BIG CATS GROUP BUILD 2008

Bufflehead -- what a superb piece of work! The pics are larger than 1:35 on my screen and I'd be delighted if I could get a 35 to look as good! I think I have this one in my stash, I'm tempted to give 1:72 a serious go!

My Academy Tiger I (Early) in markings from Bison (35023) for the LAH at Kursk is finished. I've been working through the day, keeping an eye on the US time, and with a couple of hours to go I'm prepared to call it done. The only detail absent is the spare track links, and they'll be on when I post the gallery images, probably tomorrow night. I could add a little more dust to the treads, maybe, but I'm at the stage where I could keep fiddling forever. The fit of the Feifel hoses was poor, I'll probably trim them in future. I added the metal ends to the cleaning rods and a little dust over the brilliancy of the white decals. The gun muzzle is treated with black pirgment, then most of it removed and augmented with some graphite, as photographs don't tend to show major carbon buildup, assuming normal maintenance. The bow MG is XF-1 overbrushed with graphite.

Here she is, ready to rumble off the workbench and into the display case in the next 24 hours or so:

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Comments and critiquesfrom die experten are welcome, as always!

This has been a most enjoyable GB, and I look forward to many more in future!

Clear to grab my badge?

Cheers,

Mike/TB379

Jmart- The kit turned out well, some of the "deformities" actually make it more interesting to look at.

Bufflehead- Great job and congrats on banging it out on a short time scale.  I have really got to get one of those.

Thuderbolt- I love that Tiger, the camo is superb and the weathering is perfectly tying it together.

Great job one and all, it's been a fantastic GB!!!

And Happy New Year, let's hope this is better (and more productive GB-wise) than the last!

Panzer88 and Glandring --

Thanks for the compliments, guys! I was worried about the camo (there are at least five layers of paint, possibly more), but it seems to be a success after all. It's been a most enjoyable build. Today I painted and mounted the spare tracks, added a bit more dust, painted a teensy bit of bare plastic at the base of the radio antenna, and she's 100% done. This evening I set up my proper photographic stage and took 46 frames against both blue and white backgrounds, as usual, and I'd be uploading them right now except my computer is going like a tired snail. I'll get the gallery shots up tomorrow.

Cheers,

Mike/TB379

Sorry, a little late with pics of my Tiger! But I just loved the way it came out! Yes, it ain't perfect and some parts may be somwhat historically questionable but it looks good to me! Also, today I just went on a binge to Model Empire which is actually quite a distance from my house. But it was worth it!!!!!! Can you say 1/35th Tamiya Panther for $18.39? Yeah, it says 1968 on the bottom but it's fine by me! All I plan on adding is a PE engine screen set. Does anyone know where I can get that from? It's the Sd.kfz.171 Ausf.A. Enjoy my Tiger Kitten!

(Note, Thanks guys with the help on the exhausts!)

Thanks all and questions/comments are much appreciated! (Can I claim my badge now?... )

(Also note the times on the pics! I was going down to the wire!)

Hi BF -- Is that a 1:48, or smaller? It's amazing how the wash (?) has drawn all the camo shades tonally close, so from a distance she's almost 'non-specular,' it fools the eye the way camo is meant to! Excellent work!

Okay, guys, here she is, gallery photos processed and scaled: Academy #1386 Tiger I (Early), without interior, Bison 35023 decals for the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandart Adolph Hitler at the Kursk Salient, summer 1943. She's OOB, and features such as the selection of how and where the spare track links are stowed is derived from Bison's research.

Enjoy!

Mike

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WOW 2 very nice Tigers you both did great work on them!

Thanks Thunderbolt! Not to mention Stickman! That made my day! The scale is 1/72nd and it's a Dragon Armor Pro kit. When I bought the colors (Polly Scale) the contrast looked like it would be a little stark. I mixed in a little olivegrun with the panzer red-brown to soften it. Then I dot filtered (my first try) and yes! it did a wonderful job of blending. Thanks to all of you guys and as always, more questions/comments are welcome!

(P.S. Thunderbolt, And your Tiger is also great lookin! )

bufflehead - That is a beautiful Jagdpanther, puts mine to utter shame! My hats off to you mate, what a great job!

Thunderbolt379 - Love how it came out... great camo job!

Boba Fett - very nice job! Some of your close up pics are fuzzy; same thing was happening to me, the dig cam was auto-focusing on the background and not the model. Worked better when I took pics at a higher angle, so the model (and not the tabletop) was closest to the cam.

And next time I get a 72 scale ProArmor kit, Ill send it to you! ;)

Cheers all

Guys: This GB has ended.  Thanks to all of you that particiated, I hope it was not only fun but also a good learning experience.

I will need to go over the thread, see who finished and who didn't, update the participant list and then put together a gallery of finished builds.  As you can imagine this will take me a little time...so please be patient. 

Congrats to those who finished on time and to those who didn't better luck next time...cheers

SMJmodeler

To all BIG CATS Participants:  I just posted a Gallery of our work in the armor section.  I picked the photo of your work that I thought was the best, my hats off to you all, the work as a whole is exemplorary and I think we did the armor community proud!  Thank you for being part of this GB, I enjoyed hosting it...

P.S. If you are a Tiger fan , I'll be posting a "Tigermania" GB probe/interest thread today, go take a look!

mokei/Lu:  Photobucket wasn't loading your pictures here on the forum, would you please pick one of your favorites and try posting again here, not on the Gallery thread.  I will then add it to the gallery..thanks.

SMJ,

Thanks again for hosting this GB. Had a BLAST doing it and learned quite a bit along the way (applying it is another matter)

Regards,

Jeff

Favorite pic of my build:

Glamdring,

Sorry I missed it the first time around. Very Nice!

Doing it in that small of scale makes it even more impressive!

Regards,

Jeff

Glamdring wrote:

It is a DML 1/72 Panther G Early.

Got it!, thanks.

SMJmodeler wrote:

Glamdring wrote: It is a DML 1/72 Panther G Early. Got it!, thanks.

Oh no, thank you my good man!