Sancho Panzer

I replaced the plastic moulded weapons on Boba’s knee armour with brass tube. I then painted the jet pack and more of the armour, adding damage as necessary.

I’ve refitted the rear deck machine gun mount which had become detached. This was made from parts in the PE set and part scratch built from brass tube and copper wire. Bending and soldering the three supporting struts at the base was fiddly but fun. I’m going to make a stock for the MG34 from plastic card as it looks odd without one.

Thanks for your kind words, and yes - the track hooks did break off very easily when they were just superglued directly on to the sides. I removed them all and soldered a copper wire pin onto each hook and drilled corresponding holes in the casemate. This took a long time, although they are now much more secure.

Thanks @FrancisGL for your kind words. The PE was challenging although fun on this scale. I agree that JTs seem to be taking over at the moment😂

Hi Francis, Your JT looks awesome in that colour - fantastic modulation, chipping and I love the streaking effects. looking forward to seeing the next update!

This looks like a very nice build so far 🙂

The orange lines on the left side of the helmet were created by using super fine graphic masking tape and airbrushed using a shade of orange that I mixed to match colour in the images in found. The chips in the armour paint were created by first using a gunmetal grey and then steel. I tried to make sure that chips were painted in line with the various images I had.

Here’s my attempt to make a Bandai Hobby 1/12 figure into less of a toy and more of a display figure. The Bandai kits are excellent; I wanted to create a figure that looked more realistic. The OOB figure - the plastic is self coloured and makes a passable figure. I started by dismantling the pre-built figure and using polystyrene cement during reassembly, filling the moveable joints with modelling putty and green milliput. I airbrushed the various armour parts with Vallejo light green. Boba’s helmet is one of his most distinctive features and I started detailing this as I went along. I used images from the web to make sure the painted chips and scratches were accurate.

After a very long break, I’m finally getting back to completing the Dragon 1/72 Jagdtiger. This was originally started as part of a group build back in 2019 but life got in the way. There’s a lot of photos documenting the build in the completed group builds section - I guess I’m going to be about four years late for the GB but perhaps another one will come along before I finish this little beast?! I restarted working on this a couple of weeks ago - I had problems with the Dragon tracks being too short, which looked unrealistic and they were so tight that they snapped the drive sprockets off. I made new axles from brass rod and spliced in some of the spare tracks from the kit. One side is complete apart from track painting. I also added the decals, gave it a coat of Matt varnish and started the weathering process. I’m going to go easy on this - from what I have read, most JTs saw very little action. Photos from 2019 - Dragon 1/72 kit plus PE from ET Model. And now in 2023, showing recent progress. The kit suffered a bit of minor damage in storage, so some repairs and touching up of previous work is required. The replacement front axle from brass rod. The grey area is the spliced in styrene spare track links. Some of these have been painted and hung on the hooks that I added. More updates to follow - thanks for looking, Andrew

After a very long break, I’m finally getting back to completing the Dragon 1/72 Jagdtiger. I’ve been working on this for a couple of weeks - I had problems with the Dragon tracks being too short, which looked unrealistic and they were so tight that they snapped the drive sprockets off. I made new axles from brass rod and spliced in some of the spare tracks from the kit. One side is complete apart from track painting. I also added the decals, gave it a coat of Matt varnish and started the weathering process. I’m going to go easy on this - from what I have read, most JTs saw very little action.

This is a superb build - the camo, detailing and weathering are awesome. I can almost hear the sound of bullets ricocheting off the sides of this beast as it crashes through a forest in the Ardennes. Love it.

As others have said - this build is excellent and the wheels in particular are superbly done. Nice!

Really nice build of an unusual AFV😀

Great looking model; excellent painting and weathering especially in 1/48 scale - really like the chipping, rust streaks and the mud on the running gear is superb, cheers, Andrew

Very nice clean build and painting - really captures the feeling of a cold winter setting. The figures look good to me - you're right about Tamiya heads though - Hornet Heads (try Historex Agents just down the road in Dover) make excellent heads which makes painting faces almost a pleasure! cheers, Andrew

Really nice build and finishing - I really like the wear on the gun breech, rear tailgate and the corrosion on the toolbox 🙂 cheers, Andrew

Thanks - still a work in progress I'm afraid! Now thw weather has turned into winter, I'll probably get going again.....

