Project II/12

I admit openly, that this year's projecting under the labels of painting and building has been pretty slow. Despite that my second german cat is done! Awesome, wonderful and exciting!

The final stretch

Those track links I advertised the last time found themselves painted, messified and cleaned up before I threw them to the rear sides of the tank. There were six slots for these and I had four sets of track pieces to divide however I pleased. For a change I went asymmetrically and gave the left side three pieces and a single one on the right side.All the empty slots got those L-shaped pieces to show that there could be something. The remaining eight L-pieces I cut short and glued them on the top of their places. Should someone take a look at my model from below, that one'd notice that the bottom parts have gone missing.

A mess

To make my model pretty I made it dirty. A muddy tank was my goal, so the tracks, the rear deck and the top of the copmartment got some Tamiya weathering master set's "mud" pigment. I guess it looks like some people have been roaming on top of my tank with poopy boots. At least I hope that's the impression any observers get. The muzzle brake of the 88PaK43 was dirtified with Vallejo's 73116 "Carbon Black". I really have to learn how to use that stuff, it feels so weird compared to the Tamiya's makeup.
Lastly I poked the tracks and the lower hull with my Tamiya weathering stick ("Mud"). Maybe this time I didn't get overexcited with it?

 

SdKfz 173 Ausf. G1 Early Production

Pictures, as usual, tell more than a thousand words:

The infamous muzzle brake

Of course I could've changed another lens to the camera, but I wanted to see what kind of photos I get with this one, in the dark of the evening and under electric lights. Now I've tried it out.
Should anyone know what I used as the background, they'll get a point.

Coming up

Next I'll take up the brits or polish army but I shall still remain rolling in mud and who knows what. Maybe even next week my "almost FiFo" work queue pops out my gift kit: Italeri's M-10 Achilles.

Rustification preparation

Lasse's earlier comments in my silly blog's finnish version stuck to my head and I decided to try his method. More or less, because I don't have the exact colours he mentioned but that's never a real issue anyway. The idea is what it is and I'll do what I get to do.

This is going to be ugly

My target is the set of track links on the rear sides of the tank, they aren't muddy and lumpy but pieces that have been hanging there for a good while. So the base is going to be Flat Alu, dirtified by a very diluted mix of Flat Brown and my own custom orange made of Vallejo's Game Colors (Bloody Red + Bald Moon Yellow). I think it sounds like a good, useful idea but you can disagree all you want ;)

Carrying more crap

This time I added some of the missing knickknack to the sides and winterized them, too. Not much is left anymore, the tow cables (should they survive) and the fixing of the tracks. Right now I just couldn't find the motivation to fight with them so I did something else, while I still could :)

Even the tow cable is there!

Dirty tracks

I got something done again, track-painting to be more exact. You'll see it in the pics that my badly set lights (I rushed to paint on the expense of proper preparation) ended up causing some "bald patches" that I need to fix later. Yeah, it's my own fault.

In any case, the process was pretty straightforward. The base layer was done with Tamiya's XF-10 (Flat Brown) and later on top of that I liberally drybrushed some Tamiya's XF-16 (Flat Aluminium). Because that Al layer didn't look good enough I applied a Citadel's devlan mud wash. The result ended up pretty decent in my opinion, it's just a shame that I have to fix a couple of places afterwards.

Now the big cat can hunt!

Rumbling

I admit that I hadn't figured out all the coolness in these Magic Trax when I started. Those are tons better than what I used to work with, if I use them properly. The victory is reached via pain and suffering, so maybe  at some point a tank model of mine looks like I've envisioned it in my sick mind.

Or maybe not, but being "close enough" would also work. So that I wouldn't need to be too embarrassed. I'd like that.

Tracks are done, the kitty is on the prowl

A piece is off, I've got to fix it!

Now that the tracks are just about done, after one last fix, I'll start looking towards my paint pots again. I know that it'd been tons easier before gluing the tracks on the tank, but this is how it goes after I started changing my mind in the middle of the build.

