Takom Leopard C2

Looking at the road wheels on the actual vehicle from the Prime Portal site they show some signs of wear and tear so I've tried to replicate this on the kit wheels;

I've also been trying to do the weld seams around the vehicle as some look pretty evenly done especially on the rear exhausts. To do this I rolled Milliput into thin lengths and pressed it into the joints then used a modelling knife to make the indents, Hopefully they will look good under paint;

The top weld seams on the exhausts were done by masking off the areas, leaving thin strips between the lengths of tape. Mr Surfacer 1000 was then applied to the exposed areas and when it had cured slightly a knife was used to texture it. When dry the tape was then removed.
The periscopes in this kit are completely featureless, you could hack them out and replace them with aftermarket ones OR improve them. I do this by heat stretching some sprue into fine lengths then gluing them around the edges of the periscope face, cutting off any excess when set;

A fairly simple fix but it does improve the basic kit items. This will also be done to the turret ones later. Another simple improvement concerns the towing hooks as they are moulded as one piece whereas on the real vehicle they are of course two separate items. All I did for the kit items is to engrave them using a dress makers pin then run liquid glue around the parts to clean them up;

One thing to watch in the Takom kit is the NBC filter on the left side of the vehicle as you need to add the two square holes at the rear of the block;

I've added some heat-stretched sprue around it as well as the lifting lugs and the block on the front near the drivers position as I need to add the weld beads later.