French tanks in British service, Battle of France, 1941

[frank2056]

Great finish and weathering on both, so far. The B1 looks amazing, especially the tracks.

[Jakko]

Trying to envision a two-man turret H-39...

I've failed at that, too I just can't see how one would fit without redesigning the whole vehicle and probably making it bigger in all directions.

Great finish and weathering on both, so far. The B1 looks amazing, especially the tracks.

Thanks, but those were simplicity itself After putting them together, I had sprayed them in Tamiya Flat Earth ages ago, then just did a wash of thinned-down Army Painter Strong Tone over them on both sides, and once that was properly dry, drybrushed them with Humbrol Polished Steel and buffed that up a few minutes later. The main thing here was to only drybrush them where they would touch the road and the wheels. However, if you intend to show a tank that's been driving through loose soil, you may want to make much more of the tracks look like bare metal, because loose soil quickly rubs rust etc. off.

[Jakko]

For both tanks, I also built some figures, mainly from the Gecko set with early war British tank crews . Both were painted in the black uniform of the Royal Tank Regiment. But they're rather on the small side: the figure on the H39 is 47 mm tall from the soles of his feet to the top of his helmet, which equates to about 1.65 m ...

Anyway, I consider these models finished now

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[Jakko]

On the B1, I painted the more-or-less horizontal surfaces with gloss varnish, and also smeared that down the vertical sides. I first used a wide, flat brush to create a lot of little stripes, and then made bigger stripes with a fine brush. You can't see them very well in the photos, but by looking at the model from different angles, the "rain" suddenly appears.

The figure has an upper body from Gecko with Tamiya legs, from the M25 Dragon Wagon.

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Some hopefully better pictures of the rain effect:

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Both together:

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[PR19_Kit]

They do look rather splendid, I specially like the 'wet look' on the B1. 

[Jakko]

Thanks I'm not sure the B1's rain-streaked look quite came out like I had it in mind, but I'm not dissatisfied with it

[frank2056]

The B1 looks rained on - not just painted gloss, so that's a win. The H39 is a small tank, and tankers were generally shorter than the average soldier, o maybe that tanker is accurate.

[Rick Lowe]

They do look rather splendid, I specially like the 'wet look' on the B1. 

Seconded. 

[Dizzyfugu]

That's a nice idea and combo, I like that!   

Makes me wonder about a Char B1 in allied "Mickey Mouse" cammo? 

[Old Wombat]

Two excellent tank builds, Jakko!   

[NARSES2]

Two terrific builds there   

The figure shows just how small the H.39 was

[PR19_Kit]

The figure shows just how small the H.39 was

And how tall the B1 was! 

[Jakko]

Thanks all

The B1 looks rained on - not just painted gloss, so that's a win.

I was worried that it would end up looking more like a model that's partly gloss-painted, but from the comments it seems I succeeded after all

The H39 is a small tank, and tankers were generally shorter than the average soldier, o maybe that tanker is accurate.

Maybe Mainly, I'm glad I didn't put any more figures on from different manufacturers, though.

Makes me wonder about a Char B1 in allied "Mickey Mouse" cammo? 

Other than the exact pattern, that's what this one is painted in Military Training Pamphlet 46 4A, which describes the camouflage and the theory behind it, suggests several patterns for the edge between the dark (upper and lower) and lighter (middle) colours, and oddly, the famous "Mickey Mouse" version isn't in it. I picked one of the others deliberately because the Mickey Mouse pattern is so overused by both modellers and restorers of real vehicles

[Weaver]

Those look great: I'm glad you're pleased with the "wet" effect.

If you want the side streaks to show up more, maybe you could put a tiny spot of dark grey and/or brown in the clear varnish, so that the streak has more contrast with the dry bits. The story would be that the rain is dissolving the mud from around the upper run of the tracks and streaking diluted mud down the sides.

There's something about the Char B1 that's very attractive, isn't there? Even with it's long list of known faults and indifferent combat record, it still seems kinda rakish, like a WWI tank designed by Ferrari...

[PR19_Kit]

I was worried that it would end up looking more like a model that's partly gloss-painted, but from the comments it seems I succeeded after all

That's what wet things DO look like.