Done at last!

I guess I should complain out loud a lot more, I'd get stuff done. The jack got painted along with the whatevertheheck metal stick, then dirtified (as in "my feeble attempt at weathering" with the dry ground colour). Then I messified them a bit more, especially the jack, with the mud-type weathering stick I was talking about yesterday.

In hindsight, I should've finished the tools on their own and attached them to the hull last. Maybe next time. But then again, as I've complained many times, this is the first tank model I've built in years.

The nozzle of the howitzer was blackified a bit as well, I think it looks pretty fine live, but it's not too evident in these photos. The local weather isn't that good for mobile phone photos at the moment and the artificial lights aren't too handy, either. I mean, my N900 is pretty awesome but the camera doesn't do miracles, the photos get noisy if the lighting conditions aren't optimal.

So I'll be waiting for a bit clearer day for the final photos of the Sturmpanzer IV. Or I'll get tired and start playing with the real camera and the tripod. We'll see which happens first. I believe it's going to be the second option :)

Next I'll start with my next project (a Trumpeter 20mm FlaK 38). That's in a sense a very interesting and handy target, for I can continue with that in the future by bolting it on a truck, halftrack or the hull of a Flakpanzer. I just hope that I'd be luckier with the vehicle than with Thor, which was a halftrack with a 10-barrel Nebelwerfer mounted on top of it. That was a horrible model, didn't like it at all.

Almost there, almost there... again

Because of all some everyday hassle, the Sturmpanzer hasn't progressed much this week. Not that there's much to do anymore anyway. During this week I've mostly worked with the extra road wheels and fixing the odd paint splotches around the model. All that's left in my opinion are drilling open the MG (I hope I don't break it accidentally), painting the tools and the muzzle of the howitzer.

It could be fascinating to invest to some pigments, to make the model look a bit more lively. At least more real than what I can accomplish with paints only. Or maybe I'd just make more of a mess :P
Maybe I should give them a chance. At least "everyone" is praising the Mig products, but then again, the Tamiya mud stick was pretty fine to me, too. Hmm.

I can already smell the faint smell of an arms race. And it smells good...

Easy does it

This week's theme has been damage control, also known as "fixing the fuckups". One day I realized that I could build a couple of extra road wheels and hang them on the backside of the tank. More random junk, it makes the thing look less boring. I hope :P Now they're camo-painted and are waiting for the next steps, whenever I have the time for that.


Weathering has to be done more as well, track links are to be fixe more (they failed, I'll do better next time) and all these random things need to be attended to. Bah. That's what you get for second-guessing yourself and your methods...

No new pics this week, not much has changed from the last post.

Easy peasy

Easly week went again with random fumblings...

I tried to get the Balkenkreuz painted on the hull (after all I decided to add ones to the front and rear sides as well), this time using the stencil method. That's something I've never tried before, so it was yet another weird thing to be tried. So I cut the waterslide transfers, because they had the correct sizes. From one I cut away the center and from another one the sides.


The project begun with four outer crosses painted white. Two of them went bad because the stencil wasn't placed well enough. Bah. "Doesn't matter anyway", I thought, for I was going to fill the center pieces with gray-black later, "that ought to hide some fuckups". Once again a couple of those ran a bit, the others worked better. In the end I fixed the logos with a paintbrush.

Next time I paint I guess I should fix the outside-leaks with the camouflage colours. Oh well. Maybe I learn to do things better on the first try at some point. Or not.

Later I weathered the bottom part of the tank and the tracks with some dried mud colour. After that paint had dried up, I tried my luck with the Tamiya weathering stick (mud) that I had bought from the Model Expo 2009. The end result looks like dried, blobby mud. Pretty neat!

Almost there, almost there

I've been playing a lot with all these details. My first attempt at spraypainting a camo on the tank was a bit on the failed side of the spectrum, surprisingly. That's because of my own stupidity for I hadn't cleaned the device well enough, so I can't blame anything else than myself. The end result looked more like the floor of the nearest train station because the airbrush was spitting more than I would've liked.

So I had to start fixing the pattern I had made up. It doesn't look as good as it could have, especially if you look too closely. But then again, you're not supposed to be looking at it up close, it's supposed not to be seen from a distance. And in that kind of a scenario, maybe it'd work nicely in an autumnish forest or something. Maybe this isn't a complete disaster.

The extra pieces on the nose are going to be painted black during the next set of small detailing-steps and weathering. Maybe I should pop by my modeling shop and get some b&w paints so I can paint the Balkenkreuz with a stencil. We shall see how that idea ends up working...

This post shall be a bit shorter because there's not that much to be told about making a mess. So I'll end with a bunch of photos: