A day trip for some reference photos

Parola Armour museum

During the summer half of 2023 the Parola tank museum had a special showpiece, a King Tiger that was on loan from the Bovington's museum. I tried to ask a couple of friends in separate cases if any of them were interested in a silly trip but no one had a matching schedule with mine. So I took this day trip all by myself, especially the Project Assistants I nor II, not to mention my partner, were interested in admiring blocks of steel in engine oil -smelling halls.

On an evilly early Saturday morning in August I drove north to Parola and the parking lot was jam-packed already thirty minutes after the opening of the museum. Following that the first hall that was the King Tiger's temporary home was also pretty damn busy. I had dragged our DSLR camera with me, so I took only a few photos with either of my cell phones, because the big one was much better for references?

What happened with my numerous photos was that I moved them on my desktop, but delayed with my actual backups a bit too long and an OS update wiped my data drive along with the OS-dedicated drive. My recovery attempts were futile and I was a bit annoyed with myself and the OS provider. These tank photos were the only ones I hadn't paranoidly copied to many different disks in many places.

Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B

The rare display piece was the Henschel's second prototype hull, Versuchs-Fahrgestell No. V2, with the older turret. The tank itself had few extra pieces on it, such as side skirts, mud flaps, tools, or most of the exhaust pipe pieces either. Seeing a Königstiger with my own foul eyes was awe-inspiring and it was extra amusing as the tank was positioned just about next to a tiny Vickers-Armstrong -made tankette that was pretty much the size of a wheel barrow.

The only photo of mine that remained of the biggest of kitties:

ô_õ

More important than photos was that I did get to ogle at the tank myself, at weird angles and just be generally baffled by the immense size of the tank. Just the drive sprockets were about the size of my torso and most likely somewhat heavier as well. It was impressive, if I had to choose one word. Now I just needed to find myself next to a live Tiger, and a Panther would be a cool bonus.

T-34/76 "Sotka", Ps 231-1

I was taking these T-34 photos for reference at a pretty fortunate time, as I hadn't started with the mine roller tank yet, but I knew I was going to take it up soon after. I was most excited to check the wear and tear on the tracks and what looked worn-out in which place.

StuG III Ausf. G, Ps 531-45

More than the many Soviet tanks in the museum I knew I was going to need (and want) more random, weird details on the German tanks. Looking at the effects of the road wheels and such was always useful, to begin with. Had I gotten very deep in this stuff, I might have tried to recognize the type of the tracks on this one, but I didn't know enough to say a thing.

In case I ever was going to make another tank with a modeled interior, and especially a StuG, it was a good idea to link to Andreas Lärka's collection here: http://www.andreaslarka.net/ps531045/ps531045.html

One of the most useful details here was the jack's wooden block and go me for taking a photo of it with the phone as well. I recognized being completely wrong with these pieces on models and had painted them so very wrong for years. These days I knew better.

57 ITPSV SU 57-2, Ps 461-nn

This turreted Sergei (the Finnish name for ZU-23-2, the twin-barreled 23mm AA cannon) on a tank chassis mostly offered me some more fun details of the life-lived tracks, the tow cable loops for upcoming chipping sessions, and the general forest-provided debris on different parts of the tank.

Panzer IV Ausf. J, Ps 221-nn

Of the J-model Panzer IV I didn't take many quick photos of, as it was such a rusty individual that I didn't see myself copying all that myself. For the upcoming projects I was most interested in its muzzle brake.

Some Soviet tracks

These photos I took only because these tracks showed so nicely how the contact surfaces of the tracks reflected light and how the bare metal showed at different angles. I think I spent a good fifteen, twenty minutes with the proper camera and my phone, most likely looking a bit silly, trying to capture the effect I saw so plainly with my own two eyes.

All in all the photos from my trip could've been much worse, these quick "easier to check from the phone than from the computer" shots saved a bit at least. The drive overwrite happened months ago now and I was still heavily annoyed by it.

Finished: IV/23

T-34/76 PT-34 mine clearing tank OOB

The model I started in the very late '23 was now complete, a few calendar months later. This time I used a yet another approach to documenting my process so each of the ten posts covered a very varying amount of real time.

