Hi Anthony,

I´m glad you like my work. Yes indeed the fighting compartment is really cramped, nothing for claustrophobics

Cheers

Thomas

Sal,
I'm really liking your tank hunters. I haven't painted animals either, and would find a good tutorial very interesting to say the least. I've seen matte horses (in real life) shiny horses, too but I don't know if it's all about how the animal is maintained or just natural differences. Few things look more awesome than a well-muscled horse with a well-brushed coat in sunshine.

Gaz

Thomas,
Congratulations! Your Marder is Ausgezeichnet! From inner details to a knock-out camo scheme, you've really made a great effort. Thank you for sharing so much of the build with us.

Gaz

For everyone else:

As Thomas said, getting your gallery photo in is one of the Kitmaker rules, so critical for earning the ribbon you deserve. There are quite a few who have completed their builds yet haven't uploaded a photo or two into the gallery.
After March 30 I'll start sending PM's to those who haven't got photos uploaded.

Happy building!

Gaz

Thomas great looking Marder. What tracks did you use and how difficult were they? I want to try an AM set on a Pershing I got my eye on

Hi Ken,

thank you for your comment about my Marder. The tracks were from a MODELKASTEN workable set. I give you a short list of the pro´s and con`s about MODELKASTEN:

Pro
+ easy cleanup
+ fast progress due to the assembly jig
+ no wire needed and no holes to improve with a drill
+ usually a tad less expensive than metal single link tracks

Con
- some tracks are veeery fiddly and tend to break apart easily (you need a lot patience for Pz. I tracks )
- some tracks are very complicated (SK-48 T48 Duckbill tracks have 14 parts for two connected track pads - with about 80 links each
side you are away from the streets for some time with that one)


The Marder workable track is easily to do but I have to admit she also broke two times during installing to the driving wheel and during weathering.

The best single link track for a Pershing would be WWII Productions resin track links. I did used them at my Pershing and they are even more easier to install (just clicked together) and look spot on. WWII Productions was once OOB but as far as I remember someone re-released them again?

Cheers

Thomas

Baby got some new shoes,got the Fruils assembled and ready to go

Those really look good, Anthony...

Thomas , thanks, I will do some looking, as you some of them buggers cost more then the model

Anthony,
The Friuls look great! Love the natural sag of them.

Gaz

Friuls look great, Anthony. I have a couple of sets I got a steal, on($15 each).

That's a fine looking Jagdpanther.

That's a real deal Matt

I think Im gonna call my team finished. Again this is not there permanent home. They will be placed in a dio with Other Guys Campaign

Comments are always welcome

The "road" they are on has an interesting effect. It looks like you've got some green growth through the stones. How did you do that and how did you decide how much of that you wanted? It gives it a realistic effect, since there would likely be some neglect of maintenance in an active war zone.

Looking good, Sal! Great job painting the figures, very accurate work.

Howdy Y'all
@Sal: Nice to see a diorama reach "finished" stage, great work!
I'm continuing work on my 1/72 Hasegawa Jeep & 37 mm AT gun. Nothing like a good night's sleep and the bright morning sun shining in the window to find all your painting mistakes.

Hoping to complete this one soon, we'll see if the decals will cooperate. This is a pretty old kit.
Take care,
Don "Lakota"

Hey guys, an update on the Hetzer, finished putting on my camo today. The pattern is nothing special, just an extrapolation from the instructions-which are surprisingly in color. I need to figure out a better way to brush camo. I'm thinning acrylics at a 50/50 ratio, perhaps I need to up it a bit more to reduce the paint pigment blobs that collect. More experimentation is always fun.

Sal,
Congratulations on completing your Panzerfaust team! Great work on the figures, weapons, and diorama base.

Very impressive!

Gaz

Don,
Great to see some progress! If you hadn't zoomed in the photo, I probably wouldn't have noticed the small blemishes.

Steven,
I really like the camo scheme on your Hetzer. To be truthful, I think you will get a better finish hand painting with enamels. They self-level much better than acrylics which dry much quicker. It's no fault of yours.

Hand painting small objects with acrylics is ok. But once you drag the brush over damp acrylic, it ruins whatever your first brush stroke did.

Testors Model master has a broad selection of WWII based colors for just about every nation and brushes nicely. If you want to stick with acrylics, I would invest in an airbrush and compressor.

Gaz

Gaz,

Thats a good idea, perhaps I'll give that a crack next time around. Oddly enough Testor's MM is hard to find here, but I've got Revell locally, the smallest imaginable selection of MM down the road 30 min, and just about everything enamel (but MM) about an hour away in a armor-only enthusiast hobby shop.

Egad Steven! Armour only???? Heresy!!!!

Chris, I may have exaggerated-they have about 15 planes (who knows...last time I looked there was a Panther D shelved in among them), several boats, like one RC-something, and ICM's new line of 1/35 german military cars (those count right?). Perhaps they even have a boat, like a big Prinz Eugen or something. Their book section is actually quite nice too.

Considering that here in Germany most modelers build trains (again, with the exaggerations-there are some pretty epic model shops), I'd say that it is fate I live so close to a place with so many tanks and paints.

Sal you have done a very original tank hunter, this horse is a big warrior.

Some pics of my build



The turret still need camouflage colors.




The Perfect Scale Modellbau update set has a lot of parts useless in my mind. The towing cables don't really need to be replaced, I've used the Revell ones.

For an easier built I've chosen don't open hatches. There is not interest in that because interior of the Marder is empty and I don't put any figures in this AFV.

Thanks for the comments guys. As for the ground work it is a Mini Art base painted with cheap craft store acrylics after that I sprayed it with some glue and sprinkled several different types of Turf. Then I shook off the excess
Looking forward to watching the rest of the groups build come together