I got this kit from my son and I am going to use it as a basis for a groupbuild around the (infamous) whitewash-subject at Twenot.nl whitewash FOC with my entry, which is basically the progress I am showing here as well.
So far I gathered a good handfull of spareparts from the sparesbox in order to exchange the not so great parts from the original kit. I do not want to spend tons of cash on it, because a) it is a cheap and low standard (by today's standards anyway) kit, b) many details will or might become hidden by snow and c) superdetailing is not the focus of the exercise here.
The first thing I did was replacing the kit sprockets and idlerwheels with Dragonparts ( I guess, because of the light grey colour). I could not use the similar roadwheels and returnrollers, because I had to few of the latter and not enough hubs for the first. Not that it would matter all that much in the end, though.
Replacing the idlers and especially the sprockets required a bit of surgery and the latter are fixed in place as a result of that, but the overall fit is good. This applies also to the standard kitparts so far...

After initial good progress I started coming across problems with the fitting of the hullpanels. The back, the sides, the front.... all showed gaps and it proved quite troublesome to get them to align and closed up.
At this point at decided to try out a completely new technique to me; making weldlines, using stretched sprue and glue.
The idea is to soften up the plastic strands with the glue, put them in place and then, using a hollow needle, press in the shape of the weldbeads. That was easier said than done and for some reason I found that quite hard. If I waited to long the glue would dry out. Was I to fast than the plastic would not be soft enough. It was a balancingact between time and quantities of glue used. I also noticed that Tamiyasprues (orange) worked a little better than Dragon's (grey). But with those weldlines in place the gaps were effectively filled and hidden.





The rest of the build was a pretty straight forward build....meaning I did not encounter any more major issues, except for the hunting and gathering of spareparts and the fixing of minor issues, such as the hatches. The driver's and co-driver's hatch had some smaller hatches on top of them, yet I could find no references for those. So I removed them. The commander's hatch was an overly simplified specimen, lacking details and showing a major ejectormark, smack in the middle. By this time I had decided to have one figure, so the lid would be open. I carved away all the "details" and made my own; 3 locking arms and a leather cushion.
I thought the turret looked a little empty, so I added a socalled Fliegerbeschussgerät. The arm was broken and took some work to get fixed and I spent quite some time looking for the ammobag! I knew I had it somewhere, but finding it....

The mg with the part (ammobag) in question.


Getting all the other details in the right place took a while too. The locations in the instructions are incorrect and a good deal of the tools shown are incorrect too.
Just for fun I added a real metal towingcable, which resembles the springyness of the real deal quite nicely.
The rest of the build was pretty straight forward, but a bit fiddly, because I let the armored plates off, which will be added after the paintingstage. This did require a bit of measuring and dryfitting to ensure they will fit afterwards. I'll have to add brackets for holding the tracks in place as well.
At this point I am thinking of adding some more tracks to the front and maybe a jerrycanrack to the quite naked looking rear. Maybe I'll toss in a few more antennae and make it a commandtank!

Guess it require a lots of work to get it going but good for practice and save urself few bucks.
Looking forward to it!

Hi Leon, isn't that the purpose of it all?
A kit that just falls together in one evening would absolutely not do it for me.
I like a challenge....

Looks good so far. I like your technique of using stretched sprue for weld seams. I think I had made this one before under the Testors label. The turret schurzen would stay on. I ended up shooting it with my bb gun which was pretty fun. I'm keeping one schurzen side as a test bed.

