[1/35 Dragon 6302] King Tiger with Porsche Turret and Zimmerit + Diorama

[Hank]

Hey everybody. I've been without a camera for the past couple of weeks so unfortunately a lot of the early stages of this build never got documented. Inspired by Stokesy's build thread of his Henschel Turret King Tiger though, I'll be starting my own thread from where I've gotten up to so far.

This is the kit and the figures I will primarily be using in this diorama.





This is what I have thus far:





In this scene the KT will be bursting through a vineyard, from the crop and into the boundarys of the maison and it's gardens a company of Allied soldiers are occupying. In the far right corner of the scene will be the corner of a greenhouse. The dog is a white metal casting from Andrea Miniatures in 54mm. The base is layers of foamboard covered in DAS clay. The bricks too are made from DAS clay and I'll put up some photos of the process I used to make those when I do another batch. Suspension arms for the four corner road wheels have been glued in place and the other will be fitted once more of the ground work is complete and I can pose it all properly.

I was very fond of the way a king tiger looked in this photo so I modelled the arrangement of side skirts after it.


The barrel is an aftermarket part from Aber. Aber say it's for this kit but the styrene kit part it attaches to required a fair bit of surgery to fit it in. I already went on a hearty rant about the undoings of this particular boxing so I'll just mention briefly that the reason I went aftermarket is because Dragon now supply only a two part split barrel in this kit.



The good news is the zimmerit molded on this kit is excellent. It is irregular and the only thing missing is battle damage which is something you'll want to do yourself anyway. Besides scratching some of it off with a hobby knife, I also added some zimmerit around the MG bump using milliput because I didn't like the way it kind of floated on top of the hull plate.

The section of greenhouse I'm modelling off the large 1930's style metal ones with the curved sides. I'm currently in the process of masking it off and there will still be a little more refinement to do before it gets set into the base or painted.




They had all sorts of mechanisms for opening all the windows at once and I'll be trying to model that in, too. Being out in the countryside,the buildings and grounds won't be exhibiting much if any wartime damage (except for, y'now, the massive gaping hole currently being put into the wall) but the greenhouse won't be in pristine condition, either. I've twisted up and broken some of the brackets that hold the glass in place.

Here are some examples of the kind of greenhouse I'm aiming for:





And a close up of fixtures and fittings I have so far.



Thanks for reading!

[Stokesy44]

Looking forward to seeing how this one develops. I've got the sister kit of this Tiger on the go. The Henschel Turret with the Zim. Mine had the metal barrel which is weird.

Sometimes I just don't know what's going on - in general!!

[rwsmith14]

Nice !! Love the green house.. should look great !!

[Coen]

Holy beans and wieners Hank! This is an amazing composition buddy!!
Super well thought out.
I really can't wait to see where this goes.
Totally awesome dude!

[Hank]

Thanks for your comments, guys. They're very encouraging to hear. I'm determined to make this diorama work after I gave up on the last one I started.

This is the process I'm using for making the bricks. I glued together some strips of thick styrene card, then pushed clay into it and then leveled it off by rolling it flat.




The greaseproof paper just helps keep it from peeling up with whatever you're rolling with, in my case, a big can of cheapo hairspray.


Cutting the clay into bricks wants to be done with a pressing motion as I discovered that running a knife from one end to the other just drags it all out of shape.



I'm currently busy building lots of stuff for the Tiger to smash through. Besides a step ladder and lots of rubble, I finished this door today.






Inspiration for the door came from a picture of this one:



I keep dry fitting and mocking up the scene so it slowly gives me an idea of where I want everything to be. Modelling absolute chaos requires more careful deliberation than I expected. Here's where we are so far:



This is where those red bricks come in handy. They serve as both rubble and in constructing the wall. Since last time I've also applied plaster to any intact surfaces and built up the doorway arch.



Thanks again for looking.

[mick]

great work

[Hank]

I suddenly decided the bricks I made were a bit too big. I filed a bunch of them down and rebuilt the lefthand wall which I think now looks a bit more reasonable.




The arch I was going to paint as stones anyway so I'm keeping those the size they are



The two batches of bricks I've already made will be smashed up into fine scatter for rubble. I might yet cut some of them down but it's a bit painstaking cutting and filing every brick.

Suddenly deciding I don't like features and scrapping them is something I do often but I don't think it's anything to be alarmed about. Even the greenhouse and the door were revisions. Below were the originals before I decided I didn't like them either:




The next thing to be binned and rebuilt will probably be that ladder.

[Stokesy44]

I like the fact that its all home made, brilliant skills. Reminds me a tiny bit of that moment in SPR when the second Tiger rears up on that pile of bricks before smashing down on the other side while the paratroopers and rangers scatter in all directions.

Great work, cant wait for more.

[Homerlovesbeer]

I like the fact that its all home made, brilliant skills.
Great work, cant wait for more.

+1 same here! The talent some people have is mind blowing

[demarcation]

Can only agree with the comments above. Fantastic and stunning work!

[Nige99]

Wow just caught up with this thread!! Love this action scene. Your skills are fantastic. Looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.

[Hank]

Thanks again for the kind comments. It's still slow going on my behalf but that's because I've rebuilt the wall a third time. I am finally satisfied that the bricks are in scale. The wall also has a more realistic construction, being done with two layers of brick.




The wall is plastered with quick drying poly filler. I've started scribing brickwork between the smooth patches of plaster to simulate bits that have crumbled away over the years.



On the KT itself I've attached some of the tow cables plus the fine photo etch fittings that come with the kit as an alternative to the styrene. I wanted to model missing and broken off cables so the PE parts fortunately enabled that.



From some of the photographs I've been looking at, it seems the zimmerit was only applied up to where the side skirts begin. My tank has broken off side skirts so whilst it was a bit of a job, I managed to scratch off the zimm where they used to be.



I also glued the road wheels into place. Not something I usually do before painting but with them being steel wheels with no tires to paint, I felt this would be easier.



Fencing has gone up, both for the boundary fence and that which nets the plants in the vineyard together.

[hansolo]

Wow. Looking great. Awesome scratch building skills!!!

Cheers

[Hank]

Paint and primer is finally going down. Primed with black stynlrez which also served as a pre shade, then the base dunkelgelb was put on. As you can see, the base coat of true dunkelgelb takes on a nearly green hue at this scale so some modulating layers will be put down next. I'm yet to decide what camo pattern I want to use but a bi colour dunkelgelb/olivegrun is looking very attactive at the moment.

[d6mst0]

The paint is looking very crisp and clean, great work! Looking forward to see how far you take the painting and weathering.

[razzie43]

what kind of store you buy that polysterene white paper?

[Stokesy44]

Looking good. The Tiger II is a great looking beast and I think this will be a gem!

[Hank]

Thankyou. I've put down a modulating layer and after this comes the two olivegrun layers for the bi-colour camouflage scheme.

what kind of store you buy that polysterene white paper?

I get all the foamboard and plasticard from my local hobby shop.

[Liamcraven666]

Great looking work so far! I'll be bookmarking

[Hank]

Both the dark and light layer of olivegrun have been put down.

[Stokesy44]

Very nice indeed.

[rwsmith14]

LOve the paintwork !!!!

[Hank]

Thankyou!

I went back in with the airbrush to paint in the factory applied dunkelgelb where the skirts have been peeled away. I've also done this to any gaps in the zimmerit to prepare them for primer and rust chipping. I've also added the decals (all two of them) and went around with a brush picking out details and raised surfaces with a lighter shades of green and yellow.






The decals were softened with a generous application of micro sol.