@Braille - Eddy,

Trust me when I tell you that there isn't much in the "office end" (or anywhere else) that differs too much from the 1/35 version. I saw a Blog on a French site that I used as reference during this build but I'll be darned if I can't find it now!

As for other versions of the PaK 40 in Braille scale, I can only comment on the ones that I've built. I'll try to dig up my ESCI version from the "archive" storage and see about a photo with the three kits together. From what I've read and seen, the Dragon kit is the only one with the multi piece shield. The others all have the rather thick one piece kind.

You'll have to be careful with the macro filters. My set came with a 1X, 2X and 4X but I generally use the 4X for detail shots. You can "stack" them in combinations so you have magnification from 1X up to 7X. Due to their optics you will get some distortion on the extreme outer edges of the picture. Also note that the higher the magnification, the closer the end of the lens needs to be to the subject.

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With this instalment I'm just about ready for paint on the gun. There is a bit of clean-up to do on some light seams and in the pictures, the wheels and gun/cradle are still not attached (glued) as this will make it easier to paint.

The last part to be attached was the lower carriage shield. If the gun is posed in the firing position, this part should be attached vertically. If you want to display the gun in the towed orientation, it should be attached Horizontally. The instructions don't make this clear in the least.

In my case the shield needed to be "dropped" but I found that the pins in the upper carriage shield were too long and the slots/cuts in the lower were too shallow. This resulted in the separation between these two parts having a significant and noticeable gap on the order of or greater than .6mm where ideally it should be no more than about .15 to .2mm. Trimming, deepening and getting everything even took the better part of two hours.

One quick note before the pictures. As luck would have it my camera battery exhausted as I wanted to take these last images. I used (with permission) my SWMBO's DSLR. As my camera is usually set for taking model pictures, her settings and mine differ quite a bit.







That's it for now and I hope to have at least a base coat on this gun in a day or so. Might also start on a figure or two if there is interest!

Cheers,
Jan

Looks real nice.

I know I have interest in seeing the figs in there. But you're the one that has to have the interest in adding the figs

DISCLAINER - This is an extremely new endeavour for me and I just want to make clear that I am not in any way a knowledgeable figure builder/painter (beginner might be an appropriate term). My only experience with figures has been with pre-formed ones, an old Fujimi figure kit and a recent Zvezda figure set (all Braille).

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Well Marc, thanks for your vote of confidence in the figure endeavour. You are a deafening crowd of one! Maybe I should either start a separate Blog or take this over to the Figures Forum here or Historicus Forma! Well, lets see what happens.

For this instalment, I am going to start with "Figure C," the fellow that looks like he's about to ram a shell into the breach. There are five figures and they are noted on the sprues as 'A' through 'E' and each has a base made up of six parts (head, torso, arms, legs).

First observation, there are some nasty sprue attachment points. Many are thick and also in bad locations that make cleanup tedious and time consuming. The instructions for the crew (if you dare to call them that) are just pictures of the completed figure with a line from a point on the figure leading to a part number.

I chose to do the legs first. There are absolutely NO alignment features and you have to eyeball parts orientation and positioning. The fit of the legs on figure 'C' was less than stellar, leaving a gap at the front and rear that will need filling.





The upper torso wasn't quite as bad but sanding of the leg part was needed to level things.







You can see in the above three pictures that I also added the canteen and bread bag. The observant will also notice that the arm attachment points still need some work due to the large sprue gate that they were attached to.

Cheers,
Jan

Awesome! You're taking on the figures!!!
We can make that a crowd of 2 cheering you on now.

For what it's worth, I can't remember a figure yet on which the leg parts didn't need some filling and sanding work.

This guy's lookin'good so far.

@tread_geek – Jan,

You can do this, you can do it! We all crawled before learning to walk and then to run. My father use to say "Stop crying, falling down is half the fun!" So break a leg and get some experience under your belt with these figures. I’m watching you!

~ Eddy

Well, a reaction to these little Teutonic representations! Thanks Mike and Eddy! I think that I'll need all the encouragement and help I can get. As you two have been so kind, I'll forego waiting until tomorrow to show what I've accomplished today.

To fill the gaping "wounds" in the lower torso I used DecoArt's Texture called "Terra Cotta." Mixed it with water to almost the consistency of regular paint and using a #10 brush, worked it into the gaps. It took two applications and a bit of smoothing with fine sandpaper (did I mention working on these sized figures is tedious). I added the ammo pouches and entrenching tool after all was done.





