AMT/ERTL's Trade Federation Tank
Stated scale:	1/32
Actual scale:	1/31
Overall length:	31.5 cm
Material(s):	styrene
Number of parts:	~41
Stand included?	yes
Decals included?	no
My Source:	local shop
Cost (w/o s&h):

2/1/07 - Here's yet another long-built, mostly-painted, but not finished model. Assembly went well on this. The main modifications I made were to fill a hollow area below the root of the cannon with epoxy putty, re-detailed the jack-like pieces to fix the casting shortcuts (draft angle errors), and to reshape the openings of the missile tubes.  On the jacks, I carved away the badly molded detail and replaced them with strips of half-round styrene. I also installed magnets inside the base, just in case I try to make a "mag-lev" hover-display for this.

9/25/09 - One annoying thing about painting this - the recommended color mixes use paints (Desert Sand, Light Earth) that were only available as aerosol spray can paint. I wanted to airbrush them. What to do... what to do...

Reference shots for this are in the Star Wars Chronicles - Prequels book. I also nabbed some shot of one of the production pieces on display at the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul. I made sure to get shots of the turret underside and hatch since those were few and far between at the time.

I'm also using renderings from the Star Wars Chronicles: The Prequels book as references.

10/25/09 - After a day of airbrushing, all the main colors are (re)done. The table below lists the colors/proportions in the paint mixes used on this. All colors are Model Master. The mixes specified in the kit instructions, while close, didn't match too well to the colors in the above photos. I came up with something closer.

Light yellow 3 desert sand 1 radome tan 1 insignia yellow

Deep yellow 2 desert sand 1 Afrika brown 1 insignia yellow scant 1 dark tan

Brown 3 wood 1 light earth

With the masking in place for painting the deep yellow areas. While masking I noticed that the three droid grab handles on each side of the body don't match the locations shown in the CG renderings. I removed two handles from each side to re-position to more correct locations.
Here are all three colors airbrushed on. The kit directions were good enough to specify a width of .187" for the brown bands on the trailing edge of the spade. Too bad the correct width is closer to .3", based on measurements from the CG renders.
and, taken with flash to show the colors the way they really appear. The kit directions don't call out the coloring for the oval area on the tank body but it's evident in photos & renders that it's the deep yellow color.

While masking off the edges for deep yellow I noticed that the 6 droid grab handles were too-closely spaced and in the wrong positions. I removed two from each side to reposition them a more-correct locations.

And now the "dirty work" begins, since this model has to be severely dirtied down, weathered, and battle-beaten.

1/4/2010 - Chalk work's begun...

... and continues through the month with more chalk, black and rubber washes, silver rub'n'buff and about every "dirty trick" in the book.