Winter Warriors II - The Wintering!

Here is the Marder III in its final home.

dupes

Boyd - you really ARE building that Marder!

What, did you doubt me??!!  Oh ye of little faith, my friend...

You get a Rim Shot for that one !!!!!

Brutus – fresh snow? I have 16 inches outside at the moment, come and help shovel! LOL  (I think dupes has more than all of us!). Can’t help you at the moment, but I bought a product called “Snow-tex” from DecoArt… will attempt to use it in my build, still couple weeks from that step.

P38 – I was just curious : ) I *do* wish I had a tank at the moment so I could leave the driveway…

Panzerguy – That is a great mini-tutorial on making russian fuel tanks. Will have to give it a try.

Wirraway – hey, you have me beat on the figure/dio builds by three   I think you did a nice job. The only feedback I can find to give you is on the muffler; maybe give it some weathering/wash so it is not one color? Just a suggestion

Bbrownii – nice start; look forward to your build, this armor newbie (me!) thought “Marders” ended after WWII lol.  Always nice to learn about new things/vehicles/techniques, one of the main reasons I join GBs : )

Cheers all

Gaaah, I only have a couple of minutes.

Wirraway - NIIIICE! I'm really digging your whole dio. Will leave more comments later!

Boyd - you really ARE building that Marder!

Steve - scratchbuilding barrels, eh? You trying to make the rest of us look bad?

Wirraway

Nice job on your third armor build!  I like it.  Very cold feeling. 

Steve - you are a scratchbuilding madman!!!

Great work everyone. 

Here is an update of my progress on the Marder:

This is one of Tamiya's kits with the battery mounts on the inside of the lower hull to motorize the kit.  As such, there is very little actual interior detail, with the exception of the engine which is actually quite well done:

I want to leave a few hatches open, so I have to add some texture (not DETAIL, mind you, just texture) to the interior, so I am doing some scratchbuilding of my own (my first real venture into such siginificant scratchbuilding):

I can't actually find a pic of this vehicle in a winter scheme, however I did find one of a Leopard II.  I made the logical leap that, since both of these are German armored vehicles, it is reasonable to suspect that a Marder would get a similar scheme as the Leopard, so that is what I am going for.

Heres my Academy Stug IV.  Only my third Armour build, third diorama, and third attempt at figures !  First time I've used an AB or pastels too.  Had fun with this one, still working on my skills.  Some high standards on this GB to try and emulate, but I'll keep trying.  I picked up a couple of these Academy kits for $20, and want to work on my skills before I move on to Tamiya and Dragon.  The infantry are from The Academy Battle of the Bulge set, and the Tankers and stove I got on E-bay.  Sorry about the photos, photography not one of my strong points.  BTW, This is a great GB !

Bad news, parts went missing on my 38, and when i contacted Dragon they told me it would cost me 22$ to replace. This seems a little step for one  part, so gonna drop the kit and change my entry to AFV clubs, T-34/76 see through kit

Just checked out the front page and those are some great looking builds guys! Even those wingy things.

  Well my plan on getting some paint on over the weekend didn't quite happen. When it came time to assemble the fuel drums I got one together and I just wasn't happy with the way it looked. Which meant scratch building time.

  Using some aluminum sheet that I picked up at AC Moore I made some new ones. That pencil is an over sized #2 that was the perfect size but a 3/8in dowel will also work.

  I've been able to get a lot done today since I had the day off and no distractions, something thats been pretty rare lately, so this weekend hopefully I'll be able to get some paint down.

     Steve

You guys' work blows me away! I'd love to sit and watch you guys at work, to pick up exactly how you pull it off so convincingly. Seeing this stuff is definitely gearing me up to return to 1/35 scale.

no worries Dupes, update on the Aufklarungpanzer; I finally got out to the garage and set up the airbrush for the base coat of Dunkelgelb (several feet of snow here in VA tends to slow progress in an unheated garage)  ready to install the sprockets, roadwheels and tracks.

SMJmodeler

Steve - you must have posted this as I was typing my last comment - wish I hadn't missed it! Man, you kill me with your weathering.

jmart: thanks for the compliments... as for the track pads, it may be a posed pic, or one of those wierd snow conditions where it didn't stick,, or ( physics lesson) lol.. if the tank had been running along for a bit,, friction of the rubber on the snow might have heated them just enough so the snow didn't stick ??..  My tank has the metal tracks, so I am planning on adding some snow to them..

Brutus: this will be my first "snow" job in since never.. I am planning on using Woodland Scenics snow,,, we'll see how it goes..

To Jmart, P38, Dupes, Vance and SMJ, thanks for the kind words, it was alot of fun. What do you guys use for "fresh" snow ?? I think a little on the base and tracks might be a good thing.

Brutus – The Marder REALLY looks the part. Really nice job, cheers.

P38jl – love the winter coat! Nice job on the grills, big difference!  Really like the original picture, interesting how the track pads are completely devoid of snow. But maybe because it is a “posed” picture? Interesting nevertheless : )

Vance – storch coming along nicely.. Hide details? No no no! Lol  I am old school (well, just old!) and remember all of the “transparent/invisible/see-thru” kits of yonder.

Steve – really nice job as usual… looking forward to the final product with base!

I hope to get some more work done on mine this week, but will do the bulk of the work after March 1 (deadline for financial aid applications; when did these forms turned into torture?  And its for my daughter not for me lol).

