Starting bit late in the build, but better latter than never. Major assembly complete, moving on with painting. All parts now have been base coated, tracks - primed. I prefer to give base coat at least a week to cure well, then, when spraying camo, if suddenly i don't like how one or another line looks, or if airbrush starts to misbehave, i can clean of those boo -boo's with alcohol soaked tissue. Same applies with weathering. Somehow, if im overly enthusiastic with enamel weathering effects, they tend to soften acrylics, and those get easily damaged, or worse, peeled off. Clear coat helps a little bit, but as i also use acrylic varnish, it does soften too. So for me, long curing time between major steps works best. I also build other kits in parallel, so waiting isn't an issue.




more will fallow shortly.

Finally managed to finish cammo. Took me a while, as had to get rid of Aztec airbrush. Now its time to add all the tools and other small painted parts. I have also painted schurzen, but i feel i will keep them off until the last stage of build. BTW, maybe its just me, but schurzen supplied dont really fit. The only way to mount them out of the box is to have them overlapping. If you ever try to hang those additional crew protection plates on top of staggered schurzen, you will end up in supper messy looking stug. Unfortunately, i realized this after i painted them, so i had to trim them, and paint them 2nd time.

NIce looking camo.


Gaz

I agree with Gary that the camo looks very nice. I also think you did a great job on painting the tracks, the rust looks spot on.

Ernest

Nice looking build. Thank you for the heads up, on the schurzen.

Very nice work.

Thanks for positive feedback guys!
Test fitted schurzen, they seem just right now. At moment, they are not fixed at place, but they align perfectly edge to edge. I have also started painting wooden tools. For painting wood, i use acrylic tan base, with brown oil paint for the wood grain. They came out little darker than i planed, so i will tone them down a little bit. But first, i need to wait until the oil paint completely dries.

Hello Darius,
Nice build and a very nice camo pattern!
cheers,
Zsolt

I totally agree... very nice camo!

Cheers!🍺
—mike

Looking very nice. I can't wait to see the finished product.

Got my dose of meditation, in form of painting tires:

Also, attached tools, and coated everything gloss. Now, it will take few days, before i will apply filters, so back to Kettenkrad build

Filters + pin wash, now its time to attach hatches, track links and start chipping some paint.

Nice camo.

I have this kit, in my stash(waiting on some media). I'm looking forward to it, after my m109 bash. Your's is turning out nicely. I look forward to seeing the chipped paint.

Well, there isn't going to be much chipping. Browsing my reference books now, and my main observation is that vehicles before, or during battle of Kursk were in good condition. This version of stug was manufactured just before the battle took place. Im painting it in Das Reich markings, which means that it was freshly moved to front. There are not much trees or bushes around battle area that tanks have to negotiate, to explain scraching of the schurzen etc. Around hatches and so on... soldiers were not wearing medieval armor to knock paint of. So in most cases, there will be minor wear in dunkelgelb color, then on loaders hatch, where MG shield touches it when folded back. As well area of hatch, that touches track links on the back of superstructure. Areas where crew or "passengers" walk, will mainly have cammo wear, and only on the extremes there will be paint knocked off. As well, it seems that on drive sprockets, there should be tear only where links touch the sprockets, and teeth themselves should still have paint on, as their tips dont come into contact with tracks (if you dont drive in deep mud, when sprocket itself is already touching the mud). Going to dig in in to the books little bit more, before i start shaking paint .

sweet camo

Some progress on the build. I have started doing mud/dust splashes on the stug. Its first steps, now as it will fully cure, with stiff brush i will remove excess, where i feel i don't like it, and with second pass will add some where i want more. Generally, i aim for "dirty, but not to the point you want to wash it" appearance. Before attaching wheels, i will do some "not dry yet" mud patches. I avoid using different color mud products on one kit, as it is hard to blend them realistically. You can easily end up with kit, looking like tank that recently drove in damp potato field ended up in sandy beach

This is looking really good. The camo is really well done. Looking forward to more.

vr

Tim

excellent work!! looking forward to seeing it done

Darius,
Very nice looking so far!

Gaz

For a tank bottoms, my procedure is:
1)dry splashes (dry = undiluted)
2)wet splashes
3)dry splashes where needed, for added texture

Now after that bottom has lots of texture. Now i tone it down with stiff brush. It creates some dust on bottom. I leave it there for next step. Using diluted wash, or "fuel effects" i add some where i want it to look wet, or add some different colors. In other areas, i put dots of thinner, which runs wide. Basically, i wet entire bottom with thinner. What this does, it carries the dust left from dry brushing the splashes. The result is some run marks. I also add motor oil at this step, as on wet dust it spreads and absorbs nicely.

Now run marks are somewhat well pronounced. Using stiff brush i tone them down once again.
Then one more pass with dry and wet splashes, and some more layers of motor oil.
The result is bellow. I would add some more wet effets under fenders, but i will leave it as is, because these will not be too visible under schurzen. So now i will mount wheels and tracks, and will look if i want to weather it some more.

I would say she is dirty right nice. In fact she is ready to be taken to the car wash...LOL

Few interior pictures. Interior is OOTB, plus MP40 and its ammo pouches from spares box. A lot of details are missing in Dragon kit, but its hard to show internals anyway, unless modeling vehicle under repair, with roof off. I love building interiors, but its hard to close all the work with hatches and panels..

Almost finished now. Some small things left to do, such as removing excess dirt from some spots, blending outside of schurzen, antennas, plus some minor stowage, but i will add those later on. Still got to do final mat coat, but got to pick off micro hairs and dust from it first