Royal cat-trackwork, part 1

Some road wheelery

It may have been obvious that I left the tracks and friends purposefully (or because of my own stupidity) to the end of the project. Somehow, as a scale tank enthusiast I've felt a tiny bit of shame for having the "erf, here again" moment most often when working on the tracks.

Perhaps one of the reasons for my attitude problem came from the repetitiviness of this stage. First set up and then paint a large number of discs. Then a sick amount of track links need to be queued and glued - twice while you're trying to figure out the best rate of slack, or if the track should be pulled tight instead?

The inner road wheels

I detached all the eight inner road wheels and installed them. Not a single moment of pondering was had to decide which was to go where, as the road wheel camouflage was not planned in any way between the wheels, even less so with the hull.

Outer road wheels

The outer quintet of the road wheels didn't fit perfectly on either side of the tank, completely unlike the inner ones. I didn't want to use force and break anything off, so I thought I'd try to carefully jiggle them in a bit better.

With the wheels on I left them alone for a while. After the gluings had dried I washed the outer faces with brown. The sprue attachment spots you could see in the photos I was going to fix later on.

Locking bolts

I didn't actually know how to call these bits that kept the roadwheels in place. The long ones went in first (4 per side) to lock the inner wheels into their road arms, then the crowns alone (5 per side) to lock the outer road wheels in.

As I had painted the roadwheels and the bolt-things independently from each other, I had a pretty odd mix of them in my hands. I tried to pair them as sensemakingly as I could. A few of them matched their road wheels just fine, some somehow and a couple of them stuck out like a stick in something nasty. Washing and weathering were expected to hide this crime a bit.

Of the long bits I had only painted the tips, not the sides of the cylinders. Those were going to be touched up while I was to paint the outer rims of the road wheels. Kein Problem.

Tracks

Was this the moment where I was going to repeat how assembling the tracks themselves has always been the most uninteresting stage of tank modeling? The rubber band loops never stayed in one piece (or straight), the varying-lenght bits always ended up looking like trash and these individual link tracks took ages and were, like I said, tedious at best.

Once, almost 17 years ago now, I ordered a set of Friulmodels metallic tracks to a Jagdtiger. The vehicle also looked like it was done by me at that point. The tracks themselves were wonderful and weighed almost as much as life itself. Maybe I could try their products with a simpler track type than this. In fact, in my delusional mind I have been dreaming of a new Hummel as I somehow never completed the Dragon models 1:35 one back in the day. Couldn't recall why, exactly, I didn't finish the painting.

📷 2005 CE

I also haven't still found the optimal (for me) way to assemble the tracks. Most typically I've just laid them out, glued, connected the loop and slapped the thing on while still posable, and left the painting to be done in situ.

An implementation idea

This time I felt like trying someting else: I'd at least assemble the ground-hugging straight parts separately and let them dry completely. Then, while fighting the schedule, I'd try to get the rest of the track done before the glue sets, and get each track in place with the assistance of unattached drive sprockets. There the track could find its shape.

Because the whole setup could be popped out by taking the drive sprocket out as well, it could be calmly painted without a worry. After all the paintings were done and paintjobs dry, the reinstallation should be as simple (or swear-inducing) as detaching, and gluing the first and last track links together would be child's play.

The assembly process

My King Tiger's tracks came in two bags: track links in one bag and their connectors in another one. Judging by a quick dry-fit, they did fit together pretty nicely.

My first assembly session didn't offer much time for the tracks, which meant I got almost the full first ground lenght done. Like I was thinking before, I let this to dry flat. At this point I was thinking that maybe I'd improve my chances by assembling four of these straight runs: two against the ground, two slightly longer bits for the return trip. Then I could do the curvy drive- and idler ends separately.

I really couldn't believe that I would have the time during my hobby time to build a full track, not to mention two. The glue's drying time set tightish limits to how slow I could be in my doings. The more I could decrease that risk by spawning subassemblies, the safer I was going to be. That'd take more time, of course, but maybe the result would be better and my nerves less ruined.

Front loops and the left track

To get the first run done I measured roughly, how many links were still missing from the bottom straight. I extended it by about half a dozen links, which got my ground-touching track part to cut at the center points of the frontmost and rearmost road wheels.

The next track stage I started working on by laying the idler wheel curves. I pulled the "five links" count from my hat and after the glue had cured a bit, I laid the runs onto the idler wheels. Maybe they could've been a link shorter each.

