BIG CATS GROUP BUILD 2008

Here is my completed King Tiger.  Coments and critisim is welcome.  Can I claim my badge now?

Pordoi, moose... outstanding work.

tacobuff that lookin' prrety good to.  Gonna look nice with some paint in her.

Yeah, about paint... I painted a base color of dark tan all over it, went on evenly and looks good.  But for the rest of the camo, i'm restricted to using spray cans, and paint brushes.  I'm not sure how i want to mask off the tank.

Any Suggestions?

Pics would be fantastic!

Great build moose!

pordoi: Fantastic looking Panther!  All the weathering is superb, I especially like the zim' and boxes on the back.  Great job on the tools too. 

moose:  Nice looking King Tiger!  You might want to add another wash or two to tone down the color a bit, the numbers are a bit bold too.  Solid build overall though, nicely done...if you choose to leave her as is go ahead and grab the badge, you've earned it!

TacoBuff:  Get some paint on that beast and keep us posted!

moose:  nice looking beast.  Go ahead and dirty it up some.  The boxes on the Panther were initially primed and painted with flat earth and dark yellow as described.  To get the wood colors, I used a series of oil washes, using dilute sienna and umber colors.  The sienna really gives things a rich brown wooden color; the umbers a more weathered and dark color.  For the boxes on the Panther, it was mostly raw and burnt umber washes; the darker burnt umber concentrating on the seams in the wooden planks and the hinge straps.  Basically, I kept up the washes until I liked the effect, then they were oversprayed with the dilute buff.  In my experience, resin takes the oil washes much better than styrene and I think that I get more realistic wood finishes on resin parts than on styrene.  I still can't get great wood tones on tool handles, for example.

 

Dupes:  regarding the flat earth base, that is what highlights the zim pattern and the brown complements the dark yellow top coats better than say a black primer coat.  At least that was the plan.  I like the way it came out.

 

tacobuff:  very nice KT.  looking forward to seeing it in Kansas camo. 

TADA!

Somewhere in the plains of kansas (sans tracks right now) is the King Tiger.  The American front reopens!

yeah, i noticed the giant gap between the hulls, i'll fix that

What do you think?

Hey Tacobuff,

 Since you're doing a fantasy build, a divisional insignia that may be appropriate would be Toto, from Wizard of Oz. 

 

Ha Ha (sarcasm)!

It's funny you mentioned the wizard of oz because right now my family is watching a sci fi take of the movie called Tin Man.  I don't know what it's about, but the tin man dresses like Indiana Jones, and Toto is an evil guy...weird.

Just for you Porodoi

and the all the figures for the dio are done

TacoBuff wrote:

Just for you Porodoi

 

 

Hauptmann, I don't think that we're in Kansas anymore...

Hi guys,

Sorry I've been silent on this thread for the last five weeks or so, but I've been mega busy on other things. Real Life stuff has had me running around a lot, and the screwup with the Tiger exhausts kinda made me put her on the back burner for a while. As you'll see from the GB badge below, I finished the Tamiya StuG for The Hunters on time (yay!!!) and she's now in my display case. My next most-pressing GB is Big Cats, so I'll be turning to the Tiger next. The Academy Merkava for the IDF build just fell together, she's mostly assembled, there are about 50 small parts to go at this time, but that build has many, many months left so there's no rush, same with the Corsair and Mustang builds, and Battle of Britain doesn't start for a month yet.

So my target is to build the Tiger I (Early) LAH markings (Kursk) in the next four weeks. I have the decals and pigments, the acrylics and oil paints in hand, all I need is a grill set, and some schedule-structuring to get to the bench!

I've read through all the pages since I last posted and I'm sure there are some fab builds here, but my broadband is behaving like a dial-up and I can't get images to download. I was lucky to successfully upload my Hunters finished-model shots this morning, but could barely see others' work in return. Hopefully things will speed up a bit and I can see the pics again!

Dupes -- I'll be in the 251 GB if I can schedule it, I have an AFV Club and all of Tamiya's (except the Stuka zu Fuss) in my stash.

Cheers,

TB379

SMJ, how much longer is this GB going for? I may be interested in joining. I've been building a Kuebelwagen but the fit and finish of the kit makes me want to smash it so I'm going to put it down for awhile. I think I'm going to start working on DML6232 (late production King Tiger w/Henchel turret). Is it too late to join?

