1/35 Tamiya Panzer III

Very nice Chris.  If I can only offer one stylistic point (and it's certainly only my opinion), it's this:

Whenever building miniatures with snaky camo, avoid the "hand of god" spray pattern.  No sane mechanic with a paint gun, hauling a bothersome air hose, would make such a to-do about painting what you've done.  What is easy for you to do with one 8-inch swipe with your finger on the airbrush trigger would require an actual 1:1 size painter an enormous effort.  just remember, soldiers doing toilsome work are lazy.  

Great looking tank. Vary well done sir

Nice work on the III!

T26E4, care to explain what you mean by "hand of god" spray pattern ?  

Nice looking model, Jay--you really should try to switch that track around though, hey why not? It should stretch enough to allow you to flip it. It would really make the model more accurate, but that's your choice. Pry it gently of the idler wheel first, and slip it back on from the sprocket, back.

Nice model for your first 1/35!

Nice and clean build. I like it, and agree with JayF. Bob

For the record, I'm not the OP (and even though I would have like to build this beautiful Panzer III, it's not mine)

I was just asking T26E4 what he meant by the "hand of god" camo.  

Hi JayF: glad to reply.  I mentioned to Chris here and in an offline chat about my thoughts regarding long, snaky camo lines and how likely they would actually be on an AFV.

Think about it this way: If the sergeant gave you the assignment to crank up the air compressor and paint camo onto the tank, how likely would you exert effort to make a 20' long contiguous (and uniformly wide) line over multiple surfaces and panels on the tank?

If you've ever had military service or had to work near large vehicles (construction, farming), then you know they're not the most easy things to climb over or around.  Imagine hauling an air hose with you.

That's why I said to Chris that it's easy for us to take a long continuous swipe with our finger on the airbrush trigger.  It would be an entirely different matter for a 1/35 sized figure to apply paint in that pattern.  

How I envision a soldier applying camo?  Dude stands in one spot, sprays around him, maybe a 5' x 7' sized swath of the vehicle's vertical surface.  Then he moves over to the right/left and does it all over again -- until he's finished. 

Hope it makes sense

Having had the "honor' of painting my battery's vehicles in Germany. I have to disagree Roy. Six M109's and six M548's was a big pain but we did it in the NATO tri-color. That was the 1980's for you. :) Bob

Thanks all for the comments!

I appreciate all the feedback too.

Karl, I ended up being able to pull the offending track off and correct it.  I had used staples to hold them together, so managed to unpick them and then re-staple.

Hi Bob: I'm sure the SGTs had you doing it by the book, following the prescribed NATO tri color -- or else you (and they) had heck to pay, right?  What if instead, the SGTs said to you and your mates: "OK, today you paint camo on the 109s and 548s.  You choose how and where and what pattern.  When you're done with this job, you're through for the day"

How uniform do you think they would have been?  

Caveat: I've never had the "honor" of having a SGT holler at me.  Thanks for your service -- and I can't prove a negative.  But hearing WW2 era tankers' stories of how much precision/effort they put into painting camo, I still think as modelers, we are TOO artistic vs. the realities of the field exigencies.

Admittedly, I'm unduly influenced by this interaction I had with a German tanker (and his comments about paint and camo)  http://www.amps-armor.org/ampssite/BBS/bbsDetail.aspx?forum=5&ID=9882&page=0

Hey, no argument here. We all had differing experiences, especially those who actually had to fight. That's the main difference from those of us in the silly "cold" war. I just hope we haven't "stolen" this thread, or distracted from a nice model. :) Bob

cml

Karl, I ended up being able to pull the offending track off and correct it.  I had used staples to hold them together, so managed to unpick them and then re-staple.