Based on the filenames of my photos I had taken 198 work in progress photos to be edited, divided under 8 themes (and posts). I had no way to calculate the amount of actual time used, all I knew was that the hour count had to be enormous, as one post alone usually covered the happenings of a handful of sessions. Finally, I took 15 photos in the light tent with the final model, and editing those took a moment as well.

It could've gone better

This world would be a weird place, if everything went perfectly and nothing needed (or allowed) grumbling after the fact. Of course this project left something to desire, and that was a good thing because it gave myself some feedback for improvements.

PT-34

The mine roller device with its instructions. I was somewhat confused by the instruction sheet at some points while building, and as I wasn't familiar with the way these things worked (or how they'd looked like in real life) I had no real way to trust my own instict. Now the roller discs didn't end up standing straight like I had visualized based on my own expectations, the relatives in the Parola Armored Museum, and the box art.

If I was a diorama person, and I might be one if I had the space for storing such constructs,  I could've cheated by smashing the rollers into the position I wanted with the base. Floating freely it looked a bit silly, as supposedly heavy steel wheels were flopping like conscripts in the waiting area.

Unique identifiers

My tank was left without a unit number, red stars, and a catchphrase. I had even considered using the roundels from the decal set, but the number and texts I'd freehanded myself. Most likely this was caused by the repeated issues with the green basecoat, and as I was clearly hyped about the chipping attempt right after painting the bare steel bits, I simply forgot the order of business here. The white details should have been painted (or decals cursed on) before any fancy stuff.

A couple of years ago I might have just shrugged, added the missing details over everything else and then applied some touch-up weaathering to cover it up a bit. Now I accepted my mistake.

Tanker's smile

The 1,5mm++ -sized gap was truly baffling, because it didn't show any warning signs in advance. Of course I tried to fix it but I clearly hadn't got enough practice on this sort of work, and I most likely also used wrong tools as well. Or I was fixing it too late because I didn't realize my problem in time. So there, skill deficiency, pure and simple, and the only way to improve on it was to practice.

Another really confusing thing about the ravine was that the rest of the model was pretty much hassle-free. Perhaps I had installed the mysterious bits on the rear hull's inside badly, which then compounded into a large issue a few steps later. As an explanation this made more sense than one lonely piece of the model being over a millimeter or two off in one end.

Not going to ignore the successes

After my initial worries chipping was insanely fun to paint, and even in my own opinion it looked neat. I also tried to keep my head cool with the damages, because it was fun and that always increased the risk of overdoing quite a lot. We've all been there.

Working with the oil paints was still glorious and the end result enjoyed a huge improvement. I really couldn't emphasize that enough, because now the "oh crap now there's a crapload too much of that stuff there" was quick and easy to revert with nature's own undo function. Santa and his colleagues the Witch Kings also brought a few more Abteilung oils for me, so the modeler's happiness was going to be unlimited.

Those often-cursed vinyl tracks went on, stayed in piece, didn't (yet) pull the roadwheels askew, nor did they melt away while being painted. The result was also prettier than the unpainted metallic-shiny bits. Of course these were paper-thin in scale, but you couldn't always get everything.

Final thougs

All in all this was a fun build and a fun model to paint. It actually was my fourth Soviet tank (and my second T-34), and my seventh Soviet model in general ([T-34/85; IS-2; BM-21 Grad; T-35; MiG-29; Su-27; T-34/76 & PT-34])  so I wasn't completely stuck into kraut stuff even if I sometimes sounded like it! In this model count I didn't include anything earlier than 2001, such as the unlucky Polikarpov I-16 and whatnot.

Photos

I really needed to get myself a tripod for the photos. These photos that have been taken more or less on the same level were shot with the camera resting on a book (the complete Bone, again).

Now these last photos that were pretending to be something like 3/4 photos I took with the light tent's own monopod but the actual camera was a bit too heavy to be trusted on that one. Maybe I should've used the timer in addition, but didn't think of it in time. Maybe I'd think more the next time.

Exhibit A for the monopod-tripod-manual shooting: the last photo had moved a bit but gave enough of a view of the tank for me to just go with it instead of doing reshoots.

Next in 'Mumblings

A trash can.