NKL-26 Aerosan: Finished

After a long wait, here is my completed NKL-26 Aerosan from Trumpeter. I ran into some "technical difficulties" just after finishing the model, in the form of a broken camera, so I had to wait a while before posting this while I waited for the camera to get fixed. 

I made some small modifications to the kit, but nothing too complex: I swapped out the seat for a more detailed one, and added some wires to the pulleys that make up the steering system. I also added re-enforcement ribs to the inside of the vehicle to correspond with the exterior ribs. A few small wires were added to the underside of the dashboard as well.

 The front plate and skis were made of steel on the real vehicle, so I weathered them a little differently, for contrast.

 I tried to make each ski look a little different from the next, to keep things interesting. The one on the front left looks a bit too yellow for my taste, but I've moved on to bigger and better things and don't feel like fixing it.

Once painting was finished, I cut small sections of steel tubing into 2-2.5mm segments and sprinkled them around the interior to represent spent shells from the DT machine gun. They're much too large, but they get the idea across, I think. I also sprinkled in a few seeds from my yard that resemble miniature oak leaves. I glued them in using small blobs of white glue.

 I did my best to get a shot of the interior, but it's really tough. This is as good as it's gonna get, I'm afraid.

The icicles are stretched clear sprue, attached using CA glue. The CA glue was painted on with an old brush to make the otherwise smooth icicles a little irregular in shape. Thanks to John Steinman for sharing this technique!