Oddball Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 (edited) Well, it has been quite a while since I've done anything modelling related. In the past couple of months I've moved to the depths of rural England-shire with the family, and all the home building and plentiful trucking work down here have kept me pretty busy. The model table has been firmly set in its new home for a while now but I've experienced a bit of a slump in my desire to snip, hack, sand and glue. Plus all the kits I have on the go are stuck in the pile of shame. For the purposes of giving myself a bit of a KUTA, I've gone and bought a couple of the old Airfix 1/76 tank kits, The venerable (and extremely dodgy) Panther And the WW1 Male I'm well aware of the limitations and inaccuracies of the kits, but I need something simple to do otherwise I may go mad from lack of modelling. Thanks to the kind permission of Mrs Oddball I'll be working on them for the next couple of evenings, with the goal of finishing at least one of them. Plus the Panther will be a trip down memory lane since I made right glue bombs of this and Airfix's Sherman when I was about 8 or 9. Edited April 22, 2014 by Oddball 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanC Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 That Panther is dodgy alright. I love how Hornby kept the palm trees on the new artwork. A reference to the totally inaccurate desert painting of the original. Good luck with it. It's an absolute dog! :-) Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddball Posted April 20, 2014 Author Share Posted April 20, 2014 So as of tonight I am up to here, the Panther is complete apart from the tracks, although I just had to scratch a pair of side skirts. Nothing fancy, just a couple of bits of evergreen and some scribing. The Mk1 is coming along nicely, sponsons are ready for mounting and the main hull is just about done. I may scratch a few more details here and there, so much for OOB eh? The kits are pretty terrible by modern standards, but think about this before you cringe at how inaccurate they are. When you first started building, did it really matter that the Panther looked like a Frankenstein amalgamation of Ausf D/A/G? I'm willing to bet it didn't. I can't remember the last time I just put together a model, without worrying about the details. Once I'm done I'll have two pretty poor representations of the subjects, but the hell with it. I'm having fun, and isn't that what it's all about? Odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddball Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 (edited) Got quite a bit done on the Mk1 today, base coat of tamiya olive green followed by some camo in medium sea grey. I bought some humbrol weathering powder ages ago but haven't used them yet, so I decided to give it a bash. The model's been given several washes with dark earth, then a rub in some strategic places (ie everywhere) with rust. I know it looks a bit overdone at the moment but I recon a few more washes should tone it down quite a bit. Hope you guys are enjoying so far. Also please excuse the blurry photos, the usb cable for my camera has gone walkies, so I'm stuck with the phone camera for the time being. Odd. Edited April 21, 2014 by Oddball Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddball Posted April 24, 2014 Author Share Posted April 24, 2014 (edited) New cable for the camera came today, still need to work on the focus and angles for something this small but I'm getting there. I've given the Mk1 a few more washes, toning down the rust quite a bit. It seems there isn't much left to do apart from adding and weathering the tracks. On to the Panther this weekend then. Edit: After having a play around with my camera settings I've managed to get a better quality of colour from it, never really had problems before but I did have it set up for the light levels in my old place, so that might be it. I know they're not especially exciting subjects, but please feel free to leave a comment. Odd. Edited April 24, 2014 by Oddball Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vally G Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Looks good, Oddball. Colourwise the phone pictures look nicer than the camera ones! Kind regards, Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 (edited) I wouldn't actually call either of these kits particularly easy builds, preferring, as I do, parts that fit each other.....But you've managed a very respectable result, especially with the (almost) Tank Mk.I. I still prefer the old (not even slightly PC or Euro-Friendly) Airfix Panther box art: Edited April 24, 2014 by Sgt.Squarehead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddball Posted April 27, 2014 Author Share Posted April 27, 2014 Made a bit of progress on the Panther today, since I've been focusing on the Mk1 so much. Initial coat of Tamiya dark yellow put down, then a coat of klear. After this was dry I marked out the camo scheme with blu-tack, and alternated coats of red brown and olive green. This has all been given a coat of klear to protect it while I'm doing the weathering and detail painting. More progress soon folks. Odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanC Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 I wouldn't actually call either of these kits particularly easy builds, preferring, as I do, parts that fit each other.....But you've managed a very respectable result, especially with the (almost) Tank Mk.I. I still prefer the old (not even slightly PC or Euro-Friendly) Airfix Panther box art: Haha! It was one of their best. They've wiped out the ambulance. Time to shoot up the Arab village! Thanks for posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hepster Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 And even back in those days, Airfix couldn't decide whether it was 1/76 or 1/72 scale! Not that it matters, given the Panthers inaccuracies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubster72 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 That's very neat camo painting for such a small scale - I'm lucky to get that quality in 1/35! Cheers Patrick 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now