Battle For Germany 45 GB Starts Now - 08 May 06

Looking good Jay.  Should be a nice brace of Dora's.

Regards,  Rick

Jay - looking good!  can't wait for finished shots!!

As far as pics of my two ongoing builds, they will have to wait till tomorrow... why is that Rick asks?   Well... the battery is dead on my Sony, the other battery I learned tonight is somewhere in all the stuff we took for the hurricane.. My wifes Kodak has had a seizure and I am not sure why.... (took some really grainy pics of the two models so I canned the idea till tomorrow.

Also I have only put one coat of the Vallejo Panzer Green down and some of the MM is still showing through.. it was shocking to see the difference between the two.  The MM almost had a 'mint' shade to it in comparison.  The color I am using now LOOKS Olivgrun and is closer to what Karl is painting than Chocolate Mint Ice Cream...  Pics tomorrow for sure.  Then I start the task of putting the indie tracks together..

Darren - I'm doing a 1/72 Fi-156 Storch in Eastern Front camo and markings... the Fw-190 is no longer..    It should be done this weekend...

OK here it is so far still have some minor work touchup decals. havent figured out how to weather it might just leave it clean, and i know its not supposed to be hooked up to the trailers just figured it look better that way to take pictures of it

Smokin, great job on the 88. It looks stunning.

Tom, I know what you mean about the 'panzer green', so many builds I've seen have used the very bright green, which to my eyes looks too bright, more like an advert than camo! I ended up leaving the green on mine as is, as after the brown went on, it all looked OK.

Karl

Smokin the 88 looks superb but please at least give it a wash and really bring out some of those lovely details.

Tom are you talking about MM acryl or enamel that you are talking about there?  I ask because I have the MM enamel panzer colors which I have played around with on a couple of 1/72 kits and I wasn't satisfied with the results at all.  For my eyes the color in Karl’s Panther is spot on.

Progress Update
Hmmmm, I was trying to pre-shade the D9 tonight and the whole thing ended in complete tears.  The weather is very humid here at the moment and I had forgotten that spraying (especially acrylics) is a really bad idea in humid weather.  I ended up with large dark watery smudges in some areas before giving up for the night in disgust.  As you can see in the photo by the time I got to the port wing I was spraying more water than paint.



No biggy though, I finish it off tomorrow and move on to the cam.

Cheers & Happy Australia Day (Jan 26th)

Darren - Since I have never tried pre-shading I am by no means an authority but that does not look any worse than any other pre-shading I have seen except for the port wing.

Karl - Looks good but will look better with teh turret in place

Smokin' - Very very nice job.  I have never done any arty but I may have to do one of those...if nothing else to keep the "flight line" in check

Progress - Murphy's Law is alive and well.  I got impatient waiting for my cuz to help me so I played with a graphics program and got my 6+1 markings perfect.  I flew to the LHS that ghad a big pile of blank decal paper... and they were out.

thanks Marc I'll take that as a compliment (I think).  With pre-shading I never get to fussed as long as the shadows are in approx the right spots.  It'll all be fine once the paint goes over the pre-shade, well that's the plan anyway.

Karl, I dug these up for you in your quest for paint accuracy on the Panther after seeing your post in the armor forum.  Btw I agree totally with the guy that said to cut green with yellow not white.  That's something I've done on my aircraft models for ages and it avoids that chalky look.

Anyway these photos are taken late 40's early 50's at the Aberdeen proving ground and sow a Tiger II in original paint scheme (after a few years).  I hope they help you a bit.

Cheers

darson wrote:

thanks Marc I'll take that as a compliment (I think).  With pre-shading I never get to fussed as long as the shadows are in approx the right spots.  It'll all be fine once the paint goes over the pre-shade, well that's the plan anyway.

Darren, Sorry if that did not come out the right way my friend.  The last 2 sentances of your quote is what I meant.  But having a read of what I said... doesn't really say that

(note to self... sign up for continuing education courses in "Writing techniques to convey thoughts.")

wing_nut wrote:

(note to self... sign up for continuing education courses in "Writing techniques to convey thoughts.")

Marc, absolutely no problems, oh and I almost fell of my chair laughing when I read that comment btw

Cheers

DM

Very nice work Smokiguns, but I wouldn't leave it clean.  At least some minimal weathering would bring it to life.

Regards,  Rick

Thank you all. darson sorry to here about the paint issue but it should turn out fine once you get it done

I picked up some decal paper today and printed my first set of decals ever  YIPPIE

The marking are yellow so they are transparent and the mottling shows through

I can't take all these highs and lows

Ok here she is all done and dirty'd up, all in all this kit went together vary vary nice i cant wait to start my 3 n 1 Tiger I from DML so with out further adue here are the pics of the final product.

P.S. My bathroom make the perfict photo studio

Looks great Smokinguns.  The "Dirty Work" did the trick.  Well done .

Regards,  Rick

Smokin - looks great!!!  I like the job you did on the weathering... I'm going to get my first real treat at down and dirty weathering with the Tiger...  Trying to map it out in my head right now....  I like that dirty sooty look, I might try to incorporate that..

Darren... tough luck on the wing, the other looks fine though!!!  Were you using Vallejo?  I tend to not thin or thin slightly the Model Air when doing small detail work to prevent the spider legging...  After awhile I finally got the right mic for me... (Like one drop distilled water to 10 to 15 drops of paint maybe)  And yeah I was talking about the MM being off in the color.. much too bright!  And it was a bear to spray as well!!! 

