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.

A week's break

Now that I got the previous model built and this week has only four workdays before a long four-day travel weekend, I didn't really feel like starting a new model. Yeah, I'm a lazy bastard, I admit that openly.

Because I don't have any other actionful and exciting topics going on, I shall return momentarily to the paint set I bought for my Finnish King Tiger. This won't be a review or anything like that, don't worry.

Finnish paints

Simply to save myself from unnecessary trouble I invested into Lifecolor's Finnish WWII Army Camouflage Set [Limited Edition] . This way I got all the necessary paints without wasting ages in a shop or the net and ending up with hasty and potentially very unlucky "Damnit already, I'll take that one now!" decisions. Those never work.

Exciting design!

Facts and just facts

The front cover of the box declares that someone called Jukka Purhonen is responsible for the historical research and - I guess - the Correctness and Properness of the colours. I don't mind, if that makes someone happy and encourages them to buy something. To me and maybe some others who take these things a bit more calmly are content with the knowledge that the finnish army's camo pattern was green/light gray/brown.

For example, I couldn't care less what someone somewhere says about one individual tank's paint scheme - in the best case basing his (or her) opinion on black and white photos. From the fourties. Not that the colour photos from those years are much more reliable... So screw the research and I'm sorry to say, mr Purhonen, but this is just your opinion on this topic.

Personally, I could've used any semirandom paint from Vallejo, for example, using a type of moss green, a chocolate brown and a light sand paint. Any of the available greens and so on. Based on the feeling it'd been an equally finnish scheme.
I'm afraid I always complain about these same things: there's space for interpretation, nothing was always made 1:1 the same way, sunlight, weather and time do funny things to previously pristine paintjobs. Not to mention the war that was going on. In any case, I don't think that the ultimate truth even exists. Not unless someone invents a time machine and uses it to the most important cause imaginable: taking perfect reference pictures 8)

The innards of the set

If you remember to open the box, you'll find six containers of paint. Field grey, blue grey and russian green I didn't get to use this time for some reason, but I can comment on the other three I used. And I will.

So this was the first time I encountered Lifecolor products, at least I don't think I've ever seen them anywhere around here. Of course I had to thin them a bit for the airbrush and obviously I had to utilize the trial and error -approach because I wasn't quite sure of how these things would behave. In the end they were fine, they covered well and the colours themselves seemed very neat.

Despite my earlier bitching I'm not dissatisfied or unhappy with the set. The colours are just fine to my eyes, they look as they should, they're nice to use and in general they work like you'd expect. Even if I'm not trying to review this product, I'm in a way reviewing it anyway. How odd.
Anyway, I'm quite happy to give it a +1 and a "thumbs up" 8)

Oh my, there's some art on the inside. I'm surprised!

Some final thoughts

The back cover of the box kindly has a short explanation of how which colour should generally be used. The Soviet (Russian) green is - surprisingly - good for Isorla or more commonly known as captured enemy equipment. The grey/green/brown that I used goes in the three-tone scheme, field grey to older heavy equipment and the last, blue grey in conjunction with white is used in winter camo.
That's pretty nice, you don't have to wonder too much with the paints and what to use it for.

Oh well, usually you know what you're doing, but maybe if you ponder about those things while checking your stored paints and find this set without a clue of what to build next :p

A King Tiger in Karelia '45

Because I didn't come up with anything to fix, I added another "kill ring". Those two previous ones were a bit too far away from each other so it looks a bit more normal now. For a couple of days I let the tank just sit there, on the edge of my desk, just in case something popped in my mind.

Nothing came up.

A state of readiness

I declare that this model is now ready. What-iffing is always fun but the next couple of tanks will keep their feet on the ground. More realistic but still done however I please, because having one's knickers in a knot doesn't feel too nice :P

A change of scenery is always refreshing so I decided to post a slightly different kind of an image to celebrate the addition of the "completed" tag. I hunted for a Karelia themed picture (no clue of how that place looks like, so a photo of a generic field is plausible to me) and gimped the model into it. You with real image editing skills are allowed to point fingers and laugh harshly, if you want to, I didn't even think of going for something photorealistic ;)

Apparently several tactically unsound choices were made

Continuing the war

Unless I change my mind, the next project is traditionally a German one, as it should be. With this Porsche-turreted King Tiger I have finally finished one of each main type of the Tigers, so I'll change the kitty type.
Naturally my successor cat is a Panther and this time it happens to be a Jagdpanther. I've decided the paintjob ages ago so I'll spoil it to you if I haven't done that already: a normal three-tone camo with a hastily applied whitewash winter camo applied on top of it.


