My friends, the work continues, and if everything goes well, the turret will be finished tomorrow. And by that point, I think the model will be ready for painting!
So far I have finished the commander's cupola and the gun mantlet, where I also added a faux gun barrel going into the turret.
What's missing now are some wires and a bunch of small PE... oh, and I decided to keep the metal barrel because the plastic one is a really sad parody of the real thing! I'll just keep it pointing backwards so the scenic base can remain reasonably sized... although it definitely won't be small!