While the curve was setting into shape, I assembled the short straight bit that connected the curved part and the ground part. Eyeballing I set a three-link run and the connectors

My guess seemed decent, because if I had made te curve shorter the track would've been set at an unnatural edge (I had done those, too, in the past), here the arc could've been a bit shorter. Or maybe I was going to hopelessly build a track that followed the wheels tightly. That was quite unlikely.

The rear loop

For the idler wheel's loop I made a shorter run and set it to dry onto the idler wheel. At this point I still could play a bit with the lenght of the rising rear track part, using it to affect the rotations of the idler wheel and the drive sprocket.

At this point the track of mine seemed pretty decent. The rear loop could've been a tiny bit longer, even, so both loops would've descended nicely towards the road wheel for the upper half of the loop.

This is the very unscientific way I measured the lenght of the remaining track, by measuring against the gap. Someone smart may have noticed what my mistake was (again).

Repeat on the right side

As usual, implementing the second copy was powered by (relative) familiarity and getting up to speed. Of course I had prepared a couple of bits for the right track while working on the left one. Now the measures were pretty much known and as I have said many times, getting started on these made the progress actually pretty rapid.

They didn't end up identical, the lower one here looked better in my opinion, but maybe they'd both be acceptable. Neither of them was locked into one piece, the unglued connections were behind the drive sprockets.

Washing with brown

As even the fixes of the camo pattern were done, it was the time for a wash. On this model I chose brown as the most fitting one. I used Vallejo's brown (VMW 76513 Brown), starting from the cannon's barrel and the turret. On the lower hull everything but the bottom (and obviously the inside) got washed. For my own conveniene I left only the engine deck unwashed so I could hold on to something else than the turret ring, just in case. This time my documentation only showed the "before and after" moments with the turret washed and the upper hull waiting for its turn, to display the difference.

Tactical markings

So far I had really painted just the nationality markings, maybe some numbers and only once the unit markings (M-10 Achilles) and that was about 12 years ago. Maybe someone else but me remembered that I had ordered some stencils a few years ago and that I had never had the chance to try out as I was always working on anything but German tanks.

These three packets of stencils (I just checked, I had received the package in early November 2016) offered Balkenkreuze (22 different ones!) and such, and some Wehrmacht and SS markings. Now I started getting annoyed for not ordering the numbering stencils as well. Apparently I had a tightwad moment, yet again in the wrong place and at the wrong moment.

Method 1: sponging

This was the most complicated thing so far: choosing the markings used. A large char 'G' told us that this was a member of Guderian's PANZERGRUPPE. The upper right corner's parallelogram with a char 'S' inside it told that this was a so-called heavy tank, in case it wasn't obvious already. Finally the upper left corner had a bar graph that someone had chosen as the marking of 1st SS Panzer Division LAH.

I felt lazy and didn't want to set up my airbrush for three silly little things (considering both the surface area and the amount of paint needed), so I thought I'd be smart and dab the paint on with a sponge. That could also provide a nice imperfect or partially worn-out effect, I thought.

Otherwise the idea was nice but with such small pieces like these (especially the one for a heavy tank unit) more pressing was needed than was healthy. The stencils didn't prevent any leakage, allowing the paint to go over the edges everywhere. Re: the photo below, taken just before I repainted the glacis plate.

I really should have learned to consider myself crafty :D

Redo

Being my paranoid self I covered up the rest of the upper hull with wide strips of (awfully bad) blue masking tape that didn't really want to hold on to itself, less so onto anything else. I redid my camo, starting with brown, continuing with green and wrapping up with dark yellow. A quick and fine fix.

Before a new wash was to be applied I was going to paint the previously chosen markings onto the hull. The heavy tank and Kampfgruppe ones with black, the divisional one with white.

Method 2: airbrush

Balkenkreuz #1

I spent some time pondering on which of the 22 blocky cross options I would put onto the turret's side. Perhaps surprisingly I didn't choose the largest, but a step smaller one. As the position I chose the rear end of the turret, as I didn't want to try these out on a curved surface on the first run.

Before anything else I taped on the positioning piece, a straight-angle piece that would help aligning the actual stencils.

Getting into the proper business I set the corner stencil into the place. This would give me the white inner corners of the cross. I felt a bit overcautious with the masking tapes, but I also could've added some more on the sides, just in case.

I believe I was a bit too generous with my white (VMA 71*** Insignia White). A smaller volume could've done the trick, I just wasn't entirely sure how good my airbrushing angle was so I was playing it safe, or so I thought. This just risked a tiny paint escape.

