Last addition before continuing with the paintwork:
Simply bent from copper wire and glued in place, then painted grey to match the rest of the model. After that, I got out the airbrush and first sprayed Tamiya XF-81 on the new additions (the mesh behind the bumper and the recoil cylinder, which is still separate), and then lighter grey made by mixing XF-1 flat white into it, on all of the panels etc. No picture of that, though, because I doubt it will show up well in a photo.
After the lighter patches, I applied an all-over wash of Humbrol 140 Gull Grey (the genuine article, from a 1980s tin that had never been opened) followed by drybrushing the whole model with Rackham Sharp Grey (another paint you can’t get anymore, as the company went under about fifteen years ago):
Unfortunately, the contrast between base, wash, and drybrush colours is too small. You can see I applied them if you compare the wheels that have just XF-81 on them to the ones with the full treatment below:
… but that’s about it 
It’s not really more apparent IRL than in these photos, so I need to do it again with colours that are a bit darker and lighter.
Better to err on the side of being too subtle than to have gotten the contrast too strong out of the gate.
Indeed, though an odd thing here is that Humbrol 140 was a bit darker than the base colour, got darker still when I thinned it with white spirit to make the wash, but then dried on the model with much less contrast than I expected.
For the second try at the overall wash, to enhance the contrast, I decided to use Tamiya X-19 Smoke, thinned with water so it wouldn’t be quite as strong as that is straight from the bottle. Here’s the outcome of that attempt:
Clearly more contrast, as the wheels show quite well:
However … I screwed up fairly badly here, and I don’t mean the tide mark as the bottom of the hull side (that wasn’t there when I put the model away to dry, but the wash was clearly still more liquid than I thought). No, the lesson is that you need to keep paying attention to what you’re doing 
As you can see above, I have two bottles with clear grey caps, standing next to each other — because they’re both Tamiya X-19 Smoke bottles.
But: only one of the two has a label, because that’s the one that really does contain X-19. And of course, I accidentally made the wash with the paint from the other bottle … That’s colourless furniture paint into which I mixed black pigment, for quickly shading wargames figures. I only realised I was using the wrong bottle when I had covered about 90% of the tank with it I had noticed that the “Smoke” was drying matt instead of glossy, but didn’t give that much thought, nor the fact that I was using a bottle without a label …
Not that it went totally wrong, but I do need to be more careful in future.
I would either paint or add tape to the top to let you know it’s not what’s in the bottle.
That’s the reason I removed the label from it Yet somehow, I completely failed to grasp that I was using the bottle without the label …
Not that it really matters. I had specifically used a Smoke bottle because the colour of the cap matches fairly well what’s inside — it would be a lot more serious if I wanted, say, a bright blue but accidentally applied this dark grey transparent paint because I had used a bottle that previously held blue paint. Of course, I would probably have noticed that mistake sooner
Quick mask made the easy way:
This also neatly shows how much washes and drybrushing can change base colours: I had painted the ropes much the same colour brown before I did those, and they ended up almost the same colour as the grey of the hull. After painting them brown again, I added a dark wash and drybrushed with a medium brown to make them look like wet hemp rope — again using a bit of paper to prevent it getting onto the hull, of course.
I also painted the tyres dark grey, followed by a coat of thinned Indian ink and then drybrushing with a few shades of dark and medium grey. That done, I painted the rims of the wheels with a medium metallic colour and glued the bogies to the hull:
The sprockets are not glued, just pressed on.
Looks like something out of a steampunk movie. Very cool. Can’t wait to see it with tracks on.
Exceptional work. Really looking fantastic.
Thanks
Now that the bogies are attached to the hull, I could finish the tracks:
These are Panda Plastics T54E1s, and need 77 links each for an Asuka Sherman (except the M4A4). Be sure to leave the idler wheel’s axles (parts C25) loose so you can build and paint the track, put it on, and then tension it just like on the real tank.
Tracks now painted:
I sprayed them with Tamiya XF-24 Dark Grey, so I added an unpainted link to show there really is paint on them
Now that I’ve mostly recovered from COVID, I’ve felt up to doing some more modelling. First, more painting on the tracks for the BARV, followed by the markings and installing those tracks:
The markings aren’t intended to represent any particular vehicle, though Resicast gives you decals for three different ones — except the instructions for them are pretty much unusable:
I therefore went looking for photos of BARVs, which left me with the impression that they seem to have all been marked differently, and then used some of Resicast’s decals as well as a registration number and stars from Asuka’s Sherman V kit. The number is of course wrong for a Sherman III, but 1) who’s going to notice? And 2) half hidden by the ropes it’s hard to read anyway
The tracks were painted by adding a wash of dark red-brown over the grey I had sprayed them, followed by drybrushing with a medium metallic colour, and then with a silvery one. Then a light wash of a sand colour, and I also used that same paint plus acrylic texture gel to simulate sand on the bogies and the hull front. Not much, because I see this as the result of driving through dry sand for a short distance — not much would stay on the tank when driving through water.
The rope on the front is still loose. It is connected to the 2-pounder recoil cylinder, but I haven’t decided what to do with the free end. I think I’ll keep the rope in this colour, though, to give the impression that it’s dry, unlike the ropes along the hull sides.
Wow that’s looking great.
Cheers,
Ralph
Thanks. It just needs a little bit more work to finish it.