Any bets on how long it takes and what goes wrong? 8)

Bring in the tactical stuff!

To celebrate another Monday I was feeling efficient. Maybe that was to compensate a mentally very tiresome workday. Or maybe we should drop that "maybe" to make my statement a bit more accurate.

I was pondering to myself that "hey, this thing isn't missing much anymore, especially as I got the national insignia done!" Of course some tactical markings were needed, in this case that translates to the unit number. At this point in my imaginary timeline (1945+) the Finnish Army would've applied the German-style unit numbers in the armored units. The first number told which company the tank belonged to, the second one told the platoon's order number and the third one, obviously, told the vehicle's number in the platoon.
(Funnily enough, this numbering system is just about what I made up myself for my BT units!)

Some vain decorations

No matter what, I dug up the number from my magical hat: first company, second platoon and the second tank. Perhaps I painted the numbers with a big-ish font, but at least one can see them. While I was at it I decided to add a couple of kill rings to the base of the KwK's barrel. Again following the German logic, the bigger ("full") ring marks ten kills and the narrower marks one kill. I could maybe fit another thin line between them, but I'm not sure if I want to ruin the whole thing at this point anymore.

To make a bit more of a mess I applied some Vallejo's Carbon Black pigment to the ends of the exhaust pipes and the KwK's muzzle brake. Because that went so nicely I got excited and applied some Tamiya's Mud pigment all around the tank. My goal was to get some muddy marks into places where the tracks would've thrown it and where mud would've been brought on the deck by the crew. War machines aren't clean when they're being used. They're shitty and muddy, just like their users :P

Some fourth iteration photos

The left side, ver. 4

The Painbringer, ver. 4

Attacking, ver. 4

Posing, ver 4

And the better side, ver 4

The roof needs to be seen, too!

Technical bitching

Looks like blogger fucks up some of the photos right now, so I got them elsewhere. It's just very bothersome to notice later that a bunch of pics that looked fine in the composing phase have disappeared mysteriously.
Damnit >:|

Swearing fixing complaining

Yeah. I f*cked those von Rosen crosses (swastikas) up pretty nicely the last time. Frustrated, I refused to touch the whole item for a few days. But finally I fixed them and now the highlights go reasonably. I also got a couple of wonky lines fixed a bit so they look better in general.
Limited skills, there we saw them in action. Again.

Maybe I get to sit down for a while one of these days and I get the unit number(s) painted on the turret. There could be something else missing, but I just can't think of it at this time.

Fooling around

We've already established the fact that I'm not an artist - or a skilled person. Despite that and these always a bit funny looking national insignia I keep trying. Here's a taste of what's coming:

This is the best-looking side

How can it be so damn difficult?

For some reason painting geometrical shapes with a consistent quality is apparently very difficult to me, freehanding or not. Despite my initial "this'll work nicely!"-feeling the swastikas ended up fat here, skinny there and otherwise odd somewhere else. I can't understand it anymore.

At least it's in the register

The kidneys are replaced with a swastika

Detailing pt. MCXI

I painted five of those damn things around the hull. One in the lower front of the hull, one in the left rear hull, one on each rear side of the turret plus the last one on topof the front of the turret. While I was at it I made up an imaginary Ps-register number (Ps. 280-5) to the left front, I may have to fix that text a bit later, though. As a supremely creative character I painted a name for the tank in the front of the turret, "Marja". At least that one I didn't fuck up, yay! :p

We're just missing a forest background

Next iterations

I'm still missing the tactical markings (!?) from the left side of the turret, meaning which company/platoon/whatever that beast belongs to. I was going to take the approach that my earlier Flames of War link referred to, that's just a number (1-5) inside a square/circle/triangle. I'm really not going to try to paint anything more difficult than that anymore!

