Nathan, I just had to drop that photo down, hope you didn't mind.. I have a couple of newer Panzer I's with the magic tracks, and they do look nice, but I decided not to rob them yet.. LOL

Now for tonights photo op. I worked on the tracks a bit the last couple of days. I first painted them a Tamiya Flat Earth. I kind of wish I'd used buff as the future and then the wash has darkened it quite a bit. I hope the dust will lighten it back up.

After Sealing the Tamiya color with Future, I used the AK Interactive Enamal Track Wash (AK 083). I brushed it on with a brush then after it dried a bit I used a paper towel bit slightly damp with thinner to remove it from the high spots.

Here is the photo.



It makes for a nicer dark area in the cracks and low spots..

and in case anyone is wondering why I'm using a lot of AK stuff with the build, well the reason is when I placed my order for the modulation set, I kinda dropped a few other items in my cart..

Delbert

Delbert, some wear and tear on those tracks, and they'll look great.
Joel

Joel..

yep I think so. got a ways to go on the tracks i'm only on step 2... the wash.. next is dust then metal wear..

Delbert

Mental wear!!

Process continue...

Gave it some streaks and drybrushing, but kinda don't know what needs done now! Or is enough, enough?


I know the kit figures aren't supposed to be any good, but Ive never done any before so I thought I would at least try them. I cut the legs off the officer & hollowed out the legs of his shorts. Colours are just a guess'n'mix from whatever Vallejo I had to hand. That's as much detail as I can do as I've realised I need some smaller brushes for this! Same with the other guys arms - temporarily pinned back on, and a blob of blu tack under the helmet. I might even get as far as a very simple diorama with the right encouragement, but I haven't a clue what to do - in terms of theme / layout. Any guidance would be gratefully received.
Cheers,
Pete

Pete. Looks pretty good to me and your figures are a lot better than my first ones..


was playing with the tracks, added some pigments to part for a test run.. fixed em in place and added some steel from an artist pencil inside and some dark steel pigment (AK) to the outside here is a photo of what i have so far.



Delbert

Pete, looks pretty good as it is. Not every piece of German armor needs to be beaten to death with extreme weathering and a ton of wear and tear.

Delbert, those tracks are looking real good. I've been thinking of buying some artist color pencils for detailing/weathering, and after seeing your tracks, will be getting some to finish up my M26 Pershing.
Joel

Artists' colored pencils are great - I think all of us should have a set! I use them for adding scratches and tiny chips, accenting details and shadows, etc. A plain old #2 graphite pencil is super useful on the tracks for rendering bare metal on cleats, etc.


Del; those tracks look nice... Little hi-lighting goes a long way!

Pete; I'll echo others: not every piece of German armour needs to be beaten within an inch of its life! Looks very nice right the way you have it!

Bob

Pete, if you have some weathering powders, you can add some dust effects to the lowers. In particular the rubber road wheels seem to be more dirty or lighter coloured on the contact surface compared to it's sides. See photos below:





One other point, I'm pretty sure the main gun of the Panzer II was left in natural gun metal colour, and not painted like the rest of the vehicle.

regards,
Jack

thanks guys,

here is an update on the Panzer IB, I added some of the light shades, then more of the dark base to tone it down (I got it too light in places), and then did my future coat.

The future kind of brings out the different tones at the moment. so here is the photo.



not to bad I think considering I'm breaking new ground for myself.
Delbert

Hey guys and gals,

Getting down to the wire on this. Please make sure that you are "enlisted" and you upload finished pics to the gallery.

Keep up the good work folks!

Uh oh!

When's the deadline on this thing? I still have to throw paint (maybe Friday or this weekend...). I sorta figured I was good until about the end of DEC!

Any chance that I'll be able to get that time, if things are actually planned for ending earlier?

Otherwise... it'll be whatever I get it to!

Bob

The dead line is Dec. 31st so you still have a few weeks to play.

Bob, the official deadline listed is 12/31/12. That still gives you 2 1/2 wks to finish up.

Joel

Whew!

Thought my "goose" was cooked (or rather that it was going to have to come outta the oven somewhat under-done!), for a minute, there

Hmmmm. Maybe I better stick with getting it near to the paint and AB this weekend, anyway.

When timelines get short, the tough get crackin' - us procrastinators just sort of slink away!

Thanks! for the clarification.

Bob

Ok everyone..

Here are a couple of in progress photos.. I've been working on adding dirt to the running gear and lower hull area, and started some of the detail painting and used a filter..

The color to me has a bit of variance, and not a monotone looking color.. which is what I'm aiming for.

I'm sure it will change some more as I work on it.





and yep it seems like time is running out. and I really want to finish this one. :>
laters
Delbert

been pretty quiet, hope everyone is doing ok in their builds.

I'll just post another one of my updates.. getting close and personal with the camera, and not afraid to show my mistakes..