 

 

Erik 

Geist:  This GB runs until Dec 31...can I consider you added?!

SMJmodeler wrote:

Geist:  This GB runs until Dec 31...can I consider you added?!

 

Yes you can. I'm glad school exams are over. I'll be building the rest of the day.

Thunderbolt379 wrote:

Dupes -- I'll be in the 251 GB if I can schedule it, I have an AFV Club and all of Tamiya's (except the Stuka zu Fuss) in my stash.

Excellent! I'll pencil you in on the ever-growing list of participants.

I also have been pretty neglectful of late - hoping I can find a bit of motivation to start tackling the mondo PE set that I have to put on the Tiger. Been tossing zim options around, not sure if I want to take a stab with my soldering iron or go the Aves Apoxiesculpt route. That, and picking from the bajillions of available paint schemes is driving me a bit nuts. Heh.

Here are some results of my modeling binge today. Keep in mind that that hulls are only dry fitted.

 

 

Hmm, i have no idea why its rotated like that. Its normal in my photobucket.... 

dupes:  I thought you had decided on that paint job you showed me in that book/mag...that was nice, and very unique, I'd go for that one" border="0" width="15" height="15" />!

Geist:  Forgive me if I mis-took your build for this GB...I have you down for a King Tiger...that looks like a Panther to me...please clarify, thanks.

It's a King Tiger. The hulls do look similar, don't they?

Geist: They sure do, my mistake...carry on sir!

SMJmodeler wrote:

dupes:  I thought you had decided on that paint job you showed me in that book/mag...that was nice, and very unique, I'd go for that one " border="0" width="15" height="15" />!

Yeah, I should probably stick with it...there's just SOOO many good schemes, and only sooo many Tigers in my stash to go around! 

dupes:  Yeah, that stash of yours is getting kinda low...

Dude, I'm going to need a new freakin' closet soon. Yikes. Since you visited, there's been a few new boxes o' plastic added in there...I need to take a vacation and go on an insane building binge to make some room for some of the other stuff that's on it's way.

dupes   I put a monster PE set on my KT.  It was the one from Lion Roar.  Still didn't use all of it.  Turns out they made the set for both types of KT and early, mid and late variats.  Also, I highly recommend the barrel from Lion Roar.  The muzzle brake is 9 different pieces.  One the back half threads onto the barrel.  It also has very nice rifling as well.  Have fun with it though.  One last thing the machine gun mount just about drove me bonkers.  I think it has around 21 pieces on it.  Well maybe not bonkers but deffinetly cross eyed.

 

Hey Moose, I bow to you guys who work well with those complex PE sets.  21 pieces on the MG mount???    No way for me; my fingers always seem to be 2 sizes too large and my eyesight is long gone to be able to do that. 

Moose - thanks for the heads up!

Thing is, I'm doing a Tiger I Late, not a KT, but the PE set looks equally massive, and should be a pretty similar buildup.

I have an AM barrel, but I don't think it's Lion Roar...wanna say Eduard? Single piece, but looks pretty decent to me. 

Gentlemen:  How about a little less gum flappin' about PE and AM goodies and a lot more posting of progress!!!...I should talk...I haven't work on my Panther for this GB in at least two weeks.

Yeah! Less Group and more Build!

Haven't started mine, like many others, but this is a pretty long GB and I'm trying to wrap up some other projects first

Hi all,

I'm happy to report the Academy Tiger I is coming together well, there may be a WIP photo either tomorrow or Sunday (working Saturday, though I do get home in the evening). I'm estimating it's currently ~35% done, so I'd better track down some PE grills and get an order in the works, so they'll be here by the time she's ready for the paintshop. I'm hoping she'll be done in a couple of weeks.

Cheers,

TB379

Hermesminiatures wrote:

Yeah! Less Group and more Build!

 

These should keep you guys happy for a couple of hours

 

I'm in the process of cleaning it up before I paint it. I'm thinking I may add some mud made of putty to the fender area and bottom hull too. 

Geist:  Thanks for the pic's, and hey, I put my money where my mouth is and worked on my Panther last night.  It's pretty close to complete.  I hope to post final pic's this weekend!