Pacific GB British 150th Armour Regiment M3 Lee

Hi all. On the morning of 16th September 2009, I woke up with extreme headache on the left side and numbness arms and legs. Being a former medic, I knew that I am in trouble. I admited myself into the hospital immediate. A MRI scan confirmed my fears. I had a stroke. However, all my symptoms were gone the next day. The doctors had some good news for me. I had a very minor stroke as I had a clot in one of the vessels in my brain. The only injury I had was the blindness of my right upper peripheral vision, which will take some time to recover. Thank God.

After being discharged, I still wanted to continue the models that I committed. However, I find myself loosing patience as I had changed my eating habit and quited smoking (out of fear...lol). I also needed a pair of magnifier to paint my model, which take some getting used to. In the end, I decided to give up the group build. However, I felt that since the tacks for this M3 Lee is sponsored, I should finish it. Therefore, I decided to give up on the half-track group build but continue with the M3 Lee. (Sorry Lu.)

The base kit for this M3 Lee is Tamiya's M4A1 Sherman. The conversion kit is from Ken Swenson and the tacks is from one of our sponsor,Fighting 48.

Building the kit is pretty straight forward. The lower hull, sprocket, road wheels, ideller comes from the Tamuya kit. The hull and turret comes from Ken
s Conversion kit. Looking through the only reference I have, Osprey's book on the M3 Lee, I realise that the main gun is different and there is no machine gun turret on the M3 of the 150th Armour Regiment. Therefore, I also used the main gun and commander's hatch from the Tamiya kit.

The model is first sprayed with Gunze Sanyo's Mr. Colour Dark Earth + Black then Dark Green + Sail Colour. The bolts and nuts were painted with dark yellow. The whole model is washed with diluted Raw Umber oil paint. The pin point wash was done with a mixture of raw umber and lamp black oil paint. Some paint chips were added after that followed by some dirt streaks.

The tracks and base were treated with a mud mixture of fine sand, static grass, white glue and wall putty. The mixture is dyed with Tamiya's Flat Earth and Flat Black before applying. After drying, the area is misted with Flat earth, followed by Buff to create the dust effects.

I cannot really see how I do with this model. I hope it is still as good as before if not better. All comments are welcome. Thanks for viewing and putting up with this long message.