Oh, and the finishing touches and last pieces are still missing. That shouldn't take long. And yes, I know, you've heard that one before ;)

Lazy linkage

Somehow building the tracks has been very, very slow. I even changed my mind about the assembling/painting order because my original idea just didn't feel that nice. About half of the pieces are done, the rest, meaning the shorter curves I think I'll do in one sitting, whenever I get to :)

The painting of the tracks will be its own project, we'll see later how it turns out. Just don't bother holding your breath while waiting, even if you were the legendary Guybrush Threepwood himself...

Clickety-clack

We'll see how those tracks end up after all... I've been somewhat busy lately, again, to say the least. Still, I should pay attention to what I do and do things properly or else keep my fingers off this beast.

The winter approacheth

While fooling around with many other things I had the time to make a mess of my tank the other evening. I was pretty curious to see how that camo I painted so many weeks a go would react to a bit of whitewashing. Immediately after the application the resultset looked a bit odd, but after a bit of waiting things got brighter.

Living in the moment

My idea was, again, to achieve a "field applied" kind of  winter camouflage. Maybe the guys got a surprise snowstorm while cruising around the French countryside and had to hastily apply a layer of thin white paint? This is how it ended at this point:

Back on track again

After these weeks of not building anything I've used a few good moments thinking of what and how to continue with this project. Earlier I left certain parts (tools and such) unglued with the idea of getting better access on the hull itself when I apply the winter camo. Of course it causes some head scratching: how do I glue them on and then apply the camo on them without ruining the hull's camo in the process? I decided that "it'll sort itself out" and went to do something else.

Trackage

That something else goes by the name of tracks. I don't recall fooling around with these Magic Tracks of Dragon before and they're quite a different beast from the Tamiya individual link tracks. This time I started by preparing two columns of track pieces long enough to provide the footprint for the tank. When these are deemed worthy I guess I'll work on the hanging track portion and finishing with the forward- and rearward sections.

These kitty paws are barely started

My old weird approach

It'll be the first time I try to assemble the tracks this way, so I guess a bit of swearing will be heard. My main point is that I'm not going to repeat my old method where I first guess (educatedly) the required amount of pieces, set them up and apply the glue. After a while of curing I'd just wrap the half-cured and barely connected strips of tracks around and hope for the best... Maybe preparing the tracks in a couple of different sections (painting included) will work better.
Then again, I do have a couple of completed tanks where this weird and slightly difficult approach has actually worked just fine, so it can't be completely useless. Just difficult and maybe somewhat unreliable, even.

Insignia time

The time of Balkenkreuz

Yep. I've been pretty busy last weeks. Despite that I sat down with my paints and did a bunch of Balkenkreuz on the model. One on each side and doubles to the rear side. And as my habit is, I did all by hand. This time I painted them relatively small, just for variety.

Running out of playtime

I'm afraid I can't keep fooling around and wasting time, soon I must attack the remaining pieces. The build order is just something I need to take care of first, so nothing gets ruined or ends up needing a bunch of repainting.
Most likely I end up making the wrong choice, but that's how it sometimes goes.

A fancy camo job

Kicking my own arse

So I decided to get myself (and my act) together and started painting this bugger for real. The priming didn't really need much more, for it was mostly done. Which was pretty nice at this point in the project...

A hastily taken photo of the primed model

A simple and easy plan

I figured that  a simple approach would be the best one. Supposedly. In any case, unlike with my earlier german devices I thought that I'd apply the paints in a bit different order this time. Somehow that "start with Dunkelgelb and then go with the rest" approach didn't feel as nice as the previous project's "green goes first and the rest follow later".

Maybe the different painting order was better or perhaps I had actually learned something at some point. Or maybe the Lifecolor paints were better. There was only one way to find out!

From the pot to the jar to the tank

Round one

Vallejo's Verde Panzer got the greatest of honours and ended up being the basecoat. At some point in history I had diluted the paint a bit too much and the result was a bit thin. But that was fixed by applying a bunch of layers, so nothing was lost except a bit of time.

The green experience

Round two

Somehow it felt natural to apply the brown (Vallejo's Marron Panzer) stripes and lines next. They'd be a handy general pattern-definer to begin with. Then I'd paint the rest of the stripes in the third colour to break the form a bit more strongly.

