How it Began
It all started with a innocent plan, of course. Last year I bought the Academy T-34-85 Korean War version and went straight to building it. Then half way through it I got distracted and left the build aside. During the hiatus, I came across some interesting images of the 1950's Korean War in Instagram and Pinterest. So then, once I came back to restart the project, I thought about creating a small vignette (15cm x 30 cm) with the T-34 as centerpiece.
Mission Creep
I call this project as a good (or bad?) example of mission creep in a scale modeling project. As I was developing the idea, in my research I saw some pretty good examples of knocked-out T-34s. Then I came a cross a set of images that showed some US Marines checking out a burnt out tank. I thought THIS WAS IT! So my next step was a matter of getting the figures and found two boxes, each from MiniArt and MasterBox that I think I could play around to fit my needs.
After a couple of sketches, I realized that the small vignette needs a bigger base. Aside from the T-34, I will be adding the figures, a Willy's jeep, perhaps a tree and a telegraph pole. I took the liberty to make a wider base measuring approximately 20cm x 40 cm.
I think this one of Academy's best yet kit. Fit and mold is excellent with some notes.
- - There are options to make a late WW2 and Korean War variant.
- Includes two turret types for the build option.
- A nice choice of decals to reflect the build options.
- Semi link-and-length plastic track but way better than rubberized version.
- A reasonable cast mold effect for the turret.
- A small photo-etch fret is included for the engine mesh.