3D model from the future

My friends, so this was supposed to be that quick weekend build before I start working on the WW1 diorama, but...

My initial impressions about the Resinscales kit were way too optimistic. Removing the printing supports from large parts was very easy, just as expected, but the small stuff and especially the entire running gear was a tedious, painful job. No matter how delicate I was, it wasn't possible to safely remove the tracks without damaging them (and later I had to build up the broken material with superglue). 

Also, there are clear signs of parts getting deformed, probably during the curing process. Suspension swingarms for the outer wheels are warped upwards making the wheels levitate - as seen on the left side. Because resin isn't flexible and they can't be bent downwards like with styrene, the most elegant solution is to snap them off and glue them back in their correct position - as seen on the right side. 

The "basket" for the oscillating turret is also bent inward so it wobbles from side to side. I don't know if I'll address this, but the only solution I can think of is to slice a circle of plasticard, glue it from below and fill the warped gap with superglue. 

Some of the finer details did suffer from the "let's print it as one piece" treatment, and the M2 machine gun ammo can is pretty much impossible to clean without causing more damage. 

But despite all of this it's a unique and MASSIVE model and I'm enjoying it! 

My constructive input for Resinscales would probably be to pay more attention to the entire running gear - it's a static model so it's okay to make the swing arms more bulky. And the tracks, although these look very easy to assemble, I'd advocate for workable links. They're easy to print and their assembly would be indeed much faster and the results would look better. These provided in the kit are very tight and once you put them on the tank, the tension lifts the first and last road wheel and sadly, this is pretty much impossible to fix, so working tracks would be my only solution here.

Lastly, and this has nothing to do with the kit but the tank itself, it's not a good "diorama material", haha. It's sleek and long, with a massive barrel so there would be a lot of empty diorama space around it. But hey, nothing wrong with building a standalone model every now and then, right? 

Anyway, I'll finish the construction, play around with some steel textures and then I'll start building the Mark IV :)