It actually looks fun this way, too

Round three

As the obvious finale I filled the paint jar with Dunkelgelb that the chums at Vallejo call Amarillo Panzer for some odd reason. This paint caused some confusion because the airbrush occasionally spat half-dried lumps of paint out... Damnit.
The end result wasn't going to win any awards, but it's all my own fault. Big parts of what I painted seem to be at their best in the rear half of the tank and oddest in the front - no matter which model I'm working on. This appears to be a clear sign of "practice more" and "study yourself and improve" it.

Right side without tools

Left side, equally toolless

A part of the weirdness of the left side is caused by that I stubbornly tried to keep painting instead of taking an airbrush cleaning break that was clearly needed. As I said, my own fault. In any case, the oddness and imperfectness of the camo job isn't the main thing in this project. In addition to camo being painted by people this is also going to be whitewashed over in the end anyway. So it'll be just fine.

Background activity

Without any special mention: I did paint the road wheels, drive sprockets, idlers and those random items that belong on the outside of the tank. The wheels will be needing some manual painting a bit later, but otherwise they're done. Yay.

A green basecoat

This is a yet another photo-deprived posting because I haven't remembered to take photos of my small steps lately. After I got done with the priming and painting the interior of the fighting compartment white (including the rear part of the gun), I sealed the hull and felt smug.

Rumblegrumble

I wasn't smug for a long time, because the nose was grinning a bit. Of course I could've opted to have the chasm in the rear part of the tank but as that's a lot more difficult to fix and hide, I didn't go there. The hole got a good amount of putty on it and after a bit of smearing and leveling I left it to cure for a nice while.

This evening I took my files out and fixed what I could, then I wiped the surfaces clean. For some reason I didn't really want to have a layer of fine-ish dust under my paintcoat. Ultraexcitingly the next thing I did was to cover about 60% of the surfaces with Vallejo's German Tank Green. The rest I'll fix either tomorrow or whenever I actually have the time. That and the potential fixing that may need to be done if I find some annoyingly large bald spots on my tank when the paint has dried

And then?

When the green surface is set, I'll set up a random camo scheme with the brown and Dunkelgelb, maybe even with a set of selfmade national markings. Scratch that, I'm going to do that and we all know it already.

After that part is done I'll set up the wheels and the tracks and decide "that's almost finished now".


When I've declared that I've got the perfect opportunity to make more of a mess on my hunting kitty. In english it means I'll return after almost ten years to the world of water paints. Just in case I manage to make a better wintery whitewash this time, improving from my first attempt.
For a brief moment I pondered on preparing a base for this beast but maybe I'll take it easy right now. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Mostly primed

I had thought that I'd start painting the interior of the tank yesterday evening, but I didn't get to. That's because the periscopes weren't attached (and therefore were unpainted) yet so I had to glue them in first. Not that the interior makes a horrible difference anyway, but It'd be nagging at me if I knew that the insides are untouched. Yeah, I'm the first one to admit that I'm lazy but I'm not that lazy.

Feature uncreep

After a bit of pondering I had decided that I wouldn't be scratchbuilding a firewall between the sections of the tank. Mostly because the hatches are shut so that no one sees inside and that I've never built them to any other tank, either. Maybe I'll do that for a bit more insane model. One of those with a full (ish) interior? If I recall correctly, Dragon had a boxed set, something like "Tiger with interior" or something. Interesting.

Why the slacking off?

In case someone was wondering why I'm doing so little and advancing so damn slowly, there are two main reasons. First: the pollen, it doesn't actually motivate me to put a mask on and fool around with the airbrush. And second: I just haven't had the time. That happens every now and then.

Splish, splash

I'm currently working on priming all the random pieces. It's not particularly exciting, so there's nothing more to report right now.

Oh well, I relearned that if I keep my 'puter & co on at the same time with the compressor, there's not enough juice for everything. My video card say bleh and goes offline. Somehow I didn't remember that from the previous round of airbrushing.

