Takom Panther and some others

[the other matt]

This is what we've ended up with after a bit of primer. Still not fussed on link and length tracks and don't particularly like the sit on either side. Im not breaking out the magic tracks Ive got sitting in the spares though. Lessons learned. metal tracks are popular for a reason.

While the primer was out I also sprayed this dandy fella.

[the other matt]

Home stretch now I think. Shoes and socks together, not set to the hull, but glued together for painting. I'm almost at the point of being able to throw out the box. 

We're even almost square at the back and front.

And after the pigment fun, the obligatory bench scrape down. One day I will get the hang of using pigments without making such a mess. On the positive, the room now smells nicely of shellac, sanderac etc etc etc. 

[robw_uk]

nice progress across the board there... I have a Takom Bergepanther (Ausf D I believe) itching to be started, just needs to wait until the new year

[the other matt]

On the whole, it's a nice kit Rob. I found mine needed a lot of parts cleanup, but general fit is OK. I think most of my frustrations with it are more to do with changing my mind about how or if to display the interior. Fail to prepare etc etc etc.

My mind has already wandered onto the miniart d7 I've had on the shelf for a while. I want to try some sort of salt weathering faded paintwork on it and am having a bit of fun practicing on the spares box. Not going to lie, finding lifcolor paints quite hard to chip. 

F

Funny how after a while everything I spray starts looking like German dark yellow.

 

[the other matt]

Zim day 1.

Not feeling the love for this today. I think I've got this too thick on the side. The front I think is OK, but overall I'm not convinced so this may come off when dry for another attempt. I'll try knocking it back a bit first, but I'm not sure. 

At least the reference I'm using has a sparsely zimmed side,

Ho hum

 

 

[Stef N.]

I think the zim on the sides looks about right, in my humble opinion.👍

[the other matt]

Thats reassuring. 

I think I figured out the boo boo. I left the putty a bit uneven and didnt get aggressive enough with the roller. I find that it really needs a bit of pressure on a thin even layer of putty to get to where I want it. 

More like this. That time I spread it out with a small spatula and then rolled the surface with a wet cocktail stick to flatten it out. 

I caught the first side before it hardened and a bit of uncompromising rolling evened it out a bit. The early zim pattern I'm trying to mimmick seems to only have vertical anti spall cutts on the side and back. So i guess thats sorted that out as well. 

getting there slowly.

 

[the other matt]

Time to bring this one back to the bench after a couple of detours. Starting to wonder whether this will ever cross the line. Anyhow, for some reason I didn't finish the zim and by the time I got back to it I'd run out of white putty. I forget what it was, probably tamiya. The yellow putty is definitely tamiya - much prefer the white. Lesson learned. At this point most of the hull is together including tools. bit of clean up. Thankfully not much. Leaving the schurzen hangers till the wheels and tracks are on.

next is to zim the turret and add the few bit and bobs remaining there. For some reason I've now got a miniart PIV and a T55 interior kits in the stash. So this'll be me sorted until 2030, or until the next distraction. 

 

 

 

 

[the other matt]

OK enoughs enough. This si where we land, Time for paint.  No idea what im  going to do with this, so just in case I want to mess around with a bit of chipping I put down some base layers. Not really sure if zim was this colour, but is sort of seemed right. 

 

 

One day Im going to leave one of these like this. To my eye they just look better in red.

Thin coat of dark yellow and shoes on, suddenly things start to make a bit more sense. The dark yellow is quite unforgiving when it comes to sloppy areas of zim- most on the front..... but in the word of saint Kurt 'whatever, never mind'.

 

 

and starting to pile up some junk on top of the beast.

 

 

 

finish line's in sight y'all

 

[Keeff]

I've just caught up your builds.  The camo scheme you brush painted looked absolutely fine ..... don't forget that towards the end of the war, it was more about getting tanks out and tge final painting was often done in the field.

 

The full interior build looks great 👍. I have a similar display conundrum with a Sherman I'm building, but the finish line is in sight for you! 

 

Keith 😁