Dragon Sherman M4A1(76)W VVSS - Part III

So the thing with these 1/72 armor kits is that when you put together your chassis, hull and turret, you're usually pretty much done with the construction phase. Then it's time for the fun part - the painting.

Since we're dealing dealing WWII Sherman here, there is plenty of paint scheme choices to pick from as long as you pick olive drab of some sort. And so, olive drab it had to be. First however, I put on the standard primer coat followed by black pre-shading. Once that default step was done, I applied couple of thin coats of Lifecolor UA220. For once, I managed to preserve the preshading around the panels and hatches.

Next, I started to experiment. I'm starting to realize that there are no rules set in stone when it comes to painting AFV:s, you can do pretty much whatever you want within reason.

At the same time, it pays off to take a moment and think about the subject matter for a moment. In this case, it's a Sherman during Normandy campaign - so it wasn't in the field for very long and the elements it would have been exposed to would mainly be summer sun and probably some rain. Raised areas would therefore be exposed to sunlight, which means bleaching. To simulate this, I airbrushed a light coat of base paint highlighted slightly with a beige paint on all large raised areas - top of the turret, engine deck, sides of the hull and so on... The result was a bit peculiar - a 'glowing' green tint. Even though it didn't look very natural, I let it be, counting on that it would be subdued by weathering steps that would follow.

It turned out I was correct. Next step - grime wash for green vehicles from AK Interactive dulled down the glowing effect and nicely brought forward all the details of the tank body. Another AK Interactive wash - dirt streaks - was applied next in vertical streaks, blended into the body with white spirits. Maybe I should have been a bit bolder when applying that effect, but I kept reminding myself that this tank has not seen much action yet.

Finally, the final touches - a bit of chipping here and there, drybrush of gun metal to exposed details such as hatch hinges and track edges and finally another try at filtering with oils. Remembering bad experience with white oils and the Tiger, I went for faded green this time around. Miniscule amounts of oil paint were dabbed onto large flat areas of the model and 'massaged' into the paint job. I then left the kit for 48 hours before applying first coat of matte varnish. Once it was try, I applied some brown pigments onto lower parts of the model, but as always, most of that effect was wiped out by final coat of matte varnish.

And so, here we are - another Sherman ready to be added to the collection. Very nice, detailed kit I had tremendous fun building. Highly recommended to all fans of allied tanks.

Dragon Sherman M4A1(76)W VVSS - Part II

Remember that Dragon Sherman I was supposed to work on in time gaps during Junkers project? Well, things didn't work out that well with that plan. But the build is now solidly under way, with all main sub-assemblies complete.

What can be said about this kit? First of all, it's insanely detailed and fiddly. With some effort and attention to details, it looks great, as I hope can be seen in the images below. The build itself is done without major hickups. The only major critique can be directed at the assembly of suspension, where what I assume is some sort of hydraulic shock absorbers need to be inserted into wheel assembles. Not only is this piece completely hidden from sight once the assembly is done, it also makes the fit much more difficult than without it. Annoying and unnecessary.

There is substantial number of photo-etched parts in this box; remember we're talking about 1/72 scale here. I put on some of them, but choose to use plastic components for light guards for the simple reason that my kits serve double duty as game pieces in wargames. Photo-etched parts are too fragile for frequent handling. That's maybe my decision to use photo-etched components for rear stowage rack isn't the best I've ever made. Initially I just wanted to make it and get some experience with photo-etch. But then it turned out so nice... So what the heck, I can always put on the plastic variant if it gets knocked off in the heat of the battle.

At this moment I have to do some last minute cleanup of the turret and then it's time to get out the primer can.

Dragon Sherman M4A1(76)W VVSS

Next tank project after Königstiger - another Dragon kit, this time around a Sherman 76. For now, only a quick overview of components - impressive in their own right.

Dragon Models Tiger II - Part III... and a review of different type!

Allright, so just to put some sort of logical finish to the Tiger II project... In simple terms, it's done and pics below show the final result.

As mentioned in previous post, the final steps in this project were 'inspired' by the instructional DVD from AK Interactive called 'Weathering in 1 Hour'. It would be therefore a shame to miss the opportunity to give a quick review of this video. In short, it does what is written on the cover and shows a bunch of common weathering techniques on a 1/35 scale German recon car. If you're a beginner or intermediate modeller, you should definitely watch this video at least once. While there is nothing revolutionary in what they show, watching someone who knows exactly what he's doing even when it comes to very basic techniques, is immensely educational and much better than reading about those techniques in a book or a magazine.

Following techniques are shown in detail (I may have forgotten one or two, but these are the important ones):

• Applying enamel washes using Humbrol paints and white spirits
• Chipping effects with Vallejo acrylics
• Streaking effects with AK Interactive products
• Mud effects with AK Interactive products
• Highlights and modulation effects with white oils paint
• Rust streaks and effects with AK Interactive products

As you can see, the video is a bit of a promotion tool for the stuff from AK Interactive, but who can blame them. I'm sure that MiG would also use their own stuff wherever they could if they'd ever do a video of this kind.

So... how did my attempt at following their instructions go? Actually, quite well, but not without mishaps. Weathering with their mixture of Humbrol paints worked very well and I am happy to report that I was able to achieve best results so far in my 'career'. Excellent control over the wash and how it settled. Chipping in 1/72 scale turned out to be an unexpected challenge - it's damn hard to paint these dots small enough for them to look realistic. Streaking and rust effects is another area where practice should pay dividend - in this attempt I managed to wash most of the effects away, mostly because I am a bit of a chicken, afraid I may overdo it. I skipped over mud effects.