Now in the picture below you'll notice the one ammo pouch looks askew. That's because that's they way it's portrayed in the instructions and virtually the only way it would fit. Oh, almost forgot, I added the head and it fit perfectly despite a bad sprue gate on the forehead.



To prove my point to any doubters, below are the figure "instructions." Note: Figure 'C' is the last two on the top row.



Again, thanks for the encouragement and lets keep our fingers crossed.

Cheers,
Jan

Jan,

If you look back in this thread you'll see I voted for you to at least try a figure so we could get an idea what they are like. So, YIPPEE, you've given one a try. Its hard to wrap my head around the size of these figures as the pictures don't show the real size. BTW, the Pak looks super and congrats on beating what appears to be not the easiest of kits, especialy in this scale. Is it too forward of me to ask to see the figure next to the gun? Since the Fujimi and this kit are almost the same size, it would give some a better appreciation of the size.

Thanks,
AJ

@weathering_one - AJ,

Thanks for your support by leaving a comment and as for your request, see below.

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Just a bit of work with this instalment. I decided to start another figure while glue on the other dried. It's Figure 'A', who is either the gun commander or a spotter. Just the lower torso/legs so far but the fit of these was much better than the Figure 'C' one.





Now back to the first figure. I got the last of his equipment on, including a weapon. While the instructions call for the use of a 98K rifle I decided to give him a Gewehr 43. You have to see (with appropriate vision enhancers) the detail on these equipment pieces to believe how superbly moulded they are! The gas mask container even has the appropriate ribbed texture on its side and even the lid closing clasp.

BTW, these photos were taken with the 4X macro filter installed on a 200mm lens. IIRC, that adds up to about a 7+X magnification on a figure that is one inch (2.54cm) tall. To aid in seeing what still needs to be tidied up I put a couple of light washes of Tamiya Khaki at a 25% paint to 75% thinner ratio.







Finally, here's the shot of the mostly assembled figure with the gun.



Painting the figures will be a new experience and for the first figure I may try the method in Alex Clark's Small Scale Armour Modelling book.

Cheers,
Jan

You are garnering more support for your figures as you move along. Soon you will look like Forest Gump leading the pack of runners

I am impressed with the detail Dragon has put in the 1/72 figures. And you are doing a fine job on this one. A question though... Would a guy working on a gun crew have a rifle slung over hos back? I would think that would be flopping around like crazy. But never having been a loader on a Pak 40 in the war I may be talking out my... well... you know.

@wing_nut - Marc,

I appreciate that I'm getting some support for these figures from the community but I hardly think that I'll be leading any pack, or should that be PaK!




As I've mentioned ad nauseum, these figures are truly unbelievable in their detail. I showed the more or less built first figure to the local IPMS chapter president and he was stunned. He's a loooong time small scale builder and has at least seen these figures on a sprue but never one assembled. He's seen Preiser figures but feels these Dragon ones are definitely superior. I have three boxes of Preisers but they have always intimidated me. Having a look at them today, they don't seem quite as impressive when compared to the Dragon ones.

Your statement about the armed crew seems logical and gives food for thought. However, in looking through a few books and of course Google Images, the practice is not universal but definitely is documented. With this set we can surmise from the poses and their suggested locations that the situation is one of urgency and first and foremost their intention is to send a round down range to engage a target. Your mileage on this "story" theme may vary.

And lets not forget the following:

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...


I am proposing that this gun and it's crew is located on the Eastern Front and it is late 1943 or early 1944. In their desperate situation, and this being the Russian Front, the crew feels more secure keeping their personal weapons handy. If the gun were in action in a prepared emplacement they'd most likely also have an infantry covering force. Besides, it just looks cooler having those beautifully detailed small arms adorning the figures.

One last point, and I hope Dragon is listening, please make some purely figure sets available to the Braille Scale community. And, please don't limit the nationality to only Germans.

Cheers,
Jan

All valid points. And to be honest I had a feeling there was something you were going on for a ref to them keeping their weapon very, very lose by.

Your italicized statement is one I know and love.

And... with the appropriated hand gesture ...

