my elephant WIP **finished**

For what it is worth, every article I have read on zim and decals has the author resorting to hand painting in the end. . . . .

roosterpelo wrote:

the kit supplied . its the premium edition. lots a PE for you to play around with. you'll like it

Egads. I have some of the premium edition kits but they don't come with THAT much PE. Nice.

you could cheat a little and knock down the hard edge of the zim. and or fill with putty slightly to make a somewhat smoother surface without taking too much away from the look of the zimmerit.any excess can be carefully removed with the x-acto knife.

ok guys, here she is with a little bit more progress. i have applied the future and decals, yay!! no silvering. i was worried about that with the grainy paint job i had on this one. microsol snugged right to it, and luckily i didn't have to apply any decals to the zimm.  i glued the upper and lower halves together, and painted the insed of the radio operators hatch. the jacl and tow cable are finished, and i'm working on the jack block and tracks right now.

as soon as i get all the accessories finished, i'll start on the main washes weathering. so its coming along quite nicely. little bit time consuming, but i'm getting a little bit more attention to detail then when i first started a few months ago. i don't mind dragging out the kit to make sure all the pieces blend into each other. thanks for looking guys, i'll keep you posted on any new progress i make.

rooster

coming along quite nicely i'd say,now for those darn magic tracks.

yeah, tell me about it. that's my weakness. hopefully i get it this time. if not, i'll have to deal strictly with fruils. hopefully i learned a few valuable lessons with the kingtiger

fear not what you can see grasshopper.good one eh.dont worry just take your time and remember your the boss.

Roo,  I think the Elephant looks great zim and all!!! I hope my first effort with zim and multi-colored camo turns out as well!

you'll be surprised jester. just pick up a couple jars of Aves, the tamiya tool, and you'll be praising the stuff. you can't go wrong, it water solutable. i just started three months ago from a 9 years pause. you'll do great, your last build was beautiful, just take yout time and experiment.

Very nice so far. Wish I could make a more elaborate comment, but the actual build looks great, and I can see that you're just at the stage of painting where the beast starts to come alive, so I'll wait and see what you come up with

still looking great roo cant wait to see more

Roo you're killin' me! If you keep improving at this rate none of us on this site will be able to keep up with you!

Seriously though, that's some of the best zimmerit I've ever seen! Where'd ya get it from again?!

Love the hatch interior chipping, and the understated camo!

5 stars!!!! 

thanks doog. my improvements i have to give credit to my successors. gino with the M2A2 was a great help, you with my upcoming hetzer, tread for the tiger (than i'm still working on ), eric for the kingtiger and sherman, and so many more. (sorry if i forgot someone). i owe a great deal of my improvements to my fellow modelers . now for the zimm: its Apoxie Sculpt from Aves. you can buy it at www.auswerks.com. make sure to pick up the Tamiya tool there also so you can apply it. matt, the owner of the site, has a great tutorial on how to do it. it really is simple and not as scary as it may seem. the great thing about Apoxie Sculpt, is that its water solutable, so its easy to clean or take off if you don't like it or mess up, and it takes all night to cure so you have PLENTY of work and evaluation time. trust me doog, you can't go wrong with it, it'll change your life. and , just by chance you don't like it, (mail it to me, i'll use it, lol) keep in mind it is an apoxie, so you can still use it for making stowage or filling in gaps. the list is endless. i'll have some more pics later on in the process. thanks guys

ok guys, here she is. completed and finished. all i have to do is add some dullcote, and voila. done. took awhile, but i finally knocked it out. any comments or suggestion i'm free to take. espically if i overlooked anything.

thanks for looking guys

rooster

Egads! That thing is a beast! Great job!

"Took awhile" - that means, what, 2 weeks for you?

P.S. My apoxiesculpt should be in the mailbox today...can't wait to try some zim! 

sweet looking elephant roo, i'm working on the same kit, any trouble spots i should look out for?

Very well done. I"m still in awe of that zimm.

Very very very very nice Chris. Your added personal touch makes this one powerful looking pachyderm. Your photography is excellent too. Well done.

Larry

  That aves zim is incredible,still haven't used it on any model yet but it's fun to play with, i'm going to use it on my tiger1 how did you weather the zim it looks great. i have the tamiya tools they work great, what size did u use       did  u use the ausfwerks tecnique or did u put the putty on and then scribe it

    oh,and 1 more question what brand of paint did u use

Chris, you may have outdone yourself this time. Love the Elefant. Your camo came out great and you did a bamg of job on those horrible tracks. I applaud you. Oh yeah, duh, the zim was well done too!

Great looking elefant, I like how the camo turned out. I also like the tracks, very realistic looking drybrushing there. Overall great build rooster, now I want to build one!

rooster, that is one NIIIIICE elephant!!  Great job overall!  Your zimmerit looks top notch.  I have some Apoxie Sculpt at home.  Haven't used it yet for zimmerit but I'm looking forward to doing so!  I keep reading about the "horrible" tracks with this kit.  What's the problem with them?

So I will admit that I have never been a fan of this vehicle.  Ferdinand, Elephant, big ugly brute...whatever you call I never thought much of it and never wanted to build a model of it....until seeing tigerman's and your's!!  Thanks for the inspiration 

Another worthy addition to your collection Roo! Your work has really improved remarkably since you first signed on; Congrats on your progress and on yet another great looking model!

Wow. I've got one of those in the stash. I think I may have to dig it out. Great job on the camo scheme. 

Looks pretty nice. I think I see gray styrene on the inside of the sprocket in the first pic? better fix that if its not my old vision playin tricks on me. I haven't seen many Elefants with this type of cammo, it certainly is unique. I think I would have blended it a little more , you know, kinda fade it in a little. I think some point washes around some of the rivet detail would go a long way as well. Anyhoo, a really good job on the model.

 

regards, Steve

gol dang boy!!-- what can I say that nobody has yet said? absolutely super job!-- I echo the others on zimm job --great job on the p.e. too!---tread

Mighty impressed with that zim i am going to look into this method rooster , nice work.

 

Ron.

Very nice         The Zim is soo good!

Looks great! And the owner if Ausfwerks is Jeff, not Matt. His last name is Matthes, though.  Oh, and for the size of the zim tool, I always use the 0.5 size teeth and the tool that is about an inch wide.

thanks for all the comments, replies, and  the time you took to check out my elephant guys.

dupes, you'll love the Aves. she's a blast to work with, the sky is the limit with this stuff.

FireFox, the only real trouble i had with this kit, is the delicate PE fenders. really have take your time with these suckers. make sure they align together, and once glued on, be very very consious and careful when you pick it back up for painting and things. i tend to forget that they were delicate PE and not moulded onto the hull. other that that, she fit together beautifully.

tigerboy, after painting the base coat on, i applied a few coats of future and gave it a nice dirty wash with a tad of van dyke brown, and raw and burnt sienna. i few if you need it darker, you'll have to be the judge of this. and i always use the .5 tamiya tool, i find it more in-scale.

crockett, i'm not sure of the gray styrene yoru talking about. maybe it was the angle of the camera or something. but it could also be the silver on the teeth that you are talking about. it did turn out kinda grayish in the pics. the pattern i followed was from the kit instructions, and i did a little research and i have found some patterns of this scheme from when (can't recall which unit at the moment) was in hungry. i haven't found any "actual" pics of this, but if its not correct, i had fun making it.

biffa, thanks for the comment about trying the zimm method. it really is simple, and i'm sure you'd have a blast trying it out.

and montana cowboy, your right, his name is jeff. not sure why i kept saying matt.

thanks guys