yourself? Although my primary interest in my Area 88 1/72 scale project is obviously the air planes, I like mixing it up a bit. Since the T-62 is literally appears in the very first panel of the entire Area 88 manga, I figured it might be a good place to kick off my project in earnest. I also really couldn’t resist the Trumpeter T-62 offering in 1/72. I’m no expert, but it’s a very nicely detailed little kit and seemed perfect for someone who isn’t used to dealing with tanks.
Part of the reason I don’t know how to deal with tanks, is that I think most of the work comes in the painting and detailing rather than the construction. They’re more or less just boxes on treads, so the devil is really in how you handle the details. I wanted to give it a real go, so I thought I’d use the hairspray chipping technique to give the T-62 a bit of a worn look. So I started out painting it a light green (Tamiya XF-71) and then a coat of Future and a coat of hairspray. Then I gave it another coat of my go-to “Desert Yellow” (Tamiya XF-56) and started chipping. The paint came off easily enough… actually a bit too easily. I know less is more when it comes to the hairspray technique, but maybe I’m just not familiar enough with the wear patterns for tanks. Either way, it looked pretty much like I’d painted it green and yellow and then attacked it with toothpicks. Not believable at at.
So, I basically just chickened out and washed off the hairspray and gave it a full coat of the Desert Yellow instead. It looked pretty good and the Tamiya panel wash gave it enough of a worn look that I decided to just call it even. The one thing that was a bit of a pain was the one-piece wheels/tracks. It took a bit of masking to accomplish and I keep thinking I should do something with the all-black treads… but again, I’m not quite sure what and I don’t really have the energy or will to turn this into a learning project. I just wanted to kick things off, so I did.
To complement the build though, I did return to an old stand-by, the Academy 1/72 Jeep. This was the fourth one I’ve built – including the red Jeep CJ2A and the blue Willys Jeep from my Tintin 1/72 project and the one I converted into a Daihatsu Midget DK for my Ghibli 1/72 project – so there were no surprises here. The hardest part was making sure the colour didn’t just match the T-62, so I painted it with Tamiya XF-50 instead.
All in all I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, but feel free to lend me your comments below:
