Pz. III pt. I

Well June kind of got away from me. I really was meaning to get a post in but I was too busy doing a project.

What project? you ask....

I got these figures because I needed another helmet for some other figures I got a while back for another project which we'll get to later. -runon sentence much? So naturally I had to come up with something to do with these guys and then I found this Dragon model for not much $$.

Let's dive right in to the build. It wasn't all that difficult a model. Flash and vent marks (or whatever the technical term for it is) were quite common though. It made some of the pieces hard to identify.

Here's just one example. There was lots of clean up but with a sharp blade and a fine sanding stick it didn't slow me down much.

It also came with a TON of extra parts. There was one sprue that I think only two pieces were needed. I ended up with practically a whole second turret in the spare parts!


Assembly was pretty straight forward. Here's the hull and wheels in the background...

...the upper deck and fenders...

                     ...and finally the turret and gun.

This next part really scared me. Dragon Tracks! I had never encountered these before. Of course I had seen them and knew some kits were made this way but I had never assembled tracks one individual link at a time before.

I was really dreading this part. Look at all of them! But like I said, with a sharp blade it really didn't take too long to get them all cut out and cleaned up.

There were like 180 or so of those suckers! And yes I ended up with a hand full of extra when it was all done. I wasn't sure how to go about this so I looked it up the YouTubes. There are quite a few tutorials out there and they all pretty much follow the same process. Use a straight edge, build in small pieces, take your time, and then assemble the small pieces into just two parts before final attachment on the model.

You can see in the upper right where I got it in to two pieces for one side. I ended up really liking these much better than the single rubber piece you find in some kits. I think you can get a better fit with these and to me it was a lot less frustration. Plus it holds shape and you can make it look more weighty before you get it on the model.

Next we're on to painting. I've been watching all kinds of YouTube stuff and found Panzermeister36. He's got some really good weathering tutorials. He does lots of German armor. His vids are really easy to watch and I like his attitude and presentation. He explains things really well and has some really good end products.

So I took his advice and primed it all in black.

Then using his recipe for panzer grey I got a very good result. Thanks Panzermeister36!

Next post I'll show you the rest.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tale of Two Planes II

Now on to the Emil.

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures through this build. I guess I was just too focused on the building and painting.

I couldn't find my sticky notes for masking this time around so I just went for the painter's tape.

First pass was the basic grey and taking a shot with the mottling. We'll see how this turns out.











After adding the violet/grey it didn't turn out so bad.

On this close up you can see I did have a bit of misting overspray.

Also added the red spinner, yellow on the underside of the nose, and a gloss coat so it's now ready for decals...

And finally here's the final product. I used panel liner for this one with no pre-shading. It is very subtle but I think it turned out really good. Even in looking at pictures of real planes you really can't see all the panel lines so not having them overly exaggerated suits me just fine.

Then I decided I needed a base for them so I built a "concrete" pad using an old piece of wood that was laying around and some plaster.

Sanded it flat, painted it grey and here it is...

Thanks for stopping by.
I'll have more to come soon.

Tale of Two Planes

Back again after six, almost 7 months. Wow this blogging seems to be harder to keep up with than originally anticipated. But I'll say again that just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been busy.

Since the last post I did finally finish my Tale of Two Planes. Actually I think I finished them in December. I did have a distraction come up before I finished that I will post up in a bit. Let's see if this quarantine thing can give me a chance to catch up. And now.....

A Tale of Two Planes:

I got the Heller Bf109B for my birthday last year. I've been wanting to do one of these from the Condor Legion for quite some time. Out getting some reference materials I decided WTH I'll get a later version and build them side by side.

So after perusing the aforementioned reference materials,

 I'm going straight out of the box for the E and going to change the numbers on the B. Otherwise strictly out of the box....well except here I go again detailing out the cockpits that no one will ever see adding seat belt harnesses and such.

I didn't get any other pictures of the build but skipped straight to the completed planes.

Interestingly enough the B has raised panel lines while the E has recessed panel lines. So here there will be a divergence in methods. I'm going to go with pre-shading on the B and just a pin wash on the E. We'll compare at the end.

So we're going to look at finishing up the B.
First base coat:

Looks good. Add another coat or maybe two in spots:

And now get ready for decals.

I had picked my plane and unfortunately (typically) it didn't have exactly what I wanted so I'm going to try freehand on the 3 and add kill markings. I didn't want the splinter camo either, I wanted the standard grey/green used in the Spanish Civil War. I mixed up a custom color and thankfully didn't have to do any touch up or correcting of errors because I don't think I could have duplicated that shade again.

It didn't turn out too bad.

I did decide to have an open cockpit for this one since it did come in 3 separate pieces to begin with. I also tried my hand at stretching sprue for the antenna. No finger burns! so that's a plus.

I think this is the finished product:

That's it for this post.

Next up I'll show you the Bf09 E.

*** I PROMISE IT WON'T BE ANOTHER SIX MONTHS FOR THE NEXT ONE ***

Thanks for stopping by.

Meanwhile.....

During these last posts you may have noticed some figures in various states of completion:

Slowly but surely I've been working on getting some of them done. Aaaaand I've finally completed some of them.

So without further delay....

The Red Knight

I've had this guy for several years and finally got around to getting him out. He also comes dismounted.

It's a great dynamic pose.

I also have a female half-orc from Reaper who may hopefully turn out to be a character in an upcoming adventure.

And another regular orc to add to the horde...

He turned out pretty good.

I wanted to do some tribal tattoos on this next guy but I was too scared I'd screw it up or it would just be too busy. So I left him plain. Supposed to be a mul for a Dark Sun campaign I never really got going. But maybe someday.

And finally a hobgoblin in samurai armor:

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by.
Next time we'll see a "Tale of Two Planes"