Below I'll be showing the complete build of a Tiger I Mid version vehicle. The build is more focused towards beginners and does not take into account much precision or historical accuracy. The main modelling techniques will be showcased in order of their use and you will notice significant inaccuracies in the tank, such as engine meshes missing. I used up parts from other kits which I had as extras, such as bits of ATAK zimmerit and an aluminum barrel from a dragon kit.
Without further ado, the build starts with choosing which vehicle to do. In this case, I selected Tank 301, sPzAbt 501, Russia, December 1943. The scheme involves a base of dunkelgelb with a whitewash for winter camouflage.
Next, the lower hull and turret were assembled. At this stage, I did not glue in the suspension arms yet. The mantlet shown in the picture is one with a binocular sight from an ATAK zimmerit set. The zimmerit on the turret is the small-pattern one also from the ATAK set. For the hull, I used the Tamiya sticker zimmerit. Overall, the ATAK zimmerit is much easier to cut, handle, and glue on, and looks a lot more realistic when chipped. The hull MG34 ball was glued in from the inside and was left movable. This possibly isn't the best option, as this leaves it floppy.
Since I had an extra turned aluminum barrel lying around from a dragon kit, as well as their muzzle brake, I decided to use it in this build. One problem though: the beige insert that the gun goes into would not accept this barrel and had to be completely cut from the Tamiya mantlet. This required quite a bit of kit surgery to initially cut the cylindrical apart from the Tamiya mantlet and then to bore a larger inner hole to accept the metal barrel. After 40 minutes of fiddling with it, I have this:
Since the barrel end which accepts the muzzle brake is simple cylindrical, the muzzle brake must be aligned horizontally by eyeballing it. I used a toothpick run through it to check its horizontal alignment:
The progress thus far:
and
Next, I added some chipping to both the ATAK zimmerit on the turret and the Tamiya zimmerit on the hull. It was chipped off using a combination of cuticle cutters and an X-acto blade. At this stage, I also decided to add shell damage to the turret mantlet and the front flat part of the hull using a round file.
Starting with the turret:
Next, I was feeling rather lazy (hence the quick and dirty build) and I decided to glue on all the wheels at once and worry about painting later. On a build that I'd put more time into, I would have primed each wheel separately, basecoated them with NATO Black, made painting templates using a circle cutter, and painted each wheel separately. We'll leave that for another build though.
In the next step I filled in some gaps in the turret roof fit and joined the ATAK zimmerit to the Tamiya zimmerit on the turret sides using putty (albeit rather poorly). The large gap behind the mantlet was also filled in with putty so that it looks decent enough, although improperly.
Next, I hand painted some Stynylrez primer onto parts of the turret where I suspected the gaps weren't filled in sufficiently. This revealed some imperfections which had to be refilled and re-sanded.
Next, the entire model was primed with Stynylrez grey primer. At this point, I noticed that I missed gaps in some areas, such as the turret and the muzzle brake. The priming and corrections are shown:
And the muzzle brake:
During the priming stage, all the tools and cables were primed as well (not shown in the pictures, but same idea)
And now to the fun parts. The tank was basecoated with a 3:1 mixture of Tamiya Buff and Dark yellow. Enough Tamiya thinner was added so the airbrush-ready mix had the consistency of 1% milk. It was applied at 20 PSI (operating) with an Iwata HP-CS and a 0.35 mm nozzle.
At this stage, all tools and cables were sprayed with Tamiya dark iron.
Next, it was time for my very first experimentation with MIG heavy chipping fluid. I did this by pipetting 3-4 mL of it into the airbrush cup and spraying the entire lower hull until it was wet (droplets formed as well). As per instructions, I waited until the surfaced looked dry and then unevenly sprayed Vallejo flat white. There was no set technique to this except to attempt to keep it as irregular as possible since the white camo would have been applied in the field. When the white was off, I wet a soft brush and started scrubbing the surface. I say scrubbing because I must have put on too much white and some areas took quite a bit of scrubbing and force to chip the white. The same steps were repeated for the turret.
After the white camo was done, I sprayed the hull sides and turret basket with Vallejo gloss to prepare the surfaces for the decals. In a very bold move, I let the gloss coat dry only 2 hours before applying the decals, which, as expected, gave a lot of trouble. The decals were the added to the surfaces and subsequently swamped with Microsol decal setter so they hugged the zimmerited surfaces.
