Hey there,

Last week I had the pleasure of finishing up a review right here on Armorama on Dragon’s Ersatz M10 in 1/72 scale. Not the most power packed of kits; it is still an interesting subject and a fun box of plastic!

Review: https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/9052

So after looking through the box and writing the review I figure what better time than now to build! Starting a couple days ago the glue came out. Being a low parts count the construction would be quick…just the way I like it!! Means I can get to painting faster !!

Not wanting to waste too much time I will bring you up to speed on where this “in between” build is at!!

All of the pictures of the kit parts are contained in the Review so I will not take too much time on the parts end of this. But I will start with some box art!!



This moves pretty quickly here and it is a small kit and I had a little time to spare.





There is a few modifications that I decided to make as I went along. I probably could have went to town on this but the idea was not to bog myself down on a long term conversion type build but rather to get painting and work with some weathering.

The kit came with the Panther G rear plate having the exhaust installed; however, the pipes were not drilled out. There were three other exhaust options, for other kits, in the box. One of which was the right size and was drilled out. Time to chop and glue.



This is going to seem kind of funny but once the wheels are cleaned up things are pretty much all together.



Some more modifications I felt need to be to be addressed. The lift rings throughout this kit were all solid and molded directly to the upper hull. A quick snip and some small gauge wire resolved this issue. The lift rings on the upper rear plate as well as the plates on the side of the turret were thicker on the real tank being made from flat stock steel; some white styrene solved this one.



The thought of this kit not having a ton of details on or in the kit is more than valid; however, this tank was a stripped down Panther G with faux armor applied and really was not much more than what is depicted.

The kit was lacking screening for the intakes. Using some Thule and a sharp razor, this was easily rectified. There was probably slat cover plates over the right hand side vents as well as some screening over the fans but I chose to go without. The fan screening was problematic at best. This is where Dragon could have stepped up and supplied a thin screening material for the vents. The slat cover plates for the other vents…let’s chalk that up to, I think they were removed while they made modifications!! Works for me!



After all that, I decide to remove the vision blocks that were molded solid form to the upper hull. A small chunk of styrene and a couple of snips of PE sheet remnants this was pretty much done. You will notice a small flat plate on the front of the tank. This was a small opening for the Panther’s MG. The door was fashioned from a flat piece of sheet metal and a chain was used to open and close this door. You will also notice the two notches against each front fender at the bottom of the Glacis plate. These were small cutouts for the tow rings. Unfortunately, tow rings were not supplied with this kit. I will be stealing at least one from another kit I have lying around!





After a couple hours of work, spread out over a couple days, the construction was complete. TIME TO PAINT!! Did I mention I like to PAINT? LOL!! Even more so, I like to weather…so the fun for me is starting!!

Last night I had to just PAINT!! I broke out the AK Dark Yellow primer. This tank was painted with the German equivalent to the US OD coloring. Dark Yellow was a good starting point for me.



Not letting the grass grow at all under my feet I went right at some pre-shading. I stole the 4BO Dark Base from my AK modulation set and laid down the shade.



I used Olive Green from K4 for the next highlight on this tank.



After that I used K4’s Olive drab for some more highlighting throughout.



Finally I finished this off with some Life Color Green from their German Camo Set. I think this will work just fine for the weathering soon to come!



So there you have it, paint is done on the Ersatz M10. I will be hitting a touchup or two and need to work the tracks and Decs of course, then on to some of the funs stuff…weathering!!! Back at this after a little yard work today!!

Thanks for tuning in!!!

Hey T, nice job so far. The "little" extra work you did went a long way to improve the build. So far, the paint work looks great. Nice modulation with the colors.

Thanks Bob! Fairly new this braille scale is to me but it seems to be moving along OK. Having some fun playing around!!

Todd I have added a link to this build at the end of the review.

Thanks Darren!!

I have the 1/35 version of the Ersatz and I had a question on what did the Germans use to make Olive Drab? Did they somehow get cans of the real thing (captured supplies etc) or did they mix up there own from their RLM/RAL collection of colors - colours (I was born in Canada)? I was wondering what the collective thought was on this. Could be I am AMS'ing and just using good old Olive Drab is enough.

Cheers


Oh - looking good there

I suspect they were painted using the standard green used in their own 3 colour camouflage.

Thank Robb!!

Good question too. Think Darren is on to it if you ask me.

or

They may have just mixed colors to match the captured vehicles. Would be easy enough even in a field application.

When you factor in mud, dirt, and snow on top of the green, and the fact they weren't trying to fool anyone at very close ranges, the German dark green probably served their purpose well enough.

I see that you worked very hard on this,
and the fished product looks very good.
But this kit had Too Many short comings.
I can only Asume that you have not seen this review.....
http://www.network54.com/Forum/47210/message/1364017243/Dragon%27s+New+Ersatz+M10+%28Pic+Heavy%29

Or this Up-Grade which would have great helped you on this build.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/47210/message/1365952927/Ersatz+++%26quot%3Bthe+Resurection%26quot%3B+%28Up-Dated+19-42%29

As you can see in this Up-Grade, I have opened all the hatches, corrected the "lack" of the Bow MG, as well as replacing all the solid lifting points.

Thanks for posting your review and your upgrade! Nice work Kenneth. A fair amount of work you added...you could almost package it yourself and sell it!!

I think we are all in agreement that the kit is lacking a number of key details including the open hatches, trap door for the MG and crisper bolt details.

With that said I think it is a fair kit for the weekend modeler and even someone as myself that merely dabbles in the braille world.

The work I put into this so far was only about 2 hours of playing around! I love to paint and weather...wherever and whenever I can. So this being a "quick-banger" of a kit I was able to break out the AB and now some weathering to keep the fingers moving.

I think that with "some" of these Armor Pro series kits it might be best to pick them up in bulk at a local show for about 5 bucks each and get busy like you did!! Low money, Big Fun!!

I wish I could say it was done, alas, not yet. I have some progress pics and will be playing around with more of it tonight. I figure I will be done in a day or so....I think! LOL!!

Here is what I have been up to.


Decs are on.







The tracks were a bit wonky to install. But they are in. I managed to get a filter on her as well as a pin wash...a little streaking.





I will be getting the tracks dirty and some more weathering to come...almost there!

Thanks for swinging by!!

I think I will call this one done. A quick fix that I needed to feed the painting monster.













Had a some fun messing around with this one. These small kits, albeit not the most detailed sometimes, are still great to play with, experiment with and generally work well at filling a void when you need to just build something!

Thanks for checking it out!!

Great paint job on that little thing Todd!

Thank you BJ!!! It's because its green isn't it? LOL!!!

Well, that MIGHT have something to do with it, LOL

Nice finish for the little beastie. I imagine it's a whole different world trying to do a proper weathering job on something that small.

Thanks Bob!! Pretty much the same, but you guessed it, smaller. Mud splatter; narrower brush with thinner consistancy...toothpick splinter for fine chipping and so forth...basically tried to cut everything in half!