This is my rifle
This is my gun
This is for fighting
This is for fun

Jan, I too feel that Dragon needs to release more figures especially in seperate sets but, I think Dragon has given up on figures in Braille. I've wondered how these figures would work in Dragon's Hummell.
Charlie

Check out Preiser. I've used their 144th figs which are nothing short of amazing. They have a bunch of 1/72 sets that look like they should work in lots if situations.


http://www.reynaulds.com/catalog/dept_366.aspx

@nikon1 - Charlie,

I'm not sure if Dragon has given up on Braille figures or they just think that the market isn't ready yet for them. Many people will comment that they'd like to see them but would they actually buy and build them! In this scale they are almost an art form in their own right and not necessarily that easy to build and paint.

As for use with a Hummel, there might be one of these sets that could be usable. IIRC, one of the sets that comes with a Tiger (or the Panther) actually has eight figures with four standing and four sitting. The PaK 40 set might have perhaps two figures that would fit into the Hummel's crew compartment. The only issue I see is that they all have their legs fairly well splayed and that might cause a fit problem when placing them in the fighting compartment.

@wing_nut - Marc,

The Preiser figures don't look as daunting as they originally did after trying these Dragon ones. I have the German Panzer Crew ones, US Modern Tankers and US Modern Infantry. Unfortunately, they aren't easy to find in my area and the last set I ordered took almost three months to arrive.

==============================================

Work on my figures is temporarily suspended due to figure A's left arm becoming the victim of a tweezer-pult incident. I am all but dismantling and cleaning the work area trying to find the errant arm. This figure is important as I believe he is the gun commander.

Cheers,
Jan

YIPPEE...YAHOO...SHAZBAT...!!!!!, "I" found the far flung arm!!!! Needless to say, the work room got a thorough cleaning and so did my work table. Hmmm, I always wondered where that SU-152 main hatch went.

Now for those that like a good story about these disappearing parts, was it on the floor or the table! Neither, in the most remarkable circumstance, the arm flew a good six and a half feet (2 metres) towards my SWMBO's work area and landed in her paint storage box that was sitting on the floor. To make matters crazier, she accidentally discovered it while rearranging her paints prior to going to her painting club meeting. Moral to this story, never give up unless your work area has shag carpeting.

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With his limb found the Unterfeldwebel (sergeant) figure could take shape. The upper torso fit fairly well and the arm just needed a bit of sanding to sit flat. As with the last figure, the head fit perfectly.





Since this one has a pistol holster I'm not sure if he should have another weapon. Next will be the rest of his gear, the right arm and binoculars.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,
Jan

Jan, Great build blog. Being a Braille scaler myself, I really appreciate all the labor intensive effort that goes into these microscopic works. I agree with the others, the figures are really complimenting the Pak build. I eagerly await your next installment. Regards, Bill.

@panzerman! - Bill,

Thanks for the comment and I'm glad that you are finding this thread useful. The gun alone should be quite eye catching by itself but I think that the figures just might take it up a notch (providing I can do justice to them with my still developing painting skills).

I don't recall seeing any of your posts in this forum but I hope that you might join us small scalers here more often.

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The 'A' figure build is now complete, except for his helmet, The right arm and the rest of his gear went on without any major issues (other than handling these tiny parts).

With the equipment sprues you get all kinds of goodies. Including five holsters (two sizes), one binocular and four binocular cases. Showing how unobservant one can be, I totally missed that the figure 'A' already had a pair of binoculars in his hand (here I was all prepared to cut the pair on the sprue for placement in his hand). The only issue one has with the equipment is with the entrenching tool. The sprue gate attaching it to the part actually overlaps two sides. It isn't the easiest process to clean this up due to the size and the delicate nature of the handle.

Anyway, here's a few shots of the figure with the PaK so you can see the relative sizes compared to each other.









At present I was thinking of only using three of the five figures to appear on a base. That still may be the way I go but perhaps I should build all the figures just for continuity in this thread.

Cheers,
Jan

@tread_geek – Jan,

Glad you manage to find that ‘bitty’ left arm. The close up photographs that you’ve posted are great as they show the high degree of detail on these small-scaled figures. Just in saying, if this log was not posted in the Braille forum they could easily pass for 35th scale figures, something that cannot be said about other figures in this scale photographed close up under magnification.

The Dragon kits with figures that I ordered just arrived this past Thursday and I just have had enough time to open the boxes and check them out, these figures are totally awesome. And yes, the second set of the Kingtiger and figures series comes with 8 standing figures. I agree with Charles ‘nikon1’ Martin, in that Dragon should consider releasing figure only sets encompassing all of the worlds combatants not just German figures although the WWII German subjects are by and far the most popular.

