T-34/85 - scratchbuilding the base

The base for the T-34 would need to be scratch built. I had some thick styrene sheet leftover from the (as yet unfinished) Challenger project, that I now used for building a few (oddly shaped) boxes.

I reinforced everything with scrap sprue to make it sturdier. After all, this is a ~30 ton tank!
The tendency to build things too sturdy is a genetic trait I inherited from my maternal grandfather, who tended to build anything (pigeon loft, garden shed, ...) on concrete slabs where a few wooden poles might also have sufficed.

The stone texture paper is a convenience product by Tamiya, called "Stone paving B" (link), found online in many webshops.

If you've been around for my previous projects (especially the 2 Merkava's), you know I've experimented with sand texture before (here and more successfully here and here).

This time I tried it with Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda). I mixed it with Vallejo Grey primer (since I don't use the bottle for anything else anymore) and thinned with water to varying degrees. It did not like being applied with a brush on the extremely smooth styrene.
The best result (left on the picture) is the heavily thinned variety. The water evaporates, the primer keeps it together and to the plastic.

The resulting look is okay-ish for simulated concrete, but on the grainy side, especially compared to the original thing. It's almost good for concrete on a 1/1 scale, less so for 1/35.

However, I've decided against starting over.

Time to put some paint on the tank.

Update (1 day later):

I ended up unhappy with the courseness of the concrete after all and decided to try sanding it. Careful at first, because I didn't want to end up with bare plastic again, but the concrete is really sturdy and it turned out to require some serious elbow grease.

But the result is much more to my liking. #fixthatshit