Well here are a couple of quick shots of what I have been doing, no time to set up the right lighting or get the white balance just right, just some snapshots to prove I am still building in this GB. 

First we have the Fi-156, I found the kit had a little warpage, but overall it went together well!

haha ok here is the real thing:

It went together ok but I think next time if I build this kit I will scratch the wing braces and possibly landing struts, they look a bit out of scale.  (-=edit2=- yeah I know a piece is missing, I bumped it and it loosened so I just took it off till later)

Next on the the Tiger II with its paint mishap.  This is the Vallejo PAnzer Olivgrun over the MM.  The MM still shows through in places but I might leave it as is as it might give a interesting oxidized effect to the whole thing.  Again I apologize for the photos, I was up late last night charging the battery on my camera and am a little tired today.    I plan on repainting the yellow stripes with a brush since I had some overspray with the repainting of the green.  I want another shot at the circles, by time I finished putting them on I was getting better at it!  (-=edit=- the barrel is just placed on for the pic, that is why the mantlet is at such a wierd angle, I didn't realize it till after I shot the pics)

Hopefully Saturday I can spend some quality time with it as the wife is at a conference all day!

Looking good Tom.  Making some good progress.

Regards,  Rick

Smokin that 88 looks just awesome, congrats on a great build .  I'll update the brag page when I get home from work tonight.

Tom , ok you had me going for a second there with that "a little warpage" shot.

Nice progress work on both the Storch and the King Kitty both are coming along really nicely.

It was Tamiya German grey that I was spraying (I wouldn't waste the Vallejo on a pre-shade ) and It wasn't the paint that was the problem it was the humidity in the air.  The longer the session went on the more water just kept on being sprayed onto the model, the moisture trap just couldn't take the load and you can see the final results.  I'm kinda at a standstill at the moment waiting as all of my in-progress models are at a stage where they need some paint applied and the weather here is just hot and humid.

Cheers

Tom and Smokin, great looking builds! Love the AA gun, very convincing weathering.

 Ok, my Airfix Dora is almost ready to paint.  I'm going to wait until I get the wings on my Hasegawa Dora so I can maximize the painting.  I'm heading out of town for the weekend so there will be no progress.

Started a new position @ work-from IT back to the Material/Production Control group-less time to 'research' the Forum...

Smokingun-great work.  Very nice gun.  Makes me think about adding one to the collection.

Tom-Nice job on the Storch.  Think you might be the leader in the 'Fringe Build' catagory at this point.  The King Kitty is looking good also. 

Darren-tough luck on the pre-shading.  However, knowing the quality of your work, I'm sure you will recover it.

Some progress on the Me-262.  Not all good.  Re-masked with 3M low tac tape-worked much better.  The 'mottle' I attemped to make via holes in Silly Putty didn't please me, so I used Tom's (I think) suggestion of a overspray of the base coat-better, but still not what I'm looking for.  Really think I need (ok-I WANT) to get a double action a/b.  Thinking about using the trick in FSM of using an index card, punching a hole in it and sparying thru it.  Nothing to loose at this point.  Definatly want to do the 262 in the grey scheme one day.

Bob, the basic painting on the 262 looks good, but you're right, the mottle aint great.  BTW, if you are doing Bars' red 13, I did a lot of research on that aircraft when I built it a couple of years ago.  The Tamiya painting guide is in error.  The bird had minimal mottle on the fin & rudder, as you have depicted, but had no mottle on any of the RLM 76 surfaces.  The upper camo on the fuselage extended a little further down the sides than you depict & with a very soft demarcation line.  There was no mottle whatsoever on the fuselage sides.

Regards,  Rick

Just a quick reply here cause my 2 year old spilled coffee over the keyboard and killed it, thank windows for the on screen keyboard even if it does take twice as long to type... 

Smokin, Tom, Karl, Darren and Bob, Your builds are looking fantastic fellas, great work

And as for me well, this 219 is obviously going to take all year so i'm gonna have to make a change...Darren can you please change my build to the 1/48 Tamiya Jagdpanzer 38t Hetzer, i picked it up yesterday and i'm really keen to make a start...

I will still be working on the 219 cause it has to be finished in time for the next QMHE show...

Wingnut you mentioned a method of reverse masking the 219 a while back useing some sort of adhesive material, could you please run that by me again mate

OK HELP NEDED, Im currently working on a Tamiya MKV Spit for the Canadian GB and i've just run out of Tamiya 40mm tape which i use to make the stencils, all 3 of my LHS's are out so if any of you guys have some spare i could really use it.....

Thanks to everyone on your words.. The Storch is going big scale next... I've decided to get the 1/32 offering soon... I really enjoyed building this and it was definitely different.  The little kit had some issues, none of them related to fit and most related to me... One thing I have noticed is my problem with losing parts lately... it really is bothering me.  First the windscreen on the FW-190 (which still has not been found... I need to go ahead and put it in the trash so the next day after it is picked up by the city, I can find it!) then on the Fi-156 I lost the aileron last night, I found it and it is put back on, but still... I think I need to re-evaluate my building process and the room... I had been planning on making revisions in the room so maybe sooner than later.

Hopefully I can correct the problems with the painting on the Tiger II... I don't see a big issue with it but lately I have been wondering if I need to take a week or two break from modeling to get my(modeling) self together...

Yeah Tom im kinda in the same boat, i dont have a permanent work station so my modeling stuff is all over the place which means i lose stuff like the engine cowl for my Wildcat...

BTW i really like the Storch but is there one available in 48