Thanks for the suggestions @PlaStix and @Silenoz One thing I was also considering is to splice in one of the spare styrene track links that are included in the kit. As the ‘magic tracks’ can be glued with styrene cement this should be possible. I’ll weigh up the various options and decide which seems the best to me, Cheers, Andrew

Hi Toby, @Planebuilder62 that sounds like a great solution although in this case the vehicle I’m depicting has lost most of the skirts. I was thinking that I could thread a loop of fine wire or cotton through the track and around the first or second road wheel and use this to pull the track down to give the appearance of sagging. It probably won’t be visible if the loop is pulled tightly enough. Cheers, Andrew

Hi Toby @Planebuilder62 Thanks for your kind comment - ‘magic tracks’ is the name Dragon gives to its one piece ‘rubber band’ tracks. They’re not bad although the only thing that seems to be ‘magic’ about them is that they can be glued together at the joint with normal plastic cement. I was naively hoping that the ‘magic’ part was that once fitted they grew to the correct length for the kit as they are stretched tightly over the wheels and don’t sit correctly at all😳I’m assuming that they are the correct length for a 1/72 Dragon King Tiger, whereas I believe the Jagdtiger chassis was slightly longer. If that’s the case, it’s a shame that Dragon overlooked that detail with this kit, cheers, Andrew

Hi All, A bit more progress on the JT this week; I have painted the wheels in dunkelgelb, given them a wash with GW sepia and highlighted them by drybrushing with an very pale dunkelgelb shade. i have painted most of the tools and accessories although a few more parts still need tidying up. I also started adding a pin wash around the details with very thin burnt umber oil paint. I have also begun adding a few more shades and variations to the camo colours using oils. I’ll add the decals before I do any more so that the markings don’t look too fresh. Once all of this is fully dry I’ll overspray with a tan filter to soften everything up before adding a few chips and pigments. In the images sPzJgAbt 512 x7 looks in fairly good condition - I’m not sure if it saw much action before it was knocked out by Volksgrenadiers who appeared to have mistaken it for an American tank. I guess they hadn’t seen a Jagdtiger before! The tracks are ‘magic tracks, and I’ll need to add some sag as they are much too tight. They were airbrushed with a mix of rotbraun and dark brown and then painted with Humbrol metal cote on the areas where the road wheels run. I also dry brushed metal cote on the treads. Quite a bit more to do, although I’m looking forward to making it look a little more ‘lived in’. Thanks for looking, Andrew

Fantastic rust and chipping - stunning!!

Hi All, more progress on the camo, which is based on colour profiles of JT X7 and others from sPzJgAbt 512. I brush painted the basic camo pattern and then airbrushed each patch using three shades of brown and green to get shading and modulation. I was initially using Vallejo liquid mask although I felt that this gave too hard an edge. I airbrushed each patch without masking as this gave a softer edge which I preferred. I used Vallejo and AK Paints thinned with 20% Air Thinners + 20% Vallejo Flow Improver with a 0.2mm airbrush set to around 10psi. I will now prime and paint the wheels, paint the tools etc before sealing with acrylic varnish and applying the decals prior to weathering. thanks for looking, Andrew

Hi All, I’ve primed and started painting; Mr Surfacer 1500 white followed by airbrushed dunkelgelb in several shades from the AK modulation set. I aimed to get a light overall appearance due to the scale effect and because I expect the weathering will darken it a tone or two. I started to brush paint the camo scheme in olive green and medium brown although my new cunning plan is to block in the camo shapes using a mid-tone of each colour by brush. I am then using Vallejo liquid mask to mask off each area for shading by airbrush to get ‘modulation’ and shading. Quite a bit of work, although I think the end result will be better than I could achieve with a brush alone. Medium brown blocked-in, light coat of satin varnish to seal the paint ready for masking. Early progress - some overspray on both colours before I decided that trying to airbrush without masking at 1/72 scale was perhaps a bit too ambitious🤔 More updates to follow; thanks for looking, Andrew

I'm planning to airbrush the dunkelgelb and brush paint the camo pattern. I think that masking for airbrush using either tape or 'WhiteTack' on this scale would be a nightmare with all the tools and other parts already attached as they are so easily broken off again, so brush is probably the best option. Cheers, Andrew