After setting:
If anyone is wondering about accuracy, it probably doesn't make sense that the numbers are in one piece and on top of the chipped white coat. But we'll ignore this for this build.
The entire model was then blasted with a very generous layer of Vallejo satin coat so the newly-painted white camo and decals are immune to further brush surface manipulations.
The next step is the panel accent painting, more commonly known as the wash:
I find that Winsor and Newton white spirit works like magic for oil and enamel clean up and has relatively low toxicity compared to turpentines.
The difference between a painted wheel and one that has dark wash applied:
And the rest of the wheels:
Turret and hull:
Next up was the complete paint chipping using an electronic sponge (one supplied with electronics as padding) and Vallejo NATO Black. This technique should technically not be used if chipping fluid is already being used, but I decided to do it anyway to add more depth to the entire model. The black rubber on the road wheels was also painted at this stage:
I didn't care about the wheels in the middle and back because they'd be covered by the tracks anyway.
Now it was time for streaking grime throughout the model, starting with the hull. This was done with AK Interactive streaking grime and Winsor and Newton white spirits for blending:
I decided to exaggerate the streaking quite a bit at this point, something I normally try to avoid at all costs.
Next, rust streaks were added here and there, for example, where the complete paint chips were added:
At this stage I decided to skip the filter and go directly to oils. I dissolved a bit of raw umber into white spirit and decided to apply it with a soft brush to low-lying areas as follows:
Faded white was added to elevated surfaces such as the turret hatch and barrel. The oil 'patches' (pardon the pun), were then blended with a size 6 soft brush sufficiently wet with white spirit:
Next up, I decided to randomly add fall foliage throughout the vehicle. The hardest part about this is maintaining randomness:
The leaves are fairly rigid right out of the bag so I soaked them for an hour in soapy water:
I glued them to the surface by adding satin coat directly from the bottle on top and around the leaves. If you want to go for extreme detail (not the case here), you can selectively brush each leaf with matt coat near the end to make them stand out a bit from the rest of the model.
Next I decided to hand-paint the dark yellow clamps on the tools and cables and to add the tools and cables to the vehicle:
One thing to note above: the wooden block was made by producing relatively deep cuts into the 'wood' part of the plastic and then painting the metal dark iron and the wood using any shade you please (I used dark tan). Adding neat oil paint on top and then removing it produces a realistic wood texture. The longer you take to do this, the better the effect. I did it rather quickly.
Up next were the rust effects on the cables and spare tracks (on the turret sides). They were done by dipping the small yellow brush in standard rust pigment, cleaning most of it off the brush, and then scrubbing the desired surfaces. The more you remove from the brush, the more subtle the effect. The longer it takes, the better the result. I rushed a bit.
Next, the oil paint technique (applying neat paint and cleaning it off with a semi-dry brush) was applied to the wooden handles of the hammer, shovel, and pliers. A quick wash with dilute umber oil paint was also done on any other dark yellow surfaces such as the cable ends.
Next, the cupola machine gun was test-fitted:
This position was chosen:
In the next stages, the magic tracks from a Dragon kit were assembled using their jig, primed, and painted. I've done tracks a million different ways on models and this time I decided to basecoat them with Tamiya flat earth paint.
To add some depth, the tracks were carefully washed with AK Interactive track wash. At this point of the build, the wheels are still white/dark yellow and look untouched compared to the rest of the vehicle. To remedy this issue, I mixed dark mud and dry mud pigments and dissolved them into enamel pigment fixer. This created a sort of wash that would leave a dusty appearance on surfaces after it dried. All wheels and parts of the track were washed thoroughly with this mix so as to unify the colours on the tracks and wheels.
Dark mud and dry mud pigments were then subsequently added dry to the tracks and to the side skirts of the tank. The small yellow brush was also used to add gun metal pigments to parts painted in dark iron to give them some shine and depth. Protruding ridges on tracks received the same treatment.
Heavy earth effects as well as dark mud pigment were added to the front and rear undersides of the tank to blend them with the tracks and give the lower parts of the tank darker tones.
Oil stains on the engine deck were added using the engine oil liquid. Shell damage on the tank was highlighted with the gun metal pigment and fine yellow brush shown above. Areas with chipped zimmerit were hand-painted with Vallejo medium grey. They could also have been painted dark yellow or primer red (oxide red), depending on personal taste.
From start to finish, this build took one week. Here's what the finished model looks like:
