My thoughtful, non-modeler brother found this vintage kit mouldering in a thrift shop and picked it up for me.
It was missing the tracks and decals, and comparing it to reviews of newer versions of the kit showed that it had some issues, and lacked some detail of modern molds. But never having built any kind of an armor kit before, I figured it would be a good one to practice on, not worrying too much about perfection but learning the procedures and techniques that differ from aircraft.
I did struggle some with the old styrene, which didn't like to glue very well with my Tamiya extra-thin (especially those damn tow cables!), and with some details (or lack thereof) that I just couldn't ignore. I ended up scratch-building the smoke canister launchers (the kit tubes were solid) and deleting the Fiefel air cleaners altogether (the kit tubes were smooth rubber). I picked up a set of decals from the Academy kit, which included some nice PE engine grill covers, and a set of AFV Club rubber tracks. I decided to set it up as Tiger no. 123, of S. Pz. Abt. 502, Leningrad, 1942 (per the Academy instructions sheet), which meant a plain Panzer grey finish.
And of course when it comes to tanks, it's all about the finishing. I found Panzermeister36 on Youtube, and he has an full paint/weathering tutorial for Panzer grey, and I pretty much followed his steps exactly, because they are excellent. I used primarily Tamiya acrylics, Future for clear coats, Vallejo for matte coats, artist's oils and pastels for modulation and dust effects. The mud on the tracks was created with drywall mud mixed with Tamiya paint, ground up pastels, and some trimmed packing twine for the dead grass.
Decided to go all-in and add the included crew as well, and had fun learning to paint figures. They came out okay, especially at arm's length rather than in hi-res macro photos. :) How the heck do you guys get them mounted in the turret, though? There's nothing to glue them to. I rigged up some absurd styrene scaffolding inside the turret, but it was touch and go for sure, getting them close to the right position.
