Pegguins

Hi guys, This is going to be the first in probably a very long set of updates over the next god knows how long. After getting back into the hobby as an adult last year I've finally got myself up to where I want to take on a big project, until now the most difficult model I've built was MENGs terminator, which was more work than difficult. I wanted a challange, something to sink my teeth into over a long time and boy did I get it. After looking around for an internal detail kit for a quite a while I finally settled on the 1/16th panzer 4. I went for the ausf f2 variant, personally I dont really like the way the sideskirts look, and based off how they attach thought it could have been a real pain to sort out any minor warping, plus the colour scheme of the f2 is naturally a desert yellow, which is probably my preferred pattern. The kit comes, in a flipping gigantic box; and, just to ram it home, there is absolutely no space spared inside there; I cant help but feel its slightly optimistic of trumpeter to include a catalog of kits in here, but i suppose the stash gods exist for a reason. The kit is absolutely beautiful, going over all the sprues I'm blown away at the detail they've fitted into every inch of this kit. From the (slightly daunting) amount of wonderfully molded ammo to the masses of PE; (this is less than half of it, those packets are double sided and theres more. In total the PE alone probably weighs about 500g). It really doesnt hit you just what you've gotten into until you actually look at it next to some other tanks; Both of those are 35th scale, although chosen to slightly mess with the perspective. Currently my livingroom is literally overflowing with sprues; This is about half the total sprues, most of the rest are still in the boxes you can see top right but whats not layed out is ammo, track parts and other similar pieces that I wont be needing right now. Thus far I've completed the engine; Although I'm not happy with the little vent things at the back, theres some putty work to be done on that joint (or maybe not, looking at where those pieces go they pretty much go flush against a wall so you'll never see them. I'll have to think about it), and started on the transmission; This is probably the first PE bent piece I've ever been happy with. There are 2 (actually 3) things worrying me so far about the kit. 1) The PE bending, its not something I'm particularly good with but since most of the PE parts here are substantially bigger and tougher than the stuff you get on 1/35 or 1/350 I think its a great learning opportunity, 2) Figuring out exactly what order to paint everything (more on this later), and 3) figuring out what to paint things. The instructions are a little unclear on colours on the engine for instance. It gives some colour callouts for some pieces, but not an overall colour and theres no colour guide for the internal pieces at the back of the (50 page) instruction booklet which is disappointing. I think that the base colour of the engine should be the red/brown iron oxide primer colour based off their instructions but that doesnt seem right to me. Weathering the internal parts is also going to be a challange, I want a used not destroyed look, but frankly I have no idea what techiques to be using on an engine, hairspray chipping doesnt seem particularly right, so maybe just painting it as a new engine and giving it a nice black oil wash+various engine stains, diesel stains sort of products would work. The paint is something to think about too, the instructions default to mr hobby, but I've never used their stuff and its a little difficult to get over here. I tend to use tamiya or vallejo paint, but given large parts of the inside are an off white colour and I've had big issues spraying both their whites I might look elsewhere. I think AK interactive have a set of german interior paints? Thats really stuffI'm open to suggestions on. So yea, this kit is going to take me months, but so far its been really nicely fitting, nicely made parts, the instructions are very clear, aside from paint callouts, Plan so far is to leave the top of the hull off. I'm thinking I might display it like andys hobby headquaters did his tiger. Put the upper frontal plate on, leave that huge piece of the upper hull in picture 4 off, then have the turret either in that part of the hull or off and next to it, thats something to decide a very, very long way down the line though. Thanks for the read, Mike

Beautiful going so far. I'm getting my own (ausf F2 version) soon. How are you doing the chipping effect inside? Is it just with paint ontop of the white base, or are you chipping it with the hairbrush method? Well, I'll get it whenever wonderland decide to ship it. Definitely wont be using them again.

Absolutely brilliant stuff. I'm just about to embark on their 1:16 panzer 4 (I like the F2 version), have you any tips? I'm a little worried about paint order and PE bending.

Thank you! Its my first field gun and definitely wont be the last, was a really enjoyable little build. After I've gotten through my backlog I'm definitely getting a couple of others, probably starting with the dragon 88mm, or something else with a nice metal barrel.

Thank you. I agree, its a really beautiful kit. I actually think it looks better in combat mode, with the stilts down and gun elevated right up, but I want to get a period russian truck at some point to tow it for a diorama so left it in travel mode.

Hi there guys, I was looking around at picking up my first field gun model kit since coming back into the hobby as an adult. This is my 5th or so kit, all others have been Tamiya/Meng so I wasnt sure what to expect from trumpeter given their reputation for sometimes overly complex kits. I was very surprised and absolutely loved the kit. There arent any reviews out there I spotted so I put some details below pictures. Here the kit is painted up, I havent decided on whether to give it an oil wash or add some weathering. There are no decals. You can see an issue I had with the front wheels (details at the end). it. There are an absolute tonne of wonderfully detailed pieces around the gun behind the shields; As you can see the wheels at the back are on much better than those at the front. Some details about the kit; It sits at around 270 parts, in the box you get 5 plastic sprues: 2x A, B,C,D; 1 small sprue of photo-etch also labelled A; 4 rubber wheels and a separate piece which is unlabeled but the instructions call it D82. The sprues come wrapped in a little piece of sponge inside their plastic bags, which is quite nice since there are quite a few thin long pieces which are very easy to break when handling the sprue if not careful. The instructions are quite spartan but clear enough. In steps 1-5 you build the gun itself, 6 to 20 contains the majority of the pieces and involves building the platform for the gun then in 21-27 you build the carriage. There are 2 options shown through the instructions, one for travel mode (which is how I built the kit) and one for combat mode, with the struts down and gun elevated. There is only 1 paint scheme shown, the typical russian green all over with rubber black wheels. The paint guide seems a little off to me, they recommend tamiya XF20, but also call for light green, I used vallejo 71.017 russian green 4BO which I think looks pretty nice. The downsides for me are; there are alot of very small, very easy to break pieces and absolutely no spares provided, the gun, as well as multiple other cylindrical pieces, come in 2 parts which leaves quite a few annoying seams to be filing down and finally the construction of the wheels has a part in it which I think shouldn't be there. When you build the wheel up, the instructions have you pop a little piece inside the axle mounting (A25). If you put it in (like I did at the front) the wheels simply dont go over no matter what you do, if you leave it out (like at the back) they fit perfectly. Also nearly all of the PE parts have to be bent, most of them freehand, which is a pet hatred of mine. So all in all, I had a great time with this kit, its complicated but not ridiculous, there are lots of small pieces to be handling but they all go in place very easily and it doesnt get repetitive (unlike say, making 80 links worth of tracks out of 4 pieces, thanks Meng) and comes together really nicely. I do think that for the price, given the lack of paint options and no decals, the kit does need something a little extra. Either a metal barrel or crew or even just some ammo+ammo storage would really bring the kit together to me.