TIP: Jan, a technique that I often use for getting rid of the gaps on these small subjects is to place a small amount of Squadron putty on a small tin and add drops of Testors liquid cement directly to the putty and mix this with a small paint brush. The consistency of the mixture is like that of condensed milk but a little more watery. Apply this mixture directly to the gaps with a small paintbrush (No. 1) and allow the putty to partially solidify. I keep a separate jar of Testors on hand just for this purpose (because it will become contaminated with putty). This technique can also be used on gaps that are hard to reach with sand paper or sanding tools on any model kit.

With a clean brush moistened with the liquid cement remove the excess putty. After your happy with the amount remaining go and blend in the putty into the surrounding area cleaning the brush and dampening it in the liquid cement as you go until you are satisfied. Use light amounts of cement to keep it from softening the plastic. When dry the cement will take on a shinny finish that you could easy get rid of using #0000 steel wool (found at hardware store in the painting section). If the gaps are very small you could just go and use Tamiya’s thin liquid cement. Make sure you are doing this in a well-ventilated room!

Keep at it, this is exciting and the end result will be rewarding I’m sure,
~ Eddy

Figs taking shape. Looking good too.

Jan,

Haven't dropped in for a bit and I must say those figures are fabulous. I agree with Eddy, they look a much larger scale. Also, nice to see the last Picts with the figure next to the gun.

Regards,
AJ

@Braille - Eddy,

Thanks for the comments and I always try to give as magnified a picture as suitable so that anyone can readily see what they might be dealing with. Your comment about a Tiger II with eight standing figures has me perplexed. I truly believed that the one with eight figures had four sitting! Which kit are you specifically talking about?

As for your tip, I got it noted in my "Tips" folder that I keep. I might have some Squadron putty lying around but all my cements are Tamiya. What I've een using s the DecoArt texture medium called Stucco. As it's acrylic is thins with water and can produce a very fine and thin "paste" that behaves like Mr. Surfacer. I apply that with a 10/0 brush and so far it needs very little sanding.

@wing_nut + weathering_one - Thanks for the comments. To you and others that might read this, I'll be slowing down on this build a bit. I'm in two campaigns that finish at the end of this month so the PaK and figures will have to share build time with a Panther D and a Neubau-Fahrzeug. If you check out the latters' Blog you can see the second figure base coated.

Cheers,
Jan

Jan, the Tigers with the 8 figures both seated and standing feature Falschurmjaegers. I have all sets of figures from Dragon, both WWII Germans and modern US and British (diorarmor) and all figures are well detailed.
Charlie

@Charlie,

Thanks for the info about the eight figure set but US and British figures??? Are you talking 1/72? If so, could you provide more info on these?

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As I mentioned earlier, these updates will be slowing down but I found a few spare minutes while working on a couple of other things. I'm not at all sure about what I'm doing but I decided to try my hand at seeing if I could effectively paint these smallish figures. For this experiment I used the loader figure. Not a whole lot done but all the helmets are painted a feldgrau (a few shades each) and one is attached to the loader. I added a bit of NATO black to a few details just to see if I could do it and am using the three flesh tones that ModelMaster puts out to see if I can do the skin areas.

In these pictures the two objects below the figure are a US (left) and Canadian (right) one cent coins.







I'm dreading trying to paint all the straps on this guy. Comments or suggestions welcome.

Cheers,
Jan

@tread_geek – Jan,

Are you strictly using acrylics on your figures? If this is the case you could give them a very light transparent wash of odorless Turpenoid / burnt umber oil paint mixture (not noticeable enough when applied until dry) to add a touch of darkness to the recesses and wrinkles on the clothing.

This wash provides for some depth and helps to blend in the straps and tie in the separations between the colors. after allowing the wash to dry for about 1/2 hour you’ll need to go back and remove any excess wash with ear swabs and paint brush lightly dampened in odorless Turpenoid (a Turpenoid substitute - not as strong as straight Turpenoid). Give the figures a protective coating of Future / Kleer floor wax via the airbrush prior to the wash.

~ Eddy

Looking Good, Keep at it. Remember at this scale less is more. Really can't paint a 1/72 figure the same as a 1/35 one. The effort will pay off...a crewed artillery piece looks alot more realistic than one without. Regards, Bill.