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1/35 WW1 Takom Mk.IV "Heinz" (Captured British tank)


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Hey all,

 

It's been ages since i last made a model tank and since November 11th is approaching, i decided to build a Takom 1/35 Mk.IV.

I've been cutting and glueing the past couple of weekends and the model has come together nicely.

I've made plenty of mistakes during the build, but most of them won't be noticed when finished.

I have also just finished with painting the basic colors.

The weathering proces is about to start and i aim to make a small diorama with plenty of mud (small tryout already made on part of the tracks) !

The model/sprues as it was at the beginning as well as the current status can be seen below & i will post an update when new progress has been made!

 

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Edited by EpicPlastic
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As i couldn't sleep last night, i decided to continue with the model (oh well, i have a few days off anyway, so i'll catch up the sleep).

I've started weathering one side of the tank and applied the following:

 

- panel line wash to make all the details pop out.

- Abteilung 502 oil paints to make some streaking effects

- applied plenty of mud!

 

I'm quite happy with the result so far and will continue to do the same with the rest of the model asap.

 

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So a couple of days have passed and i have now also done the other side of the tank (see photo below)

Still have to do the front, back, underside and the topside + i want to play around and try some different shades of mud on the tracks/tank before i call it finished.

Oh yes, and i still have to paint the machineguns and the exhaust. This will keep me busy for another few days.

 

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As this model is nearing the finish line, it's also time to start thinking of a base for this tank. I have an idea which involves a small landscape with a shell-crater, one or two German stormtroopers, and the tank slowly advancing up a slope. With of course a lot of mud around. The general outline is shown below as well as the material i will use to create the base. I'm enjoying this build very much, so onwards it is!

 

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Edited by EpicPlastic
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On 20/10/2020 at 17:42, Biggu said:

This is really COOL!

Thanks & i'll do my best to make this into an interesting little diorama!

 

Current update: I've glued some foam together to broaden the work area of what will be the base of the diorama.

I let it dry for a a day or two and today it was time to cut away some foam to create the basic outline with a shell crater in front.

After that was done i applied AK's foam texturizer/sealer paste and now i have to wait again until that dries.

Next step: applying mud to the base ---- i'm already looking forward to that! Should be fun to do 😄

 

Photo's below show the progress from glueing together foam to applying the paste.

 

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Key point to note for WW1 models.  There was no spray painting in WW1.  The thick heavy lead and linseed oil paints of the period did not permit it.  Camouflage patterns were brush painted and hard-edged.  As were factory finishes on tanks and other road and rail vehicles.  Even Model T Fords were brush painted at this time.............

 

Spraying did not become practical for vehicles, industrial and other manufactured goods until the 1930s with new types of paint.

 

Colours are fine as surviving original buntfarbenanstrich on stahlhelm (there are no surviving original paint vehicles or artillery pieces and no original colour photos) show a wide variety of shades.  And with no colour codification the truth is that no-one knows what the actual colours were.

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15 hours ago, Das Abteilung said:

Key point to note for WW1 models.

Thanks for that info @Das Abteilung, i'll have to take that into account when building the next one. Too late to adjust that on this model. As you said in one of your other posts: plenty of mud will hide a lot of mistakes! I've also ordered some Tankograd books on the Beute Tanks to get some more inspiration and information about these vehicles and camo schemes. They'll probably contain lots of interesting photo's to use as inspiration for a next build too.

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Those are good books.  I don't have them but I have read them.  Up to 100 or so tanks were recovered and recycled by the Bavarian Army (the "German" army in WW1 was actually the State armies of Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony operating under unified - effectively Prussian - command).  In fact they were better at recovery than the British, helped by most abandoned tanks ending up behind their lines.  Some Males were re-armed with Nordenfeldt 57mm guns and some Females with MG08s, but the latter were problematic and Lewis guns rechambered for 8mm Mauser or even still in 0.303" were most common.  Yes, the Mauser round was actually 7.92mm but its correct name is 8mm.

 

Bayerische Kraftwagen Park 20 (BKP20) set up shop in the works formerly belonging to the Belgian railway manufacturer Ateliers Germain (ironic, eh?) at Charleroi.  It has been postulated that they may have used the company's railway paint colours on refurbished tanks, but I have researched this with some Belgian railway enthusiasts while looking to discover what those colours might have been.  Their consensus is that, assuming the Germans followed their typical pattern, anything useful like that would have been looted back to Germany to aid the war effort.  Occupied Belgian industry was pretty much stripped.

 

As for colours and schemes, the instructions for Buntfarbenanstrich actually opposed standardisation of patterns.  In which case each tank may well have an individual scheme.  As I noted above, the true colours are now unknown and may have varied considerably.  For what it's worth this is my rendering of a 4-colour scheme.

 

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That's some pretty interesting information @Das Abteilung. Strange to realize the Germans only produced 20 A7V's and just walked over to the battle field to tow back scores of British vehicles strenghten the ranks. When reading about this, one almost gets a feeling that they let the British do all the hard work to produce the tanks and then said "thank you for those, we'll use them well against you". Pretty crazy situation, but very interesting to read about that now 100 years later.

 

The Tankograd books arrived today and you were totally right: they are amazing. Full of photo's i've never seen before, including photo's of the work place of BKP20, and dozens of different camouflage schemes and lots of information about that too! That's some well spent euro's. I noticed a few photo's where the Mk.IV's have pretty interesting camouflage painted on them, i'll see if i can do one of those for one of my next builds.

Edited by EpicPlastic
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Yesterday afternoon i started with the mud! Basic layers are now applied and i've also added some puddles.

The "mud paste" is drying to a more uniform colour than i had expected, although i used 3 different shades, so i'm going to expirement with Abteiling oil paints and some pigments to see if i can enrich the mud a bit more with some color variation. But first everything needs to dry before i can proceed. Current status can be seen below.

 

Having read a couple of eye witness stories of that time, i thought an added touch to depict the horrors of WW1 was to display a half buried KIA soldier. I used a British figure from an ICM box which i wasn't planning to use anyway. So next things to do and/or think about for the base:

- experiment with colour variation of the mud

- adding parts and bits of weaponry as this is a battlefield?

- adding some vegetation

 

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