BorisAlexandrov

It's loosely based on the weathering textures of the video game War Thunder. I use it mainly for paint and weathering references only because the game requires too much grinding.

Despite being a tiger I stationed in 1943 near Sinyavino hills, Leningrad, it's got an all-Dunkelgelb paint job like the ones in North Afrika. Everything about this kit from Andy's Hobby Headquarters is great: workable tracks, movable torsion bar suspensions, openable hatches (driver, radio operator, loader, commander, and even the one on the side of the turret for emergency exit), decent details, lots of options to choose from. I believe that this kit covers most early-mid tiger I variants. Unless you're aiming to recreate an initial production tiger (storage boxes on the sides of the turret, like the ones in 1942 Leningrad) or a late tiger (flatter cupola and steel wheels without rubber rim padding), you're all set by buying this kit. The only thing that's lacking however, is the absence of rolled texture on the surface. Rolled armor plates are indeed much smoother on the surface than casted armor, but at a scale as large as 1/16 I'm expecting to see something better than whole, flat, plastic surfaces. Therefore I added a bit more texture with thinned putty. This angle kind of reminds me of the tiger 131 in the Bovington museum. Yet another weird combination, mostly because I've been packing up recently for my move in the coming weeks and my home's littered with boxes of stashed kits, and this is the only place left available. If everything goes smoothly I'll probably see y'all in Canada this April.

Built the kit mostly straight out of the box, minus the Quinta studio 3D decals. It takes a bit of a struggle to fit the engine nozzles in, as well as the weapon bay doors. The surface of the body part is almost as rough as the anti-slid layers on Abram tanks and requires extensive sanding and polishing before painting. Still, a very good kit nonetheless. Like C.W. Lemoine used to say, this aircraft would have been sexier if its profile was as large as the dark blue part goes. I don't mean to fat shame this bird though, still looks awesome. A comparison of the fifth-gen stealth fighters from the US, Russia, and China in 1/48.

Actually speaking of masks, I've recently bought a Cricut machine and I would try cutting digital camo or even hexagonal digital camo with it, starting with my ZTZ-99A build. I'll post updates on how good it performs when it comes to cutting Tamiya masking sheets.

Hi Colin, No they're not aftermarket upgrade kits. I built this kit mostly straight out of the box, minus the cockpit details from Quinta. AK Xtreme metal colors did the wonder. I used pale burnt metal and stainless steel to paint the engine panels, and jet exhaust for the nozzle. Anything looks good after a layer of clear blue, magenta, brown, and a generous amount of Abteilung's jet exhaust/rocket exhaust pigments.

I think you'll get a better finish than mine as long as you get the paint enough time to cure before applying masking tapes. I generally would stick the masks on a clean surface and peel them several times before actually using them, to make them less sticky in case they take the paint off with them.

It's surprisingly easy to paint digital camo if you have the right stencils. I've been trying it out on my Ghost of Kyiv project and the 1/32 Su-27 right now and it works really well.

Absolutely stunned! Is that the Tamiya 78025? I have one stashed but never dared to start building it.

The main issue I have with this movie is that they decided to turn a gritty, gnarly war story into a Hollywood popcorn.

Yeah I agree that most modern jets are decal hell. A lot of efforts must be put into decals&stencils to not only the airframe itself, but also pylons and weapons. The DUCATI bike is a 1:4 kit from Pocher.

An attempt to drill a hole through the M1919 and M2 machine gun barrel nozzles was made. The machineguns look great, but I've cranked the rpm of my power tool a bit too high and now my drill bit looks like this. Is this really the end of this drill bit?

Lmao for the a**->bottom censoring filter.

Hi Jurek, I used sky blue (Mr hobby C34) for the top, and light blue (Mr hobby C323) for the bottom as base colors. The digital camo's from a decal sheet so I didn't use any paint, but I've seen instructions recommending blue (Mr hobby C5) for the dark blue patches and flat light grey (Mr hobby C324, curiously enough it's a greyish color for JASDF) for the grey patches, and that's all the 4 colors you need for the Ukrainian digital camo.

Some of the sketches I made before adding railings, handles, and ricochet marks. RIP the PAK-40 crew from the battle of the small town. White Phosphorus is a hell of a drug. The grazing hit from the 131 Tiger. I wonder if those people worked at the Aberdeen test center felt the same marking target plates and test subject tanks. RIP Tiger tank crew. You'll be remembered for your questionable priorities towards targets. The Panzerfaust hit, which is also the only hit that went through its armor. RIP Grady "Coon-bottom" Travis. It's a weird choice of callsign, considering that Shia LaBeouf who portrayed "Bible" is the real Cajun here.

Howdy y'all! Happy holidays! After the Ukrainian "Fury" build I went to see the 2014 movie "Fury" on YouTube and was impressed by the final fight scene. So impressed that I decided to recreate this scene with my stashed kits. Andy's HHQ did a splendid job recreating the M4A3E8 Sherman. It's not an exact match (2014 movie used an M4A2E8, which is very unlikely historically speaking because it's diesel-powered and mostly lent-leased to the British and Soviets) but close enough. The last scene of the movie Fury, where the infantry battalion protected by the "Fury" crew goes past the knocked-out tank. Took me quite a while to get the exact track that "Fury" used. I scavenged a set of metal T84 tracks on eBay from Hooben, a brand that mainly manufactures RC tanks. Historically speaking this is impossible though, given that Goodyear started making these rubber-fused tracks on April 16th-17th, 1945, two weeks before Mr. Fuhrer did a favor to the entire world. The "Fury" crew put a body found at the abandoned Nazi medical station, dressed him as a US tank crew, doused him in gasoline, and lit fire to fake their death, allowing for a successful ambush of the German convoy. I was initially hunting for the perfect 1/16 resin figure until I saw the sprue figure provided by Andy's kit itself. The US tank crew figure's pose, which is supposed to be a tank commander sticking out of the cupola with one arm resting on the hatch, and another arm reaching out for the microphone, kind of resembles the prayers effect of a burnt human body. Therefore I used Tamiya's basic putty (which forms a thick paste once thinned with Tamiya's airbrush cleaner) to disfigure the body, painted it roughly and applied tons of pigment onto it. The empty 1/16 .50 cal shells are from Master, a Polish brand. The Thompson is also scavenged, from a set of very old ww2 US Army small arms resin toys, and of course, repainted. RIP Boyd "Bible" Swan. Super Italian Red for Ferraris and Tamiya clear red were the only red paints I had in stock, but the blood effect they created seems good enough to me. RIP Don "Wardaddy" Collier. The only slot available on my shelf for now. A bit of a weird combination indeed.