Side skirts on !
I consider this one finished !!! 1st Panther Campaign, 2 Panthers done ! Tamyia's G and Dragon's D w/Zimm.

I am very happy with both kits, I had fun !!!
Thanks again to Darren for having us here !!!!

Looks Good John!

Finally got around to tackling the track links and got a bag of almost magic tracks. also put a clear coat on the first Panther.
Then got to assembling the track runs, I bought a square brass tube to help keep them straight and this helped immensely, got the first run almost complete.

Cheers Rob.

John, congrats on the second build. Very well executed.

Rob, nice trick you got there with the square rod. I'll note this one.

Phil.

Just joined the Campaign!

I started the model 5 weeks ago and hope it is still good to enlist the kit I'm doing.

It is the first model I've built since I don't know when, finished the last kit back in 1998 though! Since I am a figure guy this is somewhat new territory for me, but I have enjoyed the process quite a bit so far.

The kit I'm doing is DML's Panther G Late (smart kit 6268) with an old Aber update set I had (copyright 1996!) as well as Fruil Tracks. The Panther will be manned by three figures, two from Alpine and one from Warriors slightly converted.

If the build is accepted (being that I staretd before enlisting in campaign as I did not know about it!) but it was started well within the campaign timeline, I will start to post some pictures of the progress. I have several images through out the build up to the current stage.

Hope it's acceptable as having a blast looking at all the Panthers everyone is buiding and would love to contribute a little.

Depending on how much of the build is completed I am open to you joining.

Hi dear friends,

Here is my Panther Dragon 1/72 PzBeobWg V Ausf.G...
Very nice model, i like it..
Cheers.
some photos,









click please for other photos : http://miniafv.blogspot.com/2012/09/dragon-172-pzbeobwg-v-ausfg-completed.html

It's at the weathering and figure stage at the moment. I have pictures of the previous stages.

No sweat if you don't want it included, just let me know and I'll withdraw from the campaign page.

If you have some pictures taken during construction and because I feel we can learn about figures from you while we help you with the vehicle weathering I will be happy for you to join as long as no one objects.

Fair enough! I can do a small SBS on the figures if you wish, to go along with the pictures of the model it self.

John, yet another fantastic build buy you my friend! Great build and finish bro!

Hello Erhan, Your wee panther looks fantastic bro! well done.

Anders - Seems a good trade off...a fig SBS for a partialy built kit. I am a huge fan of your works and have attended a few shows and saw your figs up close and caught a demo by you as well. Im good with it if everyone else is.

Gary

Ditto!

I think it is awesome to see Anders trying his hand at joining the Panther campaign and building a model - love his figure work and I think it is great that he wants to join us! Come on in! I'm sure we can learn a thing or two to boot!

Thanks for the kind words Gary !
You were right to be jealous of the Zimmerited Panther D.. it's an awsome kit..

Thanks guys for the support, I will try not to disapoint!

I have finally managed to edit and go through a lot of the pictures I've taken over the build, both on the digital camera as well as some iphone pictures.

The kits used for the project. Not showing the Fruil tracks as I have long since discarded the box.



Some of the references used for the build. Though I am a figure guy I have a pretty decent library of books of areas of interest to me, and late war WWII German stuff just so happens to be one of those.



Now there will be quite a jump in the process. The lower hull is more or less finished at this stage. Didn't think anyone would want to see pictures of previous steps or the cleaning of road wheels..







With the model at this stage I decided it needed some sort of a base to be placed on once finished. When doing figures I generally sculpt the figure, then make the base/groundowkr and then prime the piece, as such I followed the same methodoligy here. Though the base will stay the bare wood and will not have any ground work. I know this is a debated issue, however, there is just something about a tank with figures on a bare wooden base that I like, so that is what will happen. Unless it looks really silly once all done, then I will add groundwork, but I do not anticipate this bening necessary.

I'm not sure what type of wood this is, some sort of hard wood, probably American hardwood. It might be Mahogany but not sure. The bases were cut from a 2"x6" board, and routered the edges. Then the bases were sanded with various gritts of sand paper and finally recieved 3 coats of Waterlox clear coat.







--continued in the next post

With the base ready to go and the model well under way it was time to tackle the Fruil tracks. Each link was pre drilled out and proper lengths of copper 'track pins' were cut.

Here you can see the home made jig for cutting the correct length track pin



A heap of ready to assemble track links!



And the length of tracks on the model for the first time, had to add a couple of links to make it fit right.



Ok so now the tracks are done, and it is time for the fun part...the painting!