Oh and those engine's intake vent covers I was happy about a couple of posts ago? That double sided tape looked foul and way too visible between the frame and the mesh. So I had to drop them away, which is a shame. But I wasn't going to purposefully ruin my tank, no sir.

Stacking more pieces

The latest advances of this slow-paced project have been smallish. I attached the skirt pieces (I still haven't figured out / found a better name for them, I could call them mudflaps for all everyone cares) as well as the Combat Engineering Equipment Boxes. After the glue had set I applied some Tamiya's Mud stick on the tracks and wherever I felt like.

Bllllooooooood

Now that there were few missing pieces I decided to attack the machine guns. To make them look better with little effort I decided to carve the business ends open. I mean, solid sticks look somewhat stupid.

Because my finger drill's <1mm bits were a bit big for these pieces, I went for my nicely sharp x-acto knife. The plastic piece depicting the coaxial MG in one hand, sharp knife in the other. After a bit of rolling the knife I had a nice-looking machine gun in my fingers. In order not to lose it I glued it in its place immediately.

The commander's machine gun was the next and last piece to be opened. Business as usual, like with the previous piece. At the last moment my hand slipped a bit and I found the tip of the knife in my thumb. Ouch.

Later I painted both of them without any silly accidents. I didn't get to attach the turret-mg before I took the photos so that's why it's missing in these two pics.

Damages

Yesterday evening I noticed that the driver's hatch was missing its handle. I had no clue of when and why it was gone. Despite some frantic searching I didn't find it anywhere. *sigh*. There ought to be a spare piece or two somewhere, I think. Other than that the model seems to be intact and I really can't fathom what have I done, when and how.

Unless anything else comes up, I'll go for the national insignia, the PS-register number, the name of the tank and other details next. I can't even remember when I last used transfers, because they're always a hassle and if you want to lose the shinyness, you have to use this and that. Nah, that's not for me. I'll rather try to do all that myself, at least it'll look a bit more personal that way.
Even if I say so myself, I think I'm improving with those things too, although slooooowly.

Advancements!

The main point of this post is "repainting". The whole camo pattern has received a second coating, part of the previous spitting has been covered and some new has occurred. Of course. If I say something to defend myself, this looks better than what I did on my first airbrushed model, the Sturmpanzer IV. I think I've learned something, even if this is my second ever freehanded camo scheme.

The signs of personal development

I'll drop in a couple of pics from the main directions, so you may see the difference to the previous round. The most notable improvement is the rear of the tank that finally has all of the three colours of the scheme on it. Cough.

Tracks are installed and the big kitty's on the move

Yeah, I forgot to mention that I also installed the tracks after the second round of painting. I've finally learned how these floppy tracks are installed without a hitch. You glue all wheels except the drive sprocket (and maybe the first road wheel, if needed) on their places. When the set of wheels has been cured, put the drive sprocket to one end of the looped track and pass the other end of the loop around the already attached idler wheel and road wheels. If the first road wheel was unglued, it's attached now. Finally a bit of glue is applied to the connector of the drive sprocket and stretching the track a bit by pulling the sprocket to the fron, locked to its rightful place.
Ta-da.
Rinse and repeat on the other side whenever you dare.

And now what?

Just for the fun of it, I took a couple of pics with the remaining main pieces just hanging on their final-ish places. It's to show how it might look and if it's a good idea to begin with.

This potentially confusing final pic the point is those filter frames of the engine's air intake vents. I didn't get to cut the adhesive strips to attach the filter mesh, that's why the frames are alone. Originally my idea was to keep them plain green ut they ended up sticking out a bit so I added a couple of grey stipes on them. The result looks a lot better.

Final words

I don't know if there's anything mentionable to paint anymore. Of course the insignia and unit markings are to be painted, but that's small beans. Mess-making - also known as weathering is also to be done, but that's the final step :)

Somehow I don't doubt that these words will come to bite me in the ass - yet again...