Dragon King Tiger, Last Production

[alextheblue]

Well, I did say that once the Tomahawk was finished I would go back to armour, so here I am. In fairness, this isn't a kit that I've just started, I actually began building it about two years ago, but I drifted from the fold and stopped modelling for a while. I've been back for a couple of months now and after a couple of aircraft builds, I decided to crack on and finish some of the half built stuff that is on my bench.



Up until Tuesday of this week, this one was pretty much built, but I hadn't got round to priming it. The build was typical Dragon and everything went together without any hassle. Even the instructions were quite straightforward, or maybe I'm just getting used to the crazy world that is Dragon's kit instructions.



Still the insane number of "spare" parts that are left-over, (for those not familiar with Dragon kits, all the bits highlighted in blue are not needed for this kit). I know they are for variants and for other kits, but I can't help feeling that I'm paying for a bucket-load of stuff that I don't need.



I made a bit of a boo-boo with this kit, as I should have assembled the tracks early on, certainly before attaching the fenders. I think that when I started the kit, I must have made the decision to get some Friul tracks instead - well, that's my excuse! The tracks with this kit are neither the Magic Tracks nor the DS "rubber-band" tracks, but individual track links you have to cut from the sprue - aaaaarghhh!!!! Nightmare!!!





Three parts per link section and every part needs cutting from the sprue and cleaning up before the tedious task of gluing them together.



Now, I'm no fan of Magic Tracks, I hate the damn things, but I would rather use those than these things. Anyhow, it is what it is, so I thought I'd crack on with them. After hours and hours and hours - all, right, a few minutes, I ended up with this.



Yeah, might just order me some Friul tracks after all!!

And on to the painting. Priming was courtesy of Ultimate grey primer. Only just started using this stuff and I must say, it goes down a treat - lovely stuff. As for the tri-colour camo, I was in a bit of a quandary with this one as I don't have all three colours in one paint brand. I have the brown and the green from Tamiya, but not the dunkelgelb and Gunze all I have is the rotbraun. I have all three colours in AK paints, but they are a pig to spray and I'm not keen on the colours. And then I suddenly remembered - I DON'T REALLY GIVE A CRAP!

So, this is what I ended up using.



The black was heavily diluted to provide shading and "dirty" patches and the light dirt was lightly sprayed all of the model to "pull" the colours together, as well to spray in highlights etc.









To speed things up with the dot-camo, I used a pointed cotton bud with the very tip cut off. Some of the "dots" are a little bit too round, but once it's had some washed and weathered, it won't be quite so noticeable - hopefully!



And that's where I'm at. Most of the tools, tow cables etc have been painted and next up is a pin wash plus a couple of filters. The colours are still too bright and the tools look fresh and shiny, but that will all change once the weathering begins!!

Thanks for taking a look!

[alextheblue]

I umm'ed and ahh'ed about whether to crack on with the Dragon tracks, or order up some FruilModel ones. In the end, I decided to bite the bullet and give the kit ones a bash. I was a bit concerned as I had already glued the fenders in place and there isn't a whole lot of room to wiggle the tracks into place once they are made up.

To my dismay, each individual link had three ejector pin marks!!



Did I spend hours sanding and filling each link to remove all these imperfections? Hell no!!! Once the tracks are assembled and on the tank, you're not going to see them. Plus, and more importantly - I couldn't give a toss!

Progress is slow and I used the drive sprockets to get the right amount of sag at the front. Again, you won't really see, as the fenders hide the upper section of the tracks, but there are some things that I at least half care about!



Once assembled, the tracks are primed in Ultimate black primer and then give a coat of Vallejo track primer. To me, this is a quite a good bass colour for tracks on German vehicles and I prefer to put it on with a hairy-stick rather than an airbrush as I still want some of the black to show through.





The tracks are then give a wash with a Mig enamel wash.




The tracks look very shiny in this pic, but I took the photo straight after applying the wash. I'l dry brush the tracks with Vallejo Model Air metallics, steel, but I'll do this once they are on the tank.

Now it's on to a dot filter to tie in the tri-camo a bit more. I typically use brown, yellow, white and blue for this and I try to put the dots where areas of shadow and highlight would typically be, although most of it is pretty random.



I then use Windsor & Newton white spirits to blend the oil paints together. It's a whole lot cheaper than specific modelling thinners and personally I think it works better with artists oils than some other thinners. The exhausts were then weathered using a mix of rust colours from Vallejo Model Colours and a small amount of rust pigments.







And that's me up to date. Next up is some chipping and a light bit of rust here and there. I'm going to put a bit of mud and dirt on it, but not much, just enough to give some idea that its been driven around off-road.

I should be finished this in the next couple of days as the Bomber SiG starts on Tuesday and I would like a clear bench for that one. Clear bench!! HA!! Who am I kidding!!!

Thanks for taking a look!

[aur0ra145]

Great tip on the q-tips. I'll definitely use your method when I start my King Tiger.

[Stokesy44]

That dot filter has worked beautifully with the camo. Nice work on the tracks too.