And no, I'm not going move my modeling area away from the computer. I do so little airbrushing compared to everything else that it's not worth moving everything.

The last steps before basecoating

Issues with painting

I built the last few missing pieces to more or less completed state. When the muzzle brake of the gun has been glued, I can start basecoating the random pieces I have prepared. The outsides of the hull are obviously included, the wheelset and the track links, the artillery and all the small tools are simple, but what about the insides? Of course the end part of the PaK is going to be mostly white but what about the engine area? And the suspension system? I don't think there was any sort of a firewall to separate the engine room from the fighting compartment. Do I have to start scratchbuilding that? Himmel.

I decided to use the aluminium barrel after all

Test-fitting

Of course I had to try if the halves actually fit together, so I'd see what's coming. And if that the top- and bottom parts were compatible or not... it wouldn't have been the first time that at the critical moment I'd need to start fixing stuff.

Yep, they do fit

Calmly onwards

I'll be continuing in the mood of my previous post. In plain english that means: small knick-knack has been added on the sides. The left side was a bit lighter than the right one so not much needed to go there at this point, before the painting phase. In case you noticed the headlight on the left front fender, it's pretty neatly detailed: it even has the power cable modeled in! Awesome. Not that I mind fooling around with metal wire and other materials, I just enjoy the fact that the kit offers plenty (or all) of the important things of the actual vehicle out of the box. At least that makes it a bit more likely that nothing's forgotten by accident.

And the infamous kitchen's sink?

The roof of this kitty was full of stuff, doors and items. I haven't attach any the periscopes because it wouldn't make any sense to glue in some transparent pieces before painting everything, I'd just ruin the transparency. That binocular periscope wasn't built by the time I took the pic because I hadn't felt like it. It's an insane thing in the end, this roof.

Almost ridiculous details

The Nahverteidigungswaffe is nicely detailed, too, even though at first glance one might think that there's just a hole to the fighting compartment.Wrong. This optional piece had a nicely detailed close defense weapon on the inside of the fighting compartment but the outside has an open, projectileless barrel.
If you takea closer look at the photo above, that top-middle piece has an individual wingnut on each of those protrudings. Luckily only six of them were needed at this stage.

It's completely sick and insane, I say. Sick, but somehow awesome.

I mean, look at those bastards!

A progress report

Today's post is supposed to be short and to the point. Honestly.
My latest iterations with the model have been mostly targeted at the rear of the tank. I've done what I can to make sure that the essentials are in their places so that the model can be painted comfily and with ease.

The rear deck

In practice that means that all the racks and other fixed parts are attached but the moveables, such as tools, boxes and such aren't glued anywhere. Had I glued all the sledgehammers, jacks and whatnots in their holders they'd cast shadows that just make airbrushing anything a bit more bothersome. Fixing those shadowed out areas can easily cause overpainting and puddling.

More cool details
As a slightly confusing speciality the Dragon people offered a couple of pieces to the engine department, that might never get to be seen anywhere. But the pieces were there so of course I used them! That'll cause a bit of head-scratching while painting but that's a small price if it looks good.

Who the hell sees these through small holes and the grille?

The engine room's air vents got a couple of photo-etch grilles available, and I dropped them on eagerly. These puppies didn't cause swearing or annoyance, very much unlike the p-e parts of the 20FlaK38, but then again, they were just dropped on. Nothing needed to be bent, twisted or fought with.

The tools I mentioned earlier play an important part with the fighting compartment's outer sides. As you can see in the picture below, I didn't attach more than the bare essentials on the side. See that round-ish thing between those two racks in the middle? That's for the cable to be wrapped around. It's going to look good unless I break it in anger at a later point...

Now this is where it's at, there'll be some more to see the next time.

More big kitties!

