Fellow PzIV folks,
Good work on the campaign so far, plenty of excellent builds going on. I was able to get in a litle build time this weekend on my 1/76 JagdpanzerIV. Here is the current progress:



The lower half has been basically painted, since the tracks need to be mounted before the upper hull. The base has also been base-coated to prep for coming detail work and weathering. So only about 10 parts left and then the paint fest commences!

Thanks,
Stephen

You guessed it - time for another Panzer IV Beob. update - this one will finish the tank (although I hope to add 3-4 figures at some point in the near future). The first item is to paint the side skirts. I tried to portray splattered mud on the bottom edges of the skirts using putty:





And now for the hull antennas. Remember that this vehicle had 3 radio sets - one located in the turret and two in the hull. The Sternantenna (star antenna) was located on the right rear hull. The part provided in the kit had spokes that were too thick so I replaced them with thin plastic rod:



I then attached it to the rear hull plate along with the standard left rear antenna:



That finishes the tank itself. But no combat vehicle is complete without a few "accessories." The first to be added is a tow cable. For any of you who have tried to use the wire provided in the Dragon kits, you know what a frustrating experience it can be to try to get it into the right shape - virtually impossible in my experience! That's why I am so impressed with this gem of a product that I picked up in my local Michael's craft store:



It's main advantage over the wire provided in the Dragon kits is that it is easily bent into shape and retains the shape:



So I cut it to the right length and glued the tow cable ends on and painted the assembly. And then attached to the tank:







I then added a few items to the wire basket storage spaces that I made two posts ago. On the left I added two jerry cans:



On the right I added a cord of firewood (OK, that's an exaggeration) and a helmet:



And added the universal rusty pail to the rear hull:



Last item to be added is the spare antenna box, located under the schurzen brackets on the right hull side, as shown in this photo of a captured Pz. Beob:



This looks like a temporary or improvised stowage but I have another photo of an operational tank (which I unfortunately can't share with you as it is from a private collection) which shows that this was indeed where it was stored. So I scratchbuilt the part from plastic strip (this item is not included in the kit):



Made a bracket for it under the first schurzen bracket:



And then slid the box through it and glued in place:



And that's it for the tank. I will try to post pics of the figures as I complete them (although I wouldn't hold your breath). Here's some final shots:



















Thanks for a great campaign! Congrats to everyone who has finished and for all of you who are still working on your builds - keep up the good work and best of luck!

Grasshopper is done! Burnt out on armor now so I bought a BF109 to occupy my time. Some cracking builds going on in here.

After giving a grey prime I had painted it with panzer gre and gave some shadows,

I had also replace the tow cable of the kit with one made with wire,

I'm calling this one done. My contribution to the Panzerkampfwagen IV Campaign. Started this project on Dec. 1st with the intent of only building the 1/35 scale Sturmpanzer IV Brummbar (Late production model) from Dragon with some aftermarket zimmerit and schürzen.



I then decided to add some Fruilmodel Tracks I picked up a local model swap meet and contest.


And then it escalated to a whole new level. I decided to start experimenting with mold making and casting and combined the results with the current project.


And here's the finished result. My diorama called: "Verdammt Schafe!" (Damn Sheep!) Located on the Gothic Line somewhere in Northern Italy during the late summer, 1944.


The structure is scratch built from foam board, balsa, cork, tile grout and Verlinden roof tile.





The mattress was sculpted from clay and allowed to air harden before painted. The rest of the odds and ends are from the spare parts box.


Thank for looking! I truly enjoyed this campaign and found I definitely challenged myself on this build.

Brilliant! I love the concept! Great attention to detail!

—mike

Beautifully done dio. Painting and execution are outstanding and the sheep are a really nice touch. Something completely different. Top work!

That is really outstanding! Love the both the concept and the execution. But not enough sheep poop!

. Thank you .

. How were tracks to assemble ? After assembly did they want to twist and come apart ?

Luke - love your Heuschrecke! It can be really hard to get a convincing monotone paint scheme but yours is one that is very well done.

Jerry - outstanding dio! Am I to understand correctly that you molded each sheep individually? Did you sculpt the molds too? Superb work, however you did it!

This is where I'm up to today. I've just had another one arrive in the post just now so I'll make a start on zimmeritting that later today before I start putting it together. I'm going to wait until I've got both of them to the same stage so I only need to get the airbrush out once and do both of them at the same time. Hopefully I should be okay for time.

Here I show you the Panzer IV finished,

Really nice, Daniel!

Thanks Mark!!!!

Daniel: Great PzIV

Jerry that Brummbar looks awesome too.

Ready to lay down the camo pattern now...

To One and All,
Finally finished with the little 1/76 Matchbox (Revell) Jagdpanzer IV. Actually a nice little kit and not too bad considering its age.





These will be posted in the gallery as well.

JERRY: Your Brummbar came out extremely nice and the flock of sheep are great. Did you sculpt a master of the sheep and cast them, or did you use a commercial model and then modify it? Regardless, a diorama to be proud of.


Thanks,
Stephen (Minas-Ithil)

Progress update of Dicker Max.

More update pics.

Still working on getting this done in time.

Update pics:







Lighting was bad for those which is why they look yellowed.
Only made a few really minor changes to the kit. Good thing I had reference books though some of the stuff would have been unplaceable without diagrams that actually showed where things belonged instead of just an arrow pointing to the general area.

Here it is primered.. just need to get some paint on it now.

Yeah, those Dragon instructions are awesome, aren't they?

While Dragons kits are really nice detailwise their instructions are crap. Talk about vague! James, I had to do exactly the same thing when I did a DML Sdkfz 250. Surfed the net for pictures of real ones and worked from them. Ironic really, they put lots of effort into the detail of the kit but no effort into the detail of the instructions. Bizarre! Doesn't look like I'm going to get my two Stug IV's finished in time with only two days to go. I should have joined earlier I suppose but having said that I didn't need the Stugs a few months ago lol. Such is life. Some lovely builds in this campaign and I've picked up one or two ideas for future use.

I finished,:-)--<
I congratulate all the beautiful models and thanks for a great campaign.










Paweł