Now, my methods of going about painting this thins may be a little unorthodox...being that it has been ages since I last painted a model. As such I more or less approached it as a very large figure.

The model was first primed in a gray automotive primer called "Brite Touch", easily the best primer out there, easy to find and super cheap.





Once the primer had set a while the model was painted in an over all dark yellow, mixed with various Tamiya colors.








continued in the next post...

The next step was to tackle the camoflauge scheme. It was out of the question to free hand the airbrushed camo pattern as my air brushing skills are saddly lacking. As such some sort of mask was needed, but first I had to figure out what the pattern was supposed to be. So I scouered the internet as well as many books on the subject and came up with a plan!

A couple of pictures showing this style of camo on late war Panthers





Based on pictures a logical and possible pattern was drawn onto scale line drawings of the Panther.





THis was done for all 4 sides as well as the top, though at the end I am not sure exactly how closely I actually followed the game plan, but it was quite essential to at least have some sort of a guide to go by.

With the pattern established, the question re the masking had to be answered. In this case I ended up using Blue Tack and it seemed to work very well.



The tank was done in the following order: Yellow-Green-Brown











Now that the basic parttern was laid in, the real fun began!

Each color was painted over with various shades of oil colors, closely matching the original Tamiya colors that were airbrushed on. This was a very time consuming and tedious task. But the colors faded real well and I was pleased with the results. It works real nice as you can adjust the amount of fade and you can control the light source fairly well. I emphasized on making the top surcases lighter and the shadow areas darker. This was then left to dry for a few days. Also I think some point before these pictures I had 'out lined' the tanks deeper areas. It is my version of doing washes. I felt I had more control over the placement by actually painting all the recesses rather then just flowing paint down the crevises.



Here the weathering has started, some paint chips, scrapes and nicks has been added all around the tank. This is all done with acrylics.







The tracks were primed in the same gray color, then were airbrushed with a mix of Tamiya black and earth colors. They then recieved a 'wash/coat' of various pigments, then lightly rubbed to show the darker areas, and keep the dusty, dirty stuff in the recesses.





The tracks added to the model, as well as the road wheels attached, and the figures have been placed to study the composition



A close up of the tracks





And some mud added to the wheels. I am just experimenting with various ways of doing this. This specific effect was acheived by having wet pigments/acrylics on a splayed out brush, and blowing on the bristles causing the paint/pigments to splash onto the wheels. Pretty cool effect!



Here is a bit of a teaser of the work of further weathering the tank is evident. Some oils were used as well as acrylics. More to come soon!

Very impressive work Anders! The shades are very convincing.
What do you use for pin washes? your is very precise with a high contrast, and thats what i'm looking for.

Thanks
Phil.

Hello Anders,

Your Panther looks fantastic! Love the colors and weathering looks very nice so far.

Gary

Thanks guys! Nice to hear I am on the right track at least.

As for the "Pin-Washes", I didn't do any really. What I did was using Vallejo acrylics, very dilluted, I painted each 'recessed area' with a small brush. I felt the washes didn't do enough or were controllable enough for my taste. This was a little time consuming but I felt it worth the effort as it helps bring out the contrast a bit more. Also, should have added before I did the oil 'fading' of each color, I went over each color with acrylic's and highlighted all sharp areas with a very high contrast color. It was exaggerated to compensate for the following steps of weathering. At the end of the day I am not sure it did anything really, you can see it on some of the edges (nothin was drybrushed) but maybe it was a waste of time. Not sure! But I'm still relearning everything so I'm exppecting some of that.

Very nice work Anders it doesn't look as if we will be able to teach you much.

Nice work Anders..

Rick

Thank you Anders. It is much apreciated.
Phil.

Erhan,
Nice job on that tiny Panther!

Anders,
Yes a fine job you did on your Panther!

Got the second set of tracks done on the second Panther.

Cheers Rob.

This is coming along nicely Rob

Thanks Darren,
It's almost up to where the first one is, still trying to decide if I want to do camo on that one.

Cheers Rob.

Here is my finished panther, a Sturmmörser which was project to replace the Brümbar. A 150mm howitzer in the turret. I started with a previously started Tamyia kit which I took apart. Had to enlarge the turret barrel opening to accept the 150 in which I used a replacement metal barrel without the collar. E.T. anti-aircraft armour and screens, Tiger models exhaust stacks, Tamyia single link tracks. FuG 5 and 7 antennas.I wanted the model to look like that it was on trials. Thus the single colour and light weathering.