US Medium Tank M4A3E8 Sherman ''Easy Eight''

This was my second Tamiya kit, and my first military build. It is hard to find anything to dislike about a Tamiya. Clean parts. Clear instructions. Nice tolerance between parts. Yes, you'll pay a little more for a Tamiya, but their kits are worth the extra money. One issue I encountered, which was in no way Tamiya's fault, was that the instructions called for XF-84 Dark Iron paint. My hobby store didn't keep anything above X-80. I looked XF-84 up on Tamiya's site, but didn't want to pay shipping charges for a couple dollops of paint. Once I realized it was used on the spare links for the tracks, and my tracks would be muddied up so you couldn't see the color, I just used Testors Gun Metal for the spare links. The only other issue was that there were two small pieces that were supposed to go on the inner front fenders. I didn't have enough clearance between the tracks and the body of the tank to position them correctly so I just left them off. It still looks nice without them. The third issue was all on me! I got ahead of myself and put mud on the body where the decals belonged, so I had to use some creative techniques and just use the part of the decal that would show from behind the mud. If you choose to dirty it up, remember: DECALS FIRST! All in all this was a very enjoyable kit.