As for me, the dreaded "Real Life" has been plaguing me since New Year, and I am now woefully behind schedule. I grabbed a few hours in early January to do some of the basic hull assembly on my Artillery Observation vehicle, but then stalled until last weekend! So here is where it sits now, with the hull under way.
First big task was cutting off the tail lights, blending in the exhaust grilles, and making a new engine intake grille for the rear deck. This last one could have been bought as PE, but I relished the challenge of drilling scads of tiny holes!
While at the rear I added some welds where the grilles meet the hull, and replaced the undersized infantry phone box with one I 3D printed at Shapeways. I still need to add spare track links, but this pushed me into assembling the Meng set just to make sure there were enough spares left over because the box does not say how many you get. Turns out I have plenty, but there are fewer of the outer blocks than inner ones or linking bars - go figure!
Then came the joy of filling in all those scribed tool outlines on the hull. I plan to add some of the more visible bracket details from scratch.
And since I can't really get behind the side skirts to paint or add wheels/tracks, I had to modify them for more "positive" mounting after everything is painted and assembled. I attached the front guards to the sides, added a strip of Evergreen 0.100" angle stock to the back, and hey presto! I can glue them on as an afterthought. Note that I opened up the foot-holes - of course I did it AFTER gluing on the ends, just because modelling isn't complicated enough...
I seriously doubt I'll finish in time, but at least I'm moving again!