As is Proper and Correct, building German warmachines just keeps going on and on. I don't know about you people but I'm not bored in the least ;) This time the one queuing to the front lines is my last summer's kit from Gijón's Capua Hobby's. It's a Dragon Models 1:35 scale set SdKfz 173 Ausf. G1 Early Production. Among friends it's better known as

Jagdpanther

Let's begin with the traditional unboxing and oohing and aahing at the contents, so no one gets confused about the order of business. This cover art of course sets the poor modeler's mind thinking of awesomness and success. It's pointless to waste time daydreaming  for the end result won't look like the plans in one's mind anyway ;)

Some cover art

The building blocks

To the point: the box is pretty big and when you open it you notice that it's packed full. There are almost twenty sprues, a couple of which won't be much used because the pieces belong to a normal Panther kit. Judging by the 'chin' gun mantlet I'd say it's an Ausf G. In addition to the photo-eched motor vent covers there's even a bit of metal tow cables! I've never encountered those before.This kit's tracks are made of individual links instead of the licquorice carpet type.

A newly opened box

Contents spread around

The backside of the box promises all things wonderful and tells what kind of awesoments the busy people at Dragon have achieved this time. At this point I have to say that I can't complain about the quality one bit :) While I was being happy about the "one-piece gun barrel" I suddendly remembered that I do have an unused aluminium barrel in one of the bits boxes!

Unused aftermarket parts

When I was building my Jagdtiger I ordered both the Friul metal tracks and a metallic gun. In addition to the gun barrel its bag had a resin shield, saukopf and a muzzle brake.For some strange reason I skipped these pieces back in the day and left them collecting dust. Maybe the reason was those resin pieces and the fact that they're worked on differently and I still haven't tried.
I still remember (believe it or not) that the bag said that it was for a Jagdpanther and that had confused me a bit. Maybe it'd fit in this set? Then again, the kit does have a single-piece gun barrel to represent the 88PaK, do I even need it anymore? Or would the metal thing be better looking? Would the plastic frame support it and the extra weight? Graah!

Waiting for some dremeling

To work

I left my random thoughts brewing on their own and started working on the model in the order the instructions tell me to. As usual, the big cat's feet were the top priority at this point. Unlike with the tigers, the eight middle road wheels were nice, quick and easy to assemble. The drive sprockets didn't cause any confusion but the idler wheels were pretty funny looking. They were equally quickly built anyway and I didn't have the common sense to get concerned yet.

Zum Teufel!

Immediately at the second phase I stopped to stare at the setup. What on Earth is going on in here? Usually the road wheels are just plugged in on these knee-like pieces and that's it. These parts had long rods in the ends. This damn thing has the double torsion bar suspension (it's a very curious idea) modeled! Some madman had made a youtube-video that explains it for us non-mechanics:  "Panther Suspension".

In any case, this late afternoon went with this thing. Well, not just that but a couple other usual first pieces went in, such as the blocks where the drive sprockets go, the random greebl on the hull sides and such. As my last item I attached those wideners and put them under pressure. Tomorrow I'll continue with the rear hull and the engine's fans, if I have the time.

That's it folks, I'll talk more next time. Hopefully I get to post without swearing a lot. But we'll cross that bridge when we cross it.

That moment between vacations has begun again

The first set of vacations came and went, the trip to almost-in-laws ended with a bit of bringables, as it's a sign of a good vacation. To fix the Marauder and to prevent the same ones happening with the Warhammer I got some Tamiya's Putty and 0,5mm polystyrene sheets. Of course I tried first if a quick re-application of black wash helped. It didn't. So I'll take and repaint those couple of things completely again, what else can I do? Maybe I'll lay a piece of plastic to hide some scars on the Torso and gun pods. We'll see, though as long as the weather stays as hot as it is and the calendar tells me it's not a weekend, I'll do something else because spraypainting in the balcony under the evening sun doesn't work for me right now...

Naturally I had to get something new as well, it's not fun otherwise. In one of the shops I saw a model of the Kugelblitz but as it want to support my favourite toy/hobby shop in Gijón (Capua Hobby's), I skipped it. During my hobbying years I've built the main types of the Tiger series so next in line are the Panthers, at least the Panther and Jagdpanther. The latter being the latest entry in my TODO-queue.

At the moment my plan for that beast is to do a triple colour camo and on top of that I'd apply a light "field applied" whitewash, just like with good old Hobbes. This time I'll make it even better.
As if :P