Project IV/21

Königstiger with internals

Now, folks. Before I started writing this intro, I checked my #Begin-tagged posts and got shocked. I've always considered myself primarily as a tank modeler, and especially one most concentrated on the PzKfw subcategory. So when did this happen: my last tank of any kind was started 3,5 years ago and my latest Panzer got started almost seven years ago?

I'd have to admit that this box has been waiting for its turn for over four years already. It felt like that as the previous PzKfw V (still running on that same battery, btw) and the mere idea of this PzKfw VII having its insides modeled too was so intimidating that the downward spiral has been speeding up for a good while.

Just paging through the instructions (with the photocopied corrections) and staring at the amount of pieces to be played with was... well, strange. The complexity of the insides, revealed by the painting instructions, didn't really help. Then again, this was exactly what I had been waiting for.

The pieces

There was a hefty amount of sprues. The convenient-looking thing that Takom had done with the sprues was the military-like open character in the tab in a corner. I expected that to be much more readable from the stack / pile than the usual embossed chars.

Decals, my enemies. A bunch of those apparently belonged to the sides of the shells and other things that would most likely never be seen again. The photoetch sheets had a few more unusual things, like the bottoms of the shells - or so I guessed at this point.

Guidelines for painting

This two-page paintjob example looked slightly scary, considering the upcoming tasks. As a bonus I thought this'd help with the unclear bits of the instructions, at leat in a couple of places.

Error correction

The first time this happened to me, there were indeed some corrections to the instructions. These photocopies were targeted to the assembly phases by the step numbers, except for that 0,0's "drill here" part. That'd be easyish to locate anyway.

Checking the instructions

Last but not least, the imperfect instructions. This was not a leaflet but not an epic, either. If my poor memory served me well, Dragon's instructions were a bit like these here: nice pics but sometimes those were a bit difficult to figure out. Perhaps my expectations were going to prove unfounded in short time.

The motor itself got a couple of pages dedicated to it. Concerning.

The insides of the combat space was to be filled with stuff. It looked pretty stuffed.

Looking at the turret instructions I started worrying, how in the Empire would I ever get any of that aligned perfectly for the outer shell?