As soon as I dared I tore off the masking tapes. That ended up looking pretty decent! My biggest problem was to keep the position aid in place, as my taping order had been suboptimal.

I allowed the paint to cure some more, before I slapped the stencil 18B onto its place and taped in tightly. So far this had to be the most exciting moment in this process. As my paint I used a simple flat black (VMA 71*** Black).

Like before I waited for a bit before undoing the stencil. Perhaps I didn't need to wait that long, I'd try a quicker pace the next time.

Himmel, it was a success! Very gentle drops were ok for me and this looked so much better than mutilated waterslide transfers.

 

Now I was left pondering how many crosses my tank actually needed and where would they go? One would be naturally on the opposite side of the turret, perhaps one could go to the rear armour plate. The turret's top might need some sort of a symbol to keep the trigger-happy air farce folks in check. In case there were any friendly pilots around anymore at the point when this tank was roaming in mud, that is.

I wasn't quite certain if I wanted to add Balkenkreuze to the sides of my tank, it somehow felt a bit redundant on this vehicle. There also wasn't that much space on the rear plate, so that wouldn't help much.

The rest

On the right side of the turret the paintjob went just about as nicely as on the left side. My positioning didn't necessarily hit the exact mirrored coordinates, but that happened to me with the decals too.

My front triplet succeeded pretty nicely, except for a corner missing from the 'G' (the stencil had a shred of something stuck there, that I had not noticed in time). The heavy tank symbol didn't show too clearly with the naked eye, having a small symbol and a rough surface weren't optimal. Also, painting black on dark brown might have been a rather silly idea.

 

All in all these stencils were nifty based on this first try. I started getting excited about what I could do with these in the future. This tank wasn't going to receive more markings, I decided, to keep it from becoming overloaded with crap.

Then again... The barrel could take a couple of victory rings.

[re]Washed with brown

My freshly repainted front glacis plate with its lamp had to be rewashed, so that's where I started. Applying a wash was also going to bring down the contrast a bit, which was pretty bad news for the heavy tank symol.

Washing the rear deck didn't take much time. While I was at it I also retouched a couple of the side walls behind the engineer tools. Finally I washed over the tower's Balkenkreuze.

 

Engineer tools

Shovels and other sledgehammerlikes

With the camo business out of the way I started on the deck details, this time meaning the wooden parts of the engineer tools. On the front deck we had an axe, a sledgehammer and a shovel. At the rear deck, next to the fan we had some pruning shears, or most likely something to cut barbed wire instead but the hell if I knew how to call those. Each got their handles painted dark brown (the VMA's Mahogany I had used previously). I thought I'd drybrush some lighter brown later to get a bit of the wood effect.

Each of the metallic attachment bits I left untouched, so they remained camouflaged. Earlier I had thought of leaving all the solid bits dark yellow, as the tank's basecoat was, to make them look separately painted, but it didn't sound good enough now.

Black metal with wood

Each metallic bit got painted with the metallic black. On the first round I forgot, of course, that there was a metal rod on the right rear edge of the tank, as you could see below. 

I wanted the fire extinguisher to be a bit more subdued on the outer deck than inside the tank. That's why I basecoated the tool with the interior's red-brown instead of a bright red. Then I painted the bands and the valve thing with the metallic black.

As soon as my metallics had cured I drybrushed the wooden parts with a lighter brown (VMA 71077 Wood) to bring more life to the very dark brown surface. As said before, I left the connectors in peace.

After a couple of fixing rounds I remembered to paint the missing metal rod. On the fire extinguisher I drybrushed some brighter red for a bit of highlighting, as the red-brown was a bit too dark. My goal was to keep it darker and prevent it becoming an eyesore.

A bonus thing

Before sealing the turret for good I painted all of the tank's periscope lenses on the inside and the outside of the tank with metallic black. If my memory served they ought have been clear or green-tinted (that I'd done with steel/chrome + wash, but as I hadn't bothered masking the transparent bits and fight with the tapes after countless days, painting and gluing rounds), this time I decided to implement my periscope effect as dark. I didn't want to use flat black, because that has never looked smart, even with a bit of varnish.

 

Camouflaging the largest of kitties

A basic Dunkelgelb base

Before starting I covered the already painted topside with a healthy amount of masking tape and blasted the outside of the Panzerwanne with dark yellow, and fixed the subpar paintjob on  the front- and rear glacis plates. At this point I didn't spend much time on the road arms, as I was going to retouch them before installing the road wheels*.