Finally, let's deal with what fortunately turned out to be the only major SNAFU - modulation effects with oils paints. In theory, this technique is pretty simple - apply tiny dots of oil paint and 'work it in' onto underlying paint job to create subtle shifts in color hue and satuartion. I've read about this technique on a couple of occasions, but never tried it before. As it turns out, there is a bit of a learning curve. In this particular case, I followed the instructions and worked with white paint to create bleached patches, trying to simulate the effect of exposure to sun and elements. Lesson number one - tiny amount of oils goes a long way. Lesson number two materialized a bit later, after I applied final matte coat on the model - oils take very long time to dry and apparently can pool together also in interaction with acrylic varnishes. If you take closer look at the rear of the turret and left side mud-guard, white patches are clearly visible - that's the white oil paint that pooled together in the medium of acrylic varnish. Annoying as hell, because otherwise I'm very pleased with how this kit turned out, but I'm keeping my mistakes as a remainder for the future.

Dragon Models Tiger II - Part II

Time for a long overdue update on Tiger II project. If I am to be earnest, there really isn't much to be said, except that once I dug myself out of 'paint those bloody wheels' quagmire, things started to move along at brisk tempo and without any further complications. That's the thing with 1/72 tanks - if you don't hit any major snags, the construction part is over before you know it.

Once the kit was assembled, the usual routine followed. Prime with grey, preshade with black and then it's time for some fun with the airbrush. In this particular case, the 'fun' didn't present itself though. Instead, I had a running battle with Lifecolor paints, which for some reason just refused to be of right consistency, making airbrushing a bit of a struggle. This affected the look of camo pattern, which in the end was decided more by mishaps with the airbrush than anything else. One thing is clear - painting German camouflage  freehand is a challenge I am yet to master.

Still, I was satisfied with the end result. Maybe not 100 percent as described in the instructions booklet, but it does look proper 'late war German tank'.

With pretty much everything assembled and painted, couple of days ago I proceeded to final stage - weathering. Here I decided to do something a bit different. You see, some time ago I've got hold of a DVD from AK Interactive called 'Weathering armour in 1 hour' or something to that effect. I've finally got around to watch it before I started working on weathering of the Tiger and I must say that I was quite impressed. The video itself doesn't show anything mindblowing, just the same familiar steps of washing, streaking, highlighting, chipping, applying pigments and rust effects. However, seeing it in real time how the 'pros' are doing it, is something of an eye-opener. If anything, this video shows that there really isn't anything magical about good looking weathering, just some brush work and a bit of patience. And yes, it does help if you have those weathering products from AK Interactive available to you, but that was only to be expected, wasn't it?

Anyway... the pics below show the model after basic paint job and then after the first stage of weathering process shown in that DVD (that would be enamel wash with Humbrol enamels). In the video, it took them 10 minutes to be done with it. I spent more than an hour on it before I was satisfied, but who's counting minutes? :-)

Dragon Models Tiger II - Part I

After all the frustrations of the last projects, I needed a change of theme. I then remembered that the title of this blog does actually also mention armor and it's been a while since I've built anything from that genre.

Selection of this particular model was completely random, although I have to admit that it was something of an internal joke for me; the topic is in my opinion slightly overdone and usually I can't help but smile sardonically when I see all these German big cats in magazines and at C4 Open. Personally I never built a  Tiger or a Panther in my life, so that would be a new experience.

Another first consisted of the fact that this particular model comes from Dragon. In my teens, tanks have actually been the main output of my modelling, but they all came from Airfix, Hasegawa, Revell, ESCI... All nice models, but the their quality cannot be compared with this one. Zimmerit out of the box, photo-etched parts... stuff like that was simply unheard of in this scale some 20 years ago.

My positive first impression quickly turned into frustration as I proceeded into the build. The first negative surprise appeared when I discovered that the mud guards were at least a centimeter too long for the undercarriage of the tank. It seemed that a mistake has been made during packaging of the kit and a sprue intended for Jagdtiger II was put into the box by mistake. I resolved the issue in simplest possible way, albeit not the most 'historically correct' one - I cut away the bits that stuck out.

The next mishap was self-created. The wheels of this kit present the main challenge - there is over 50 of them. I dutifully primed them, sprayed them with dunkelgelb and finally in a painstakingly slow process painted the rubber rims without removing them from the sprue. Next I removed them from the sprue and had to correct all the damage to the paint job. Then, by pure coincidence, I found out that Tiger II had steel wheels without any rubber rims. Another correction. And finally, as I put the wheels together, it turned out that the fit between the parts was so tight that some of the paint had to be removed for a good fit... yet another corrective paint session was required after that. In total I believe that I spent some fourteen hours on the wheels of this tank. The kicker consists of the fact that they can without any problems be installed on the chassi and painted afterward - perhaps three hours job in total!

Oh well, yet another 'learning experience'! Anyway, that's where I am in the project at the moment. Once the wheels are installed, it's time for some fun time with the airbrush!

Impressive detail of main components.

Those pesky wheels.

Excellent detail  and photo-etched parts do impress.

Wheels finally painted and put together. Turret assembled.
Tracks sprayed with flat black and then painted with a thick wash of
Humbrol Dark Earth require more work for 'natural' look.

By mistake, I fitted the rear end plate without zimmerit-coat to the chassi.
Once I discovered my mistake, it was too late to rectify it.

Close-up of turret.