My Panzer 4 has become a Panzerbefehlswagen IV!
I thought the panzer still looked kind of naked, not done. so I added some more bits and bobs, since I was not really pleased with the overall looks. I added pieces of track to ther front, wires to the headlights, antennae on rear and turretroof and a jerrycanrack to the rear. So now my panzer 4 has become a Befehlspanzer IV.
I also added the turretarmor and you might notice that the right handside is too low. During the curingstage that side started to sag and I noticed it when everything had set.
Additional extras like a box between hull and plates and helmets on the turretarmor will be added after the paintingstage. And that will actually be my biggest challenge!!
Since the purpose of this build is to create a whitewash I was planning like this:
Yellow paint
clear gloss and decals
lining in
flat clear
white paint and details in different colours.
clear gloss
weathering (don't know how yet?)
flat clear

Great work on a great old kit. It has all the basics and just needs some care and cluttering up. Which you have done very nicely!

Painting has begun!
First I painted it all Tamiya Red Brown, because I had no other proper primer...


The whole thing went from red brown to dark yellow to semigloss white, along with some washes.
I have to say that this whole procedure is completely new to me. Never done stuff like preshading or white paint before, so I was a little nervous.
The first thing I did was to spray paint the tank matt yellow (mistake 1) in such a way that it would remain darker at the bottom and in shady areas. I was given advice not to apply the clear directly onto the model, since that might turn out wrong, so I had to paint it all over again, covering the dark brown more than I liked. A mix of dark yellow and buff in 4:1. I used a mix of Tamiya's dark yellow and semigloss clear thinned down in a ratio of about 3:4:2. This did dry out quite flat. Not as glossy as I had hoped!
Next I applied some brown washes. I happened to have some of Mig's still stashed away. Flow was not as I hoped, so I ended up cleaning more afterwards than applying the washes themselves. The "normal" brown wash was used on the upper surfaces, the dark brown one for the running gear and deeper depressions. I did only cover the entire surface of 2 or 3 armorplates just to see how that would turn out.




I left it all to dry and proceeded with the next fase; white paint. I actually dislike using white from my figurepainting, remembering how hard it was to get the pigments to cover the surfaces.
I started by mixing the white, glossy paint directly with some more semigloss in a ratio of 3:1 and added a dash of thinner to make it more milky... Whilst stirring I noticed the most peculiar thing; bubbles of air and paint, floating in the thinner... I checked the thinner used and noticed immediately I had used the wrong one; white spirit instead of Tamiya's!! Ow damn!!
Luckily the white spirit remained pretty much on the surface, so I removed as much as possible of it. I then added Tamiya's thinner and mixed it all properly, hoping it would turn out ok. I was pretty much out of white (Tamiya)paint...
It turned out rather well, yet again not as glossy as I had hoped. Somewhere between satin and glossy... Coverage was pretty good actually and again I kept the bottom and shadyareas darker than the rest. I also made sure that the armourplates got different coats too.
I again let this all dry out overnight, before first applying decals. I kept this to a minimum, deliberately only using black ones; vehiclenumners, crosses and as an extra a lady's name on the driver's glacisplate, using micro Sol and Set for those. Hoping the decals would not silver afterwards..

That's one sexy machine.

Thank Matt!
You're faster than I am, because here's the rest..... so far..

The panzer received a number of differently coloured washes. Someone on the Twenot-forum suggested using different colours on different panels in order to break the white monotany, so I tried that. I wanted to create an air of coldness, so went for cold colours. Lighter blues for the upper surfaces, darker blues for the lower ones. I even experimented a little with greys and even purple. Not to fond of the latter, though.
After that I started on the detailpainting and some drybrushing. Te rubber rims were painted german grey to stay in tune with the overall paleness and several wooden shafts were drybrushes with browns, to suggest wear on the paint because of use. Several other tools were drybrushed using the same principle. Tools often used were drybrushed more than others.
I then gave the deeper recesses/shade areas another pinwash to bring them out more. The gunbarrel was completely covered, suggesting gunpowderresidue.
The exhaust was drybrushed with rust and a complete wash to suggest the heat and rust eating their way through the white paint.
I then wanted to take pictures of my achievements in daylight, so I started setting up a primitive "studio". An even coloured light blue cloth as backdrop and some boxes as stands.
The result was a very yellow looking vehicle..
I changed the cloth for an off-white one and the vehicle looked quite blueish grey....





