The Ostfront (eastern front) GB 2010/11

Guys,

Time for an update... I just finished the main construction of my ICM Panther.

Must say that it builds up really nice with the exception of some stuff already known on the more well know review sites. The two big hatches are way oversized and need careful trimming and fitting to be useful... Went a bit too far on the rear engine compartiment hatch...:

Front hatch is much the same... Pity the fine rivet detail is mostly lost with the sanding

Also some of the parts are really fragile and need utmost care cutting/ clipping them off of the sprues. I made a nasty boo boo by litterally disintegrating the rails holding the spare tracks. I was forced to glue together the pieces i could find back and regrettably they were too short. So i opted to glue on two instead of three spare track parts...Hoping to get away with saying i depict the tank after some track fixing on the battlefield...

Also i was struck by the way the suspension is assembled. Could have sworn that both sides should point the same way but after some googling found out they really should point forward and backward like this. Funny people those germans....

Anyways.... Getting ready for some spraying.... more to follow soon

Richard

Great build deaf, really glad you managed to find the right paint scheme for this. The firs one was nice, and you did it well, but this is much better.

I have had my camera 2 years and still can't figure the damn thing out.

Andy,

Congratulations and a big hats off to finishing your model. It came out breathtaking man! A real prize winner like somebody pointed out over at the armor corner! I am so over the top with being allowed to host the GB seeing work like this pumped out. Again my congratulations! I will mark it as finished on the front page

Ernest,

Love what i am seeing sofar!. The BT series of tanks always appealed to me as does all russian armor. Like what you are doing with the PE and styrene too!

Richard

Guys- I think I finally got it figured out using my new camera.  Well, not exactly new...a year old but there's way too many buttons on it! LOL

I changed the color option from 'Off' to  'Neutral' and it helped... let me know if you noticed or not.   The blue background has turned into grey but the panzer is exactly what I am seeing with my eyes. 

Closer shots of the skirts... didn't your mom tell you not ever to look up the skirt when you were little?

Inside the skirts...

I sure had too much fun building this old kit except for the tracks.  I find hard to believe I was only five years old when this kit first came out.  Thank you so much all of comments and feedback you have shared during my build. 

Richard, thank you for taking the lead because this GB has been great!

Ernest- I have to agree with you that camo looks better in blue even tho black looks so sexy.  I was struggling to make my camera work with the blue poster.  But I think I finally got it figured out setting the color to neutral.  I hope it helps... thanks for your help!

Looking forward to your another great WIP on that little Russkie beast. 

Trey-  Thank you for making me feel better... you got me to buy two wingy kits and now I got you tempted to buy a tread kit!

Guys- I took final pictures using blue poster this morning.  I will post them when I have the chance at my office.   Who doesn't check FSM from work?!?!

OK, here's a few WIP pics of the BT-5 for you:

The kit...

Lower hull mostly done

I decided to use some Show Modelling PE that I had for this kit which has a nice screen for the louvers, but with the screen in place there's just a big hole underneath so I decided to cover up with some louvers made from styrene sheet.  The engine intakes were also just big holes so I scratchbuilt some screens with styrene strip and generic mesh PE.  I replaced the lame grab handle from the kit with some bent brass wire.  Also I cut off the molded on spring tensioners from the upper plate, drilled out holes and mounted some tensioners made from brass screws and tube on the lower hull (see photo #4) 

Even with the louvers in place you can still slightly see into the bare cavity so I decided to add some exhaust pipes leading to the rear plate where the muffler is mounted...just so that it doesn't look completely empty.  Here you can see the spring tensioners, 3 per side.  The ones at the rear rise up much higher. 

The replacement PE louver screen.  The other parts are the plates that cover the engine intakes.

The turret is complete.  RB Models (I think) aluminum gun barrel,  Lion Marc brass MG barrel and a few details from scratch.

And all the parts dryfitted together

As I mentioned earlier, this kit is a bit of a dog.  The detail is clunky, fit of parts is pretty bad and the tracks supposedly suck so I bought this set of AM tracks early on.  Can't remember where I got them though.....

MasterClub workable BT-5 tracks.....those pins look teeny tiny!  YIKES!  I'll let you know how they work out.

All Right Andy!!  Can't wait to see the pics of the completed Pz IV!  Personally I like the dramatic look of the black background, but the color seems to be slighlty affected.  The color of the camo looks more accurate with the blue background.  (I wonder if that's why so many FSM backgrounds are blue?!)

