Hello Ron,
Great looking base!!! Maybe you could do a little How-To for us that are base challenged.
I think that it would make a Great Feature.
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Bruce

Hi Bruce,
I did describe how I did it. There's just nothing more to it!

As for my progress, things are getting more eloborate than I had planned/anticipated.... as usual!!
I got busy on the sewerlid and this is what happened; (It is the same as I posted in the "getting the job done"-campaign... Thankfully it is the last simultane post. The Hornisse is for this campaign only!)
I started of by google-ing for them and I noticed the old lids often came with a lot of ornaments. This got me digging through my sparesbox to see if I could come up with something to represent that look.
I ended up with a Panther sprocket, a dingowheel and a hatchring from a Crusaderturret. After about 3 hours of turning, sanding, filing, fitting and starting over again I ended up with this:

Inner circel with spokes; the centrepart of a Crusader idler (hence the starting over), than a thin strip of plasticcard. Then the circel with the bolts from the Panther idles, followed by the hatchring. The last ring is a plasticcradring to make the lid fit the underground.
Then I painted the contruction in a panzergrey base, followed by a coat of bronze (both Vallejo)

The 2 washes of lamp black and when dry 2 washes of viridian (green).
I put the lid in it's place and was not satisfied with the result, because the space under the lid lacked depth. I did paint the in lamp Black too, but it still was flat.
I decided to do something drastic and cut a hole right through the entire base!


This was than covered with a piece of firm, black semigloss cardboard, which then was given a decent coat of gloss varnish. I put the lid back in it's place et voilà....




Finally I took some of my own, homemade diorama-soil (your standard backyardsoil, dried, ground and sifted) and I brushed that gently into the slits between the stones. Looks really great and much, much cheaper then pigments!
I added some very small stones and a few tufts of grass and I was a happy camper!

Looks terrific !!!
I could build every square of a whole city with my spare boxes.

-- I still haven't picked a subject for this one... Nashorn, 3 Tiger I, 2 King Tigers, 2 Elephants and 1 Waffentrager... --

mmhhh... might pick one of the Tiger I... next decision... AFV or Dragon...decisions...decisions

Thanks, John...

May I suggest to go for the Waffenträger??
Would be a refreshing sight after Tigers, in what ever configuration...

That new Dragon Elephant w/ zimmeritt looks interesting. I have't built an 88 armed tank in a while.The 88 was such an awsome weapon, who,s idea was it to put it in the original Tiger? Ferdinand Porsche or the German high command? At the time it was a huge step up from the short barrelled 75 in the panzer IV, which was the most powerful tank weapon in a production tank.

Hello Ron,
Looking great. I thought that there was more to your base then what you posted. Thanks for clearing it up.
Can I print your post on the base for my own use? Also your manhole cover design?
Again, Looking great.
Cheers,
Bruce

It is a VERY nice kit,I have it in my stash,got it at a show for $45.00,but for this one I decided to go with the Tiger I w/zimm,but you can't go wrong with the Elefant.

By all means, be my guest!
That's one of the reasons why I post my "tinkerings" here...+ the comments help me getting better at it..

Good job Ron.....one question though, what do you used to scribe over the wallspack....a nail????Thanks...keep the good work
Mirko

Greetings fellow 88ers. I've just joined this campaign and here s my entry.



I did an In Box review of this beast and for those who haven't seen it you can find it Here

Some progress shots.

Building the suspension/lower hull.











Obviously as I'm now actually building the Tiger I'll most likely do a build review. That being said, I won't bore you with all the minute details that pop up.

Cheers,
Jan

It's been HOT, so not much modelling lately. Mr.Ferd has a few problems but I think it will turn out ok for a simple Kursk dio. Old 1/48 Bandai with some modifications.

Looks nice and crisp Jan. The trumpeter 1/72 tiger just flies together.
Have you tried that one how does the dragon stack up against it?
The front and rear idlers look chunkier than trumpeters ones.

Great work on these new entries !!
Cool Elephant

JP, I haven't tried the Trumpeter yet but I did do the old Airfix offering. The rear idler is definitely a problem with the kit. I had to attack it heavily with a file and sandpaper and I will have to do more trimming with a motor tool (Dremel) to get the tracks to sit properly. I've read that some people have left the inside of the idler off but I didn't like that option. Also, the pins that it's supposed to sit on were too long. The instructions are amongst the worst I've seen from Dragon. Several parts important to the build aren't even shown. If you assemble the road wheels according to the instructions you'd need twelve hands to get them all on their axles.

Here's a few more progress shots.

The rear problem idler.


Starting on the turret.



Storage bin with excess flash.



More turret work.











I'm working on it today so more pictures to follow. ;}

Cheers,
Jan

Very nice base, Ron !! It looks fantastic.

Nice progress on the tiger, Jan. Looks very well detailed in my opinion - especially considering the scale. Looking forward to see more.

these new generation 1/72 scale tanks have amazing detail. The trumpy has nicer wheels, and
a better defined cable, but the dragon hull and turret have better vision ports. The kist is very
well done on the dragon too. Open hatches is a boon for the dragon too.

Add on the corrective PE for eduard and you could have something indistinguishable from 1/35.

I built a hasegawa tiger after the trumpeter and it just felt like a toy.
Here is the slideshow of the trumpeter for comparison. Raw plastic at the end.

Thanks for you comments, Jesper. As JP stated, these newer 1//72 kits are positively amazing. The F13 kit appears to have parts from older kits and you can see the age by the flash on some sprues. What is obviously the newer sprues are flash free and the detail very crisp. The suspension, lower body and upper body are definitely older.

Here's a few more progress pictures.

The hull details and tools are individual items as opposed to being moulded on.



With the turret on and being inspected by the future commander. (ancient Airfix Tiger I in the background that's going through a Tank Overhaul)





Working on the PE parts. Note: the rear bulkhead is dry fitted.







That's it for the moment. I've been procrastinating on attacking the overly thick rear idler.

Cheers,
Jan

Some very nice work is shown here. Good job for all of you guys

Here is a new update on my Tamiya King Tiger.

The base coat has been painted with Tamiya Acryl, Desert Yellow, Red Brown, Olive Green, with some touches of Buff and white.





The start of some weathering (mainly fading, pinwashes and chipping)






A close up



Martin

Guy's I'm not in this campaign and it's probally too late for you but here's a couple of photos of the 88 thats hidden out back at the Firepower musuem in the UK.







Some nice builds going on.
Luciano

An 88 on the backyard...cool

Fantastic KT Martin

With the townsquare and the 250/8 done, I turned my attention to my '88.
I did the interior, painted the outside, applied the first washes and added the tracks.
On to the next load of washes, drybrushes etc.etc....

Martin, great job on the King Tiger. The camouflage and the subtle chipping looks great. Looking forward to see more.

Ron, good progress on the Hornisse. The inside of the back part of the road wheels should have a part of the rubber showing I think. A little difficult to explain but I hope you know what I mean.
Good job on the camouflage and the interior.

Hi Jesper,
I understand what you mean, but I found it a bit difficult to correct, now that everything is put together. I tried, but the result was not too good, so i just left it as it was.
My Hornisse is done for 2 days now, by the way, so another campaign has been completed. "All" I have to do now, is finish the dio together with the Sd.Kfz. 250/8.
I can not upload pictures through Photobucket, though, as the site is appearantly down.
I'll try to do it through this site's photogallery...

Wish me luck!

The uploading to the campaigngallery was succesfull, let's see if I can get them posted here too!
http://gallery.kitmaker.net/showphoto.php/photo/319541

http://gallery.kitmaker.net/showphoto.php/photo/319540