So I figured I'd used a clear white backdrop instead and while I moved disaster struck.... My foot caught in the cloth, dragging the entire setup, including model, down. My parental reflexes prevented the model from smashing into the ground, but many of the more delicate parts broke off; antennae, gun+mount, left armorplaterack....
I used my cellphone as a camera. It makes better pictures than my camera. And being between the model and the source of light does not make for the best, clear pictures either.

Progress is steady and the buidling- and paintingstages are completed! I even did the figure...
After all the washes, detailpainting and such I gave the entire vehicle some final highlights and drybrushes in pure white. Especially the non-white items, so that they'd look frozen and cold.
I deliberately added 2 yellow wheels, just to give a small bit with colour. The starantenna will also be yellow.
I gave the tracks first a heavy drybrush in Vallejo's pure steel, followed by a sandy brown and a deep brown wash, yet I do not expect to see much of that when all is done...
I also added the rubber tracks, some extra tracks on the nose and "all" the bits that were broken. I realised that a good deal of the parts that were supposed to be damaged by the fall actually had occurred previous to that! Things like the starantenna's top, a small detail keeping the left front plate in place and somehow I managed to loose one entire plate! The right rear one is gone....



The figure was first based with dark brown, before I started building up a pale skintone. The goal was to create a cold, tired and worn face. A face of someone who is cold, has been in action a while and has had little rest.
So a pale skintone with red cones, lips and nosebridge (skintone, red leather and a hint of bright red) . Tired, so blue edges (wash) around the eyes and worn, so grooves in the face (darker wash) and stubble (skintone+brown and a hint of black)

So....
It is time to give this panzer a base to reside on and a snowy one at that.
In the previous post you could see that I made the very basic shape of the base using a photoframe and some blocks of buildingfoam. With that I filled out the area where the groundwork would be, both horizontally and vertically. After that I applied the groundwork using filler, thus creating the surface with differences in height and angle. I wanted the tank to be visible from a left upper angle, in order to avoid a white mass (the armorplates) facing the viewer. This way the view would be more interesting...hopefully.
After the filler had dried, but not completely hardened, I applied light blue washes. The blue would give depth to the snowlayer on top of it, or so I was thinking



The next step is a crucial one; making the snow!


For that I used diluted white glue; ratio roughly 1:1 and to that I added backingsoda and mixed untill I had a yoghurt-like substance. That is the basic mix. For building up snow I use more powder in the mix and for smoothing it out and getting a nice, flowing surface I add more water. The previous is used for making the snow that accumulates on the runninggear and the latter is also used for building up snow on the upper areas of the tank.
Just think how snow gathers in certain areas and do the same. It builds up in corners, nooks and crannies, but really sticks together where it gets compacted by movement. It will not (likely) stick to rubber, but easily on recessed metal surfaces.
This mixture is very easy to make and very easy to use, because you can very easily correct mistakes by manipulating the surface. Did it get too uneven? Just gently start tapping it untill the waters comes to the surface and it will level out. Bit like quicksand, really. Applied to much on one place? Simply scrape it off and use a wet brush to make it smooth again or do the a fore mentioned.
One pitfall to avoid is to build up layers that are very thick. Remember it is backingsoda and it does have another use... making loafs of bread airy.... It bubbles, meaning it tends to create gasses (chemical reaction to the water and warmth).



I tried to recreate deep snow by building up layers next to the tank and pushing those towards the tracks, but not onto them! Let the layers harden in between, before adding another one.



The final details arrived today; better jerrycans! A gift from a guy at the Twenot-forum. He felt that it would do the build no justice, using old, less detailed cans, so he sent me these. In hindsight I feel he was right.
I added a copper tiedown coming from the sparesbox. The whole (jerrycans and tiedowns) are one, including the loops, so I can take everything off, paint it and put it back in again.