This is the busiest model ever

My friends, the details are piling up and there's still a lot to add, it's insane! Even if you're building this thing out of the box you're still gonna have fun if complex models are your thing. 

It's also gonna be too complex to paint as a whole. I'm keeping the whole crane assembly removable - the main part on the roof and also the extended arm on the left fender. Those are quite obvious, however the more problematic part is the large storage box. Not only I want to add welds where it's attached to the hull, but also the photoetched ERA frame must fit snugly on the U shaped part visible in the last photo. On the other hand, there's a lot of stuff visible behind the box so keeping it removable makes sense. I still haven't decided what to do with it yet. 

You can also see 3D printed smoke dischargers. I thought it would be faster and easier to just model them on a computer and print them rather than cleaning the plastic ones 😆 And while I was at it I also made the spent version with no top cap. 

I also found some photos from the rear and I fixed that pulley arm. Later I found more pictures showing it in the original position as it was in the kit. It's a really weird part, but I'm keeping it like this. 

There's also gonna be a bunch of really fat cables on the front plate coming from somewhere under the ERA bricks into the mine roller. That's gonna look pretty cool, can't wait to add those. As you probably noticed I kept the original plastic headlight cages. They're pretty nice with almost no flash and also in scale. I managed to break one of them and I just noticed on the photos that the broken part is still visible even after I filled and sanded it, gotta address that tomorrow. 

And of course, every detail that's welded had to be "welded" to the model as well 😁

So what's now left is the whole remote machine gun station on the roof, a metal rope for the crane, ERA on the front and sides, cables, and the mine roller. 

The build is progressing quite swiftly, but I'm also spending lots of time on it every day! In "normal" modelling times, like an hour or two a day, it's a solid month-long build!