Italeri 1/72nd M-20 Armored Car

Here is Italeri's 1/72nd scale M-20 armored car. It's an interesting thing. It includes the normal (and somewhat spindly) undercarriage shown here, and a more robust one-piece wheel-tire-suspension package probably intended for wargaming. The one-piece assembly wasn't actually too bad, at least from the side. I used the spindly undercarriage and had trouble getting all six tires to touch the ground, and I found that the microscopic attachment points were easily obliterated with MEK. I found it difficult to assemble, especially the suspension, and every time I look at it, I think the rear axles are too far apart. There's also a very significant gap between the upper hull and the sponson; I glued the jerry cans in place to cover the gap. The jerry cans come with a rack, but I elected to not fiddle with it, my eyesight and patience not being what they once were.

I airbrushed everyone Model Master faded olive drab, then hit the vehicle with a heavy wash of burnt umber. The jerry cans and backpacks are native faded olive drab, which shows the difference between the washed and unwashed areas. The tires were painted with acrylic charcoal, and then I drybrushed the thing with - of all things - my wife's Bare Essentials makeup. She got on some automatic refill program and there's Bare Essentials all over the house, so I borrowed the light skin tone and the brush and did the old swirl-tap-buff, and I was amazed at how well Bare Essentials adapted to armored vehicles. Note the straps on the backpacks and the cleats on the tires in particular; all the highlighting is Bare Essentials.

The decals were pretty good. I thought the large star-and-circle would be a problem, with it went down pretty well. All in all, somewhat troublesome to assemble and marred by handle-less jerry cans and that problem with the rear axles, but still fun.