The build is coming along ok. some parts of the finish are a little rough, but I think I can bring them around. I've never had much luck with panzer gray vehicles, they always come out too monotone, but I think this one isn't so bad..

got some details painted, a little weathering, after a filter, wash and some streaking grime.. here is the photo.



the gun barrels are painted black and then I used AK interactives dark steel pigment on them..

later everyone and good luck with those who are working on finishing like me..

Delbert

Delbert. It's really starting to take on it's own personality. The exhaust and tools really look good. And the weathering is starting to bring it to life.

Joel

Delbert, yes looking really good. I see an edge to red number decal. To fix this give the area a gloss coat, and once it has cured, lightly sand the area in question. You'll likely have to give it another gloss coat after the sanding.

regards,
Jack

Oh, Boy! Stuff is getting done and little tanks are, well, looking like little close-to-done tanks! Cool!

Del; It's looking pretty nice. When you get some flat over that to dull all down some, it will be one sharp little panzer!

After a bit more procrastinating and navel-examination, I've managed to make some progress. High time, seeing as we have scant weeks to go! But what's like a little pressure and closing deadlines to prod action, hmmm?

So here's where things are at on my Pz II A/B/C France 1940 build...

Sunday I painted those tracks and graphited link edges, and painted the road-wheels a black primer coat followed by ModelMaster Schwartzgrau for the base-coat. I then graphited metal edges that (I think) would get worn during running...



After I graphited those wheels, I remembered that I was going for the regulation brown-on-gray paint-scheme in effect in May, 1940... So consider this a sort of practice-run

Sunday nite saw the completion of the hull and turret build. It's now a tiny panzer (albeit no add-ons done yet). Aside from the RB metal 2cm barrel, I did a few tiny bits with scrap tin to make clasp-handles on tools, and a bit of sprue-welds and little loops on the mud-guards. Otherwise, this is pretty OOTB. Tamiya makes a NICE, clean kit. It was a great build experience!





Late Sunday nite, the panzer got a coat of Floquil engine black RR enamel for a primer - pre-shade.



Monday I loafed and procrastinated...

Last nite (Tues) I set up the booth again and shot a base-coat of ModelMaster Schwartzgrau, ate supper, and shot a 1/3 camo coat of ModelMaster Schokoladenbraun. I know, I know - this is not the correct brown, but it looks pretty dark and subtle! I'll go with it.

I remembered after putting stuff away to do some wheels to capture a couple of brown ones for each side... Glad to be able to say getting the booth set back up and AB into gear is pretty fast!

Here's the panz taken with flash...



And here without flash... The brown certainly sits down into the gray nicely, and should please at least those who argue for a dark over dark and low-color-contrast appearance!



And that's where things stand as of 10 pm Weds nite! I PLAN on shooting some numbers and insignia using stencils followed by a light dust-wash with a dilute Tamiya acryl mix tomorrow nite, along with maybe some tool painting... Sound ambitious? Nah. Just manifestation of a growing awareness that I have little time left for this and a lot of other stuff to do in the next couple of weeks - so...

Gottagetherdone!

Bob

Another update.

Got some more weathering done on the Panzer IB, got the filter done, and a wash using the Ak products. I decided to dirty this one up as my of the photos show these covered with road dust and dirt. I'm using some pigments so they should become more subdued after the flat coat, did a 2nd future over the number decals to improve their looks.

Its not the greatest, but I have been trying next things and I have learned quite a bit. and will say I am liking a panzer gray vehicle for the first time..

One of my mistakes was that I assembled one side of the tracks going the wrong direction and had to turn em around and work on making them fit. I broke several links so I will be grabbing some links out of one of my other kits to replace em.. These are the first german indi link tracks I've built, the only other ones I've done was a set of Sherman's.

anyways here is the photo.



Delbert

Del;

Hey! Dunkelgrau can look good!

I'm sorry to learn that you put one track on reversed - and then took it off! Too bad I didn't get on before you fixed things! One of the really cool aspects of the Pz 1A and 1B tanks is that they had cotter-pinned tracks... and it was possible to put them on running either direction without risking losing track pins, unlike with larger and later panzers. There is a lot of photo documentation, starting from 1935 and those first "ohne-aufbau" driver-training 1A tanks, to show that these machines often had their tracks on "backwards". One of my fav pics from a ref shows a driver-training vehicle with a crew doing track-servicing... and they are installing one track backwards! If it happened in school, one can be sure it happened in the field (and it did).

What's really cool, and might have mattered in your case, is that there are many pics around to show one run going each way!

My personal thought, though, is that this, while historically-plausible, would not want to appear on most show tables without a doc pic right on hand with arrows and paragraphs and stuff! I plan to do just this with a 1A kit.

On your panz; I see that you have plenty of dirt up on the lower hull-side behind the road-gear. But the road-gear, and in particular, that girder between bogies and on the outside, looks less dirty. Seems that that girder would collect dirt just as much as the hull-side?

Overall, looks like a fine build, and yes, DG can look pretty cool!

Bob

Good Info Bob, and I'm aware of the dirt issue, a lot rubbed off while I was working on getting the track to fit, I plan to reapply some more after I finish that part.. I am using on of Jacks photos for inspiration.

Delbert