Vodnik's Chaparral

M730A1 Chaparral

AFV Club 1:35

My model was built almost "out of the box". I didn't use any aftermarket parts, but made some small modifications. As a reference I used a great Verlinden Publications book from Warmachines series and based my model on vehicles shown there. They were newer versions than the one that can be built out of the box from the AFV Club kit. They were using different front turn signal lights and had some additional box added to the front of the launcher operator's compartment. I included all these modifications in my model. Vehicles in VP book didn't have a front winch, so I removed it from the model and replaced with the blanking plate. Vehicles shown in the book had newer style steering wheel, but I left steering levers in my model. They were obviously recently painted in NATO three-color camouflage scheme, as the paint looked really fresh. The whole launcher units however were still in old MERDC camouflage and were showing some weathering. I shown my model exactly as described - NATO scheme on the vehicle itself with almost no weathering, and MERDC on the launcher - heavy weathered.

Please note that at these days when I built this model (over 5 years ago), I was not using any washes, dry pastels, pigments etc. My only weathering techniques were dry brushing with "dirt" or "metal" colors (no shading!) and "dusting" with the airbrush. I also learned much later that decals should be applied on gloss surface - back then I was applying them on flat paint and they were usually heavily silvering.

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