*) I've been suspiciously quiet about them for ages

I also covered the rest of the turret's outer shell, finished up the upper hull's shadowed areas and finally did something on the idler wheels and drive sprockets. These photos ended up missing the road wheels that I now painted from each side, once. Speaking of the road wheels I read that in the early production runs they had rubber rims, later they were steel-rimmed. In my project I was leaning towards steely road wheels, to get some variety in my builds, if nothing else.

 

The turret's inner ring was at this point still largely untouched, as the photo showed. I thought that I'd fix it so that on the inside it'd be white and on the outside red-brown. Its teeth would get a bit of metallic drybrushing and as my oily liquid was ruined, I'd use a black or most likely a brown wash.

 

Set aside the differences between these cat pieces was astonishing. Based on my ammorackless dry-fittings the turret's shell fit tolerably on its base and with only a bit of force used. The only large problem so far was the tank's upper hull that didn't settle on the lower hull at all without threatening to break something.

 

I wasn't going to  paint the engineer tools until the camo was done, here I had wanted to check how the intended look would work on the shovel. The bare metal part I painted with the metallic black instead of gunmetal or plain steel, as in my mind the darker base colour would work better on a camouflaged tank, as opposed to a shiny clean one.

 

The rest of the three-tone camo

Since I changed my airbrush bits from Super Fine to Fine, I thought that I wouldn't try to make a very detailed pattern without masking. On the other hand I didn't feel like having a sharp-edged pattern this time, either, so redoing one of those was going to wait for another tank.

My fresh camo paint set had a couple of options for the colours. In addition to the Panzergrau there were two different greens, browns and a sand/ivory to be used instead of the omnipresent Dunkelgelb. The dark yellow had been chosen ages ago, of the browns I chose the armour brown and from the greens I went with the olive green.

Anyone could tell that I have never been an artist, so I went for something pretty simple. I painted more or less equidistant stripes of green (VMA 71092 Medium Olive) across the hull, the turret and the gun barrel. Between the greens I painted, using circular motion, similar-shaped brown (VMA 71041 Armour Brown) stripes while leaving variying-width dark yellow spaces between every block.

On the Royal Tiger's hull I painted the front glacis plates and the rear armour plate, while leaving the bottom and the armoured tub's lower sides untouched. I didn't even want to get a uniform, continuous pattern between the upper hull, turret and the barrel. On the road wheels I tried to break the round forms with some haphazard brown and green sectors, stripes and blobs. A couple of the road wheels I even left dark yellow for variety. Of course I left (read: I forgot) the drive sprockets and the idler wheels untouched, so I had to return to them still.

Later I was looking at the deck and thought that a small fine-tuning session might be needed. A very small extra brown stripelet could find a nice living space in the rear, just like in the left front. Maybe the first two frontmost brown stripes (the one that crosses the radio operator's machine gun and the one that went across the turret's opening) could use a bit of deshaping - they looked a bit too uniform and solid. Also a couple of the dark yellow bands were quite narrow and low on intensity.

 

My turret with its barrel looked pretty neat already, even if I only took a photo to show the right side only. The pattern didn't need any changes at all, a bit of touching up if anything.

 

All in all the whole upper hull was pretty good. Doing the fixes I was pondering a couple of paragraphs earlier didn't bother me at all, but not doing them wouldn't ruin the tank either. Still I knew myself and that if I didn't fix the things that I knew no one would pay attention to, they would bother me until I had to fix them at some point anyway.

 

Yay, my camo pattern was pretty much done in one go, which was quite baffling if you thought how much tweaking, reworking and multistage-painting this model had required so far. After my fixes I'd apply a wash and then do some edge highlighting.

 

Some fixing

I was very content with the camo pattern, after another day I couldn't fing much to tweak. I strenghtened a couple of the less-covered bits where the brown or green didn't cover as much of the dark yellow basecoat as they should've. There were a few places, both on the hull and on the turret.

 

On the hull I modified the stripes I had complain-commented about earlier. Now the first two brown stripes were less arrow-straight and uniform in their respective widths. Around the second line I also reinforced the dark yellows, as they had ended up a bit too narrow for my liking. To break the third main brown stripe I added a tiny sliver of dark yellow to break the widest brown patch.

 

Now that I remembered, I added some camo effects on the final wheelsprockets. I followed the same nonexistent plan as with the road wheels: don't make them exact copies of each other.

Final touches

Slightly off-topic I noticed that the outer edges of the turret's base had ended up white. I painted them with the red-brown to follow my approach from the lower hull. Now it felt that my eyes got a better hold of the part, as the essential bits were properly colour-coded.