Marc: thanks! I was beginning to wonder where you were..lol..

SMJ: hey.. thats looking nice n dirty.. well used..

Vance: the Storch is coming along great, can't wait to see some feathers !

also, SMJ, I'm not sure how much more weathering I'm going to do, I do want to add some snow to the running gear and on top and such., and the tarps.. maybe some more oil drips on the whitewash, but from the photo, she looks fairly clean ,,,So it may just be a light weathering... Thanks for the compliments !

Brutus, Chris, Vance - nice stuff! Very nice!

Between a busy week+ at work, the winter olympics, and being fortunate enough to get outside (!) on my bike several times in the last few days I haven't been able to get online very often...or at all. Not much time left in the GB - 5+weeks - hope we can get a bunch more builds finished.

Talk soon!

VanceCrozier: I love seing that "flimsy" Storch in amongst all this armor!.  She's looking great!

JMart: That T34/76 is an olied but goodie, great tos ee ya' making some progress!

brutus1175:  That Marder is nice and dirty, njust the way I like!

dupes: Yes that base is XF-22.  A strange choice but it worked.

oddmanrush: Sweet lookin' little Jag'd!

p38jl: You got your hands full ith all the builds you got going.  That winter finish looks just right.  I like how the under colors show thri=ough just a bit.  She'll be extra nice after the weathering!

Guys: Here's an update on my work.  She's nearing 90% + complete...in fact I've started the base already and the fig's I plan to use are en route from China (from Luckymodel):

I'm loving all that armour guys, can't wait to see that Marder "in it's natural environment" Brutus! It makes the airplane guy happy knowing that I can look at all these without having to do it myself. Although, I do have an armor kit at the back of the pile that Dupes wants me to attempt!

I remembered once I sat down on Sat that I used trusty ol' Humbrol for the interior rather than the quick-dry acrylics. Slowed things down a little waiting for the stuff to properly dry (but I love it for hand-brushing), but I'll show a couple more pics.

upper cowling now in place (sniff sniff, kills me to cover up the details!), but I think I may be displaying with the entire lower cowling detached. Tail feathers in place, rudder offset a little bit. Even with all kinds of dry-fitting, there seems to be a natural gap between the elevators and fuselage. I'll do some research before the paint hits it, just in case. Elevators... I was going to drop them, then realized that I'd have to do a bit of a zig-zag cut with the exacto blade (no razor saw, I'll have to invest soon) and got a case of "I don't wanna hack it up-itis".

Note to self - hit that prop with a shot of dullcoat. Skis are just dry-fitted, I'd rather paint them seperately. Lots of detail on the engine still visible if I go this route.

Pilot's seat in place... I chickened out on the harnesses, the rear one would be completely covered by the folded-down gunners perch anyway... but I could still add to the pilot's seat. Thinking about it today - thoughts!?

And one of the cats, looking thoroughly unimpressed by the whole thing. The good news is that she looks but never touches!

Hello People!  ok,, the M-10 has its winter coat on..,,It 's not completely down yet, I need to add some snow in the running gear and the tarps... and some final weathering...

But here it is so far... The first few pics are of the engine grate cover, I spent so much time on the engine bay, I thought I'd open up the grates so some of it could be seen. I first, sanded down the back of the part with sand paper on the flat surface to thin the engine grate cover. Then using the back of the #11 blade, I scratched the grooves in the grate untill the blade poked thru., I did this for all the grate holes the did the same on the back of the part to open the slots more.. then I filed the slots with a needle file from a Cutting Torch cleaning tool .

Opinions welcome.

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

side by side with a another kit part, not modified..

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0][View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

and the original I'm working from....

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

Brutus,,,  Looking sweet!! nice job!

Msrder III Complete !!!

I'll be building a base this week to display it on, but for now, it's complete.

JMart

 

 

The TOP one took me close to 2-3 hours and it was hacked in a couple places (ahem, battle damage?). The bottom one took me 30 min and was easily cleaned up with a sharp new blade. The difference? How much I “Dremelled” under the plastic:

 

 

The first time, I hacked away at the plastic FROM ABOVE, after thinning the plastic underneath with the Dremel/sander. However, I did not think enough. The next one, I really sanded from below until I saw the grill themselves show thru the plastic. That made a huge difference in time and final appearance. I included all this just in case it helps someone down the road…

LOL >>  Modelling Murphy’s law   #47 – Spend hours attempting something, “discover” a new/better way of performing technique, post in GBs in the hope of saving OTHER people time/effort, just to finally flip through last month’s FSM and see exact same technique marvelously illustrated (page 35, panel 18) LOL

dupes

Hahahhahaaaa....I'll get on it right now, Arki!

Josh, it's coming along and lookin good so far. There has been a lot of good progress and finished work since I posted last....sorry, I have a hard time keeping up sometimes!

Dupes, here is a cleaner picture of the Jagdpanther that you requested for the front page. Hope it suits you, I don't really have a good set up.

Thanks, and I hope to see some more finished products soon.

Green! (P.S. I HATE some aspects of airbrushing!!!) I think it looks good though, despite it going to be covered up in a couple days.

Josh

Marc:,, don't forget.. besides Denny's, you got McDonalds..! Pat's Pizza.. Friendly's... for high speed..

I know, right????

Dupes - no coffee shop - no high-speed?! A whole freakin' month!!!

Don't these people realize that you're in the homestretch of a group build? The nerve!