Andy the blue seems better to me. Congrats on a build well done Sir! This really just comes alive with the depth of detail, really making me want to try a tread job myself!

Richard-  Now I am itching to build a Panther.  Its one of my favorite tanks... great process on your Panther.

Ernest, Bish, Randy- Thanks you for the nice words!  Glad you liked the chipped Zimm... it was fun!

Trey- Nucking futs! LOL That was a good one... I swear I cussed plenty when I worked on the tracks. 

Guys- Good news, I am calling my panzer done!  Before I can post more pictures, can you please let me know which picture you like better?  Black or blue background? 

Richard - the Panther looks good!  Gotta luv them roadwheels!  Ya know, they have a steel wheeled version.....dont' have to worry about painting rubber!   BTW, I missed your earlier post of the completed He 111....it came out beautiful!  I love the winter paint job you did; great great job!

Andy - your Pz. IV is looking very nice!  Great looking tracks despite the problems you had!  I love the chipped  zim and the camo!

TREY - Wow, that Hs 123 came out wonderful!  Awesome work!  I really like the color scheme of that little biplane!

So it looks like I need to start catching up!  Doesn't the GB end in Oct?

I have been working on my builds, mostly on the Italeri BT-5.  What a dog of a kit though .  Turns out its a reboxed old Zvezda kit and it definitely shows its age.  Eric commented how quick I threw together the F22 76.2 gun....that's the difference between a modern well engineered and molded kit with great detail and an older kit that is lacking all of these!  I think after this kit (as well as the equally deficient RPM T-26T) I'm going to focus on building kits with modern tooling.  "OOB FOR ME!" ....that's my new mantra!

I'll try to get some pics up tonight!

Deaf, like this alot. As mentioned the tracks look greta. I also like the look you have got with the chipped Zimm. All round a great build

Richard, MMMMM Panther.

Deafpanzer I am not an armor guy but me thinks those tracks look fantastic and seem to me worth the work and troubles.

Kermit

No work to report on the Yak other than a bit of engine detail and fixing some warped wings, Seems 104 degrees in the mancave was a bit too much for them. Got to work on it some this evening anyways.

Andy looking great,tracks would drive me nucking futs!

Richard nice to see it taking shape,that is a lot of road wheels think I'll stick to my wingy things lol

Andy,

I SO love that model!! And if mine even turns out half that good ill be over the top with it...seriously.

Been sort of working casually on the panther through the week as energy levels allowed me after a busy week but i can tell the hull is now joined together along with the suspension....

Lower hull is now sort of complete and moving on to the upper hull bits.... Sofar i am nothing but pleased with the kit....bit of flash to clean as well as mold seams but nothing dramatic....

And another thing i notice.......Boy do these germans love their roadwheels...

Gluing along untill the next WIP

Richard

Another thing I learned is to build in thinned layers slowly, rather then a homerun ball. Sometimes the layers don't seem like they did all that much, until you come back later an examine it again. I overdid the burnt sienna on my Jagdtiger. Probably should've gone with one less layer. On my Pz IV, I probably should've added another. My guess is I didn't thin it as much on my Jagdtiger.

Yes, it's a learning process. 

Guys- Another update... the tracks are finally on.  For the first time I told myself I should have gone for Fruils tracks instead of ModelKasten for this old Tamiya kit.  The tracks broke apart few times that I had to glue them back together. 

I had to add one more link making it to total of 103 links which is way too many...

I also applied heavily thinned oil paint Raw Umber on the details... I will take more pictures when it is completely dry.

Thanks for looking again!

Eric & Trey- No worries!  I am still learning here... it is only my sixth build since my return to modeling. LOL  It was my first time using MIG Brown Wash and I agree the brown wash may have been too much.  Will add more thinner next time.  I have applied more MIG thinner to lighten the wash up a bit as soon as I saw how dark the turret was in the picture. 

I have been applying heavily thinned W&N oil paint Raw Umber to the details for last two hours.  I will post updated pictures later tonight. 

Man, I love modeling!  Hell yeah I am a geek too...

Andy that is lookiing tight! I'm no armor expert but what Tigerman says makes sense,I use pin washes on the smaller detail areas of aircraft to great effect without overwelming the overall color. Keep up the great work!

Andy, one thing I've learned is that really dark washes can wipe out the original color. I belatedly learned to greatly lighten my basecoats to compensate for that. I really like what you have now and would only use a real dark pinwash for the wheels and other cracks and crannies. But hey, I suck at weathering, so please don't take what I say seriously.

