wookiees dragon panzer iv ausf d

[wookiee76]

Grabbed this earlier this year with this sig in mind as it was in the sale at my lhs, plan to build out of the box although may have to utilise some cunning to get the d.s. tracks to sag.

[wookiee76]

And the last few sprues etc. One scheme in the box which works for me as i fancied doing a panzer grey rather than dunkelgelb tank.

Quite a sea of blue for the unused parts which will be welcome in my spares box.

[wookiee76]

Construction begins as usual with the wheels etc and lower hull, so far so good, no obvoius mistakes in the instructions although the multitude of sprue a's was a little confusing at first.
Hatching a plan in my mind as to how the tracks will be made to sag, there appears to be some sort of jig on one of the sprues, how that works with ds tracks I'm not quite sure, get the feeling i will be drilling and pinning the tracks in place.

also, looking at the two options of sprocket i think i will go for the 7 piece ones as they seem to carry more detail and look more ornate.

[wookiee76]

Construction continues apace, well it did until i realised that the instructions totally missed out the lower rear plate and mounting the upper hull to the lower which is where i found a big problem, firstly i had to remove the mounting lugs from the top of the lower hull as there was nowhere for them to line up to, no real biggy i thought then... bearing in mind there were no positive mounting points for either the upper glacis or fenders i tried to get the upper to line up with the lower and, well, just wasn't going to happen so after having a good swear and sleeping on it i decided on getting the rear lined up, weighting down the upper hull whilst the glue set to get rid of the warping and set about filling the resultant gap in the front with some strips of plasticard. Was it me? Possibly, but if there were obvious mounting points for the glacis plate rather than smooth plastic things may have turned out differently, ho hum,dragon instructions need i say more!

[wookiee76]

Construction more or less complete now, the turret traverse controls had to come out of the basket to give the turret the chance to come together which it has, no pics I'm sorry and the fix for the gap on the front end was easy enough to do but with better instructions and mounting tabs or anything wouldn't have been necessary, off to primer now followed by a chipping xolour coat before hairspray and panzer grey.

[wookiee76]

With construction completed it was time to start spraying, after a good coat of Ultimate primer and a quick check of seams etc i lay down a chipping colour, in this case burnt umber follwed by hull red and rust (all model air). Following this as even a coat of hairspray as i could manage from the can.
Once this had dried an all over coat of tamiya field grey thinned 50:50 with Ultimate thinners was allowed to dry for an hour or so before i set to work with water and a softish brush creating the chips, this isn't something i can get my head around as of yet although i am slowly improving, it does seem somewhat alchemical as you go! As far as i can tell the thicknesses of both paint and hairspray along with the amount of water, type of brush, phase of the moon etc all play a part in how this goes lol. Enough waffling and on with the pics.

[wookiee76]

Well, i apologise for a lack of updates with this build but here we are so far, there has been a pin wash in the details of a dark brown oil mix, pigments applied to the parts i want to be rusty and a few other little bits, nothing spectacular or striking, just been taking it a bit at a time.

[RonBurgundy]

Looks like a interesting subject, I think they made just one of these. Too bad for the DS tracks, if it had Magic tracks I would be all over this.
Nice build so far

[wookiee76]

I would have preferred magic tracks too, wish that manufacturers would add a bit of extra length to rubber band tracks to give enough slack to put in sag without twisting the sprockets and idlers off.

[wookiee76]

Erm, trying to remember what i have done here... just a minute...ah, got it. I have now added a blue filter over the whole upper side to give some more variety to the colouring, added some fresh chips using a watercolour pencil, strengthened the wash in certain areas and added some mud to the lower parts of the hull and running gear, hoping to get this one finished this weekend.

[wookiee76]

All finished now, once i get my new photobooth and lights set up i will post a finished thread.