Matching colors...

 o/

The LAV-25 has always been one of my favorite looking AFVs.

I took a break from painting caverns on account of  having run out of my Testors Flat Earth paint which I'm using as a base coat. I did manage to restock my supply though it took a trip to one of the local craft stores to do so as the FLGS' was sold out. So instead I thought I'd turn my attention briefly to Team Yankee. 

Note the flight stand is warped, putting this fighter into a perpetual slight banking turn.

First up I assembled the first of two A-10s and boy isn't that kit a peach! Already forewarned that their assembly is raging inducing (quote), I wouldn't go that far though it did give me some Robotech Tactics flashbacks. I mean who doesn't like fine scale modeling at a small scale with vague instructions that don't mention all of the parts on the sprues? Detailed cockpit? Sure. Transparent canopy? Yeah no...that kind of shit.

I do not look forward to building the 2nd one, especially as this fucker took approximately 2 freaking hours to complete. The common consensus in the Team Yankee FB group I'm in is that the kit is crap.

I concur.

I'm happy with this result. 

On a brighter note, aways back I bought seven M-1 Abrams tanks for more or less retail cost. Their paint jobs looked good to me and more importantly, similar to my painting style and thus hopefully easy to replicate myself. This weekend I thought I'd give that a try and I think I did pretty good actually. 

I had messaged the eBay seller to see what paint colors he had used and sadly all were oil based and out of production. Nonetheless army colors are army colors and I was able to match his paint jobs fairly easily, using a combination of GW, Vallejo and Coat D'Arms paints. This LAV-25 is close enough that I think I'd be comfortable expanding this army without the need to eventually repaint the M-1s at some (very) distant point. 

Perfect!

I also got a heavy duty metal hole punch (kinda overkill for this project really), and magnetized the turret of the LAV. I'll do the same with several of my Battletech tanks, but that's a subject for my other blog. So as not to worry about the magnets being too thick, nor any polarity issues, I punched a circle out of tuna can lid to glue to the hull. There's ample room in the turret for a magnet, and it all worked out rather nicely. 

Next up, I think I might paint up my two, TOW equipped Humvees as well before returning to the caverns.