Guys- Update on my Pz IV... returned home a day early from camping.  I was surprised I still had the energy to model for several hours last night and all morning. 

I used MIG Brown Wash customized for German dunky color... I haven't used it for more than two years as it was sitting on my shelves.  You can see the turret has been washed while hull was not washed.  Then I used MIG thinner to remove the excessive wash using large round paintbrush.

Shot of the interior skirts...

Closer shot... streaks I wanted.  I figured they were very dusty so when it rains it would make those streaks.  It reminds me to bring my car into car wash every time...

Shot of the exterior skirts...

MIG Brown Wash was applied using large flat paintbrush and allowed it dry for 15-30 minutes.  Then I used MIG Thinner to remove some using two different brushes... flat and round.  Continue until it is dry enough to make streaks. 

Hope I didn't go overboard this time... what do you think?  Next step would be using darker wash (heavily thinned raw umber)...

Richard- Another German armor?!?!?!  This is awesome!  Looking forward to this...

Vetteman & Richard-  It was my first time using Archer dry transfers and it was alot easier than I expected.  Yes, just rubbing real good using sharpened pencil or some sharp objects.  I prefer pencil because it helps me know if I have missed spots or not.  Then I used a tool similar to spoon to rub the whole thing again.

Instructions came with the transfers were very helpful.  I used the dry method...  http://www.archertransfers.com/PAGE_DryLarge.html 

The only hardest part is holding the transfer in same place.  I used Tamiya tapes to hold at both ends if possible but sometimes it wasn't strong enough.  And I didn't do good job putting three numbers in right order on other side.  I should have marked a line using pencil before I applied the transfers.  Lesson learned... I am still learning here but heck I would use those dry transfers any time!

Hope this helps...

Richard, I've never seen one of those built up. Should be fun.

Thanks Richard, that sounds good to me.

Andy thanks sorry to be such a bad influence ,looking forward to seeing you do some wingy things all the same. I took care of the glossy tires ,do'nt know how I missed that but thanks .Have fun camping and stay hydrated ;)

Richard thank You Sir! And thanks for taking the time to host such a great G/B looking forward to Ostfront II!

Vetteman thanks glad you like the shading ,it was a new technique and was'nt sure myself how it would turn out.

I've got a Hs 129 in the stash think I'll bust that out for part 2 when it starts

I'm definitely down for Ostfront II!

Not sure what I'll build yet. Got several options...but I've learned my lesson about overbooking!

I'll build something though. For sure!

Bish

Will do. Do you have a start date in mind for the next one.

Bish, the term for this gb will end october 1st so i would say start off term 2 on october 2nd? Like the first page says i will allow people who have started builds for term 1 to complete them for Ostfront I.

In your case you havent started your model so it would be more convenient to write them up for Ostfront II

Richard

Will do. Do you have a start date in mind for the next one.

Sure thing Bish! But you will probably have to remind me to put it on the list as i can sometimes have trouble remembering stuff for five minutes...let alone a full month Must be the paint fumes catching up on me.

Richard

Tray man that shading really really came out, looks like a real ragwing !!! A top notch build and I think worth all the troubles. I totally enjoined watching this one come together.

Deafpanzer I am liking the looks of those dry transfers and have the same question Richard had, how are they applied ? Looking forward to seeing this one finished too.

Kermit Cant wait to see your newest tank come together man as I have come to love the ICM kits. Its just too bad they went out of business. I have seen only their Russian kits, then got hold of one of their P-51D kits and a figure set. They are both top notch IMHO. The P-51 kit has loads of detail that even Tamiya doesn't incorporate in their fine offerings. I think they didn't become very popular because they have a different way of going together than what most builders are used to.

Richard did I read correctly ??? There is gonna be a round 2 ?? If so count me in man !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guys got the fuse all closed up yesterday and everything came out straight, got lucky I guess. Anyway I have decided to display this Yak with the cowl open or closed, the fit is right on the money so to speak. With that decision made I have started detailing the engine as it was rather basic. Got my little lathe out and made the magnetos, what appears to be a coolant pump, and what seems to be an overflow tank, with associated lines and wires.  Should have pictures to share tomorrow, takes time to get all 12 plug wires on it ya know.

I have the ICM beobacthspanther. Not built it yet, but read basically the same thing as you.

As for my 251, can yu take it off this one and just add it to round to. I need to use the time inbetween my B-17 and the 251 to catch up on a few other bits. This way i can't start it on day one.