Update Sherman M4A3 76mm (Thunderbolt VI)

Did a little bit of work on this one in the past few weeks.

I have the Lion Marc US Army star paint stencil, so I painted the stars on the turret and sponsons as per the photos I had. Yes, they are different sizes, according to the photos, and best estimates of the people at Bison decal, where I got the Thunderbolt VI sheet from.

I also painted the suspension to look dusty/etc. This is the Steve Zaloga method for Sherman suspension and I have used it once before, successfully I think, on my Sherman III (Sherbrooke Fusiliers). Paint the entire suspension Tamiya XF51Khaki Drab, highlight it with XF72 JGSDF Brown, then the most exposed highlights with XF57 Buff. There are pigments to go on that for depth and blending.

After I gave the paint a few days to dry, I Futured the whole thing so that the oil washes will flow (the old capillary action :) ) and to apply the Thunderbolt decals. I applied the decals with the MicroSet/Sol system. I then sprayed the decals again with Future the next day to seal them.

I then applied two washes of Winsor and Newton Yellow Ochre as a filter to the whole vehicle to see how much that would blend. Not much, so I will be doing some Dot Filtering in short order.

I also started to experiment with some chipping to the front of the tank. I usually do this before the filter(s) so that the filters tone those down as well. although talking to Mike from the club (who gets his advice from Adam Wilder), you can do before or after, or you can do chip/filter/wash as many times as you want over each other.

I will see how it goes. I haven't decided what to do next yet.

Here is what it looks like so far....

I will take this one forward before I do anything with the other two I am working on I think.
If anything comes up on this one, I can replicate or fix it on the next one.

However, I did paint the M10 from primer to green.. Stay tuned..