Oh cool! Nice work!!! 

650 parts sounds like a lot but I'm guessing two-thirds are the indy tracks? 

Looks good!  Like how you did the wear and weathering.

One minor nit-pick. The tracks wouldn't have any visible rust on them. They were practically brand new at that time.

But that one minor complaint doesn't outweigh the absolute amazing job you did on this kit. Nor does it look any less than stellar to my eyes. That's one beautifully finished piece of armor.

The details pop, the camo is spot on, and the weathering is realistic. 

Nicely done!

Well done!  I love the Panther.

Bill

Great looking Panther tank!  Super camo scheme and paint fading.

TJS

I think smart kits were designed to have better, easier fit and not be a nightmare like some of the earlier Dragon releases or ones that had multiple sprues from different kits, i.e. two Sprue "A" or "B" each from a different kit.

I think it looks good. The tracks could get rusty overnight and then get shiny spots where metal ground through gravel, rinse and repeat. I tend to leave my tracks shades of brown, earth, red brown etc.

Extremely nice with a great choice of colors.

The only nic I can find to pik is with the inner road wheels, rear idler and the front sprocket teeth.

It might be the way the light is angled but I don't see any silver track wear pattern on the inner road wheel rims. As with all constant metal to metal contact there should be a similar wear pattern on the sprocket teeth and all around the edges of the rear idlers.

As for rust on tracks...  well, that can happen overnight ~ depending on the weather.

Again, this is a very nice build.

Thanks guys, all comments greatly appreciated. I'm still relatively new to building 1/35 armor kits. Interesting observation about the inner wheel rims. I hadn't seen that in any of the research I've done, but it makes sense once you mentioned it. I blame lack of WW2 colour photographs :). Defintely put some metallic weathering on the sprockets, probably doesnt show as well in my pictures.

cheers

BT

Looks great, very nice work. Thanks for showing us.

BK

disastermaster

As for rust on tracks...  well, that can happen overnight ~ depending on the weather.

I see this a lot when cleaning and seasoning cast iron; if you wash or rinse your unseasoned cast iron in warm water, it will flash rust almost immediately.

disastermaster

As for rust on tracks... well, that can happen overnight ~ depending on the weather.

Or not.  My Hitachi Excavator had steel tracks.  They "browned" after a couple of years, on the non-bearing surfaces, but no real rust.  At least nothing you could see at arm's length.

Flash rust was generally 'wiped off" in use.  Now, on the inside surface, where the rollers bear on them, there was a "buffed" area that was a deep metalic brown color.  Now, Hitachi uses steel rollers (pretty common for excavators) so that was steel-to-steel contact.  The guide horns on the track were a similar sort of finish. 

The contact points on the drive sproket were "bright" but more of a gunmetal "white" finish trather than a "silver."

So, dunno, YMMV, maybe.

Dragon still does that with their Smart kits I have the Imperial series Panther G command tank and it uses the antenna sprue found in their othe Panther G smart kits.

Rob Gronovius

I think smart kits were designed to have better, easier fit and not be a nightmare like some of the earlier Dragon releases or ones that had multiple sprues from different kits, i.e. two Sprue "A" or "B" each from a different kit.

I think it looks good. The tracks could get rusty overnight and then get shiny spots where metal ground through gravel, rinse and repeat. I tend to leave my tracks shades of brown, earth, red brown etc.