Pobeda (Victory), Berlin, May 1945

[NonProlificModeler]

The last two pics for now, but I think I've got some more later! Till then! Jens

ZIL-157 mit BM-13 (Katyusha) 19.png

ZIL-157 mit BM-13 (Katyusha) 20.png

[martin57]

This is turning out to be something special , great plan for the jacket.
great photos of the original thing .

[NonProlificModeler]

Thanks a lot, Martin! I hope you're right. I managed to work a lot today, but I don't have the time now to edit the pics. You'll see them tomorrow. Promise!

[NonProlificModeler]

Back again! Since the accordion player is one of the most important figures in my dio, his instrument is at least as much important as he is. I was busy painting the accordion for three days. I wanted the exterior to look similar to the original instruments I show you first. I tried to do it by applying a white base coat with random spots in two different greys. Then I painted it twice with clear red and one final coat of semi-gloss. If you want to see what it looks like, you want to wait for the second and third post.

Akkordeon 1-2.jpg

Akkordeon-2.jpg

[NonProlificModeler]

The first pics of my accordion!

PICT0980-2.JPG

PICT0981-2.JPG

PICT0986-2.JPG

One more to come!

[NonProlificModeler]

And now: off the leash!

PICT0985-2.JPG

[NonProlificModeler]

I created my own signs and flag and Russian slogan on my computer. I converted it into a jpeg file to show it to you.
The slogan says: Pobeda budet za nami - victory will be ours!

Schilder für Pobeda.jpg

[Coen]

Very very cool work Jens... I love that accordion buddy!!!


You should get yourself a photobucket account to host your photos. It resizes the images and fits them so they're all the same size. It's free too.
If you want a lot of storage space you can pay to get more. I have like 30,000 images on mine and it only cost me a couple of US bucks a month. I use it a lot so it's worth it for me to pay,mbut the free account is good too.
Here is the how to on using it and YouTube if it's ovpf interest... http://www.intscalemodeller.com/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=22

Using attachments draines the bandwidth of the forum, too many and it crashes. that's why a lot of us us photobucket or some other image hosting site.

[NonProlificModeler]

Jaysis, I didn't know that! Thanks for letting me know! I'll see to it that I open up an account as soon as possible. And, of course, thanks a lot for your comment on the accordion. I appreciate it very much. Well, over here it's midnight and I'll go to bed now. 'Twas a tough day and my eyes are burning. See ya tomorrow, buddy.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Very prolific thread indeed here...it really has taken off
I see the accordion and my head plays "Momma's got a squeeze box, daddy doesn't sleep at night" by the Who
Nice work

[NonProlificModeler]

Hehehe! Thanks, mate!

[NonProlificModeler]

Hi, guys! I've got a photobucket account now, but I didn't have the time to figure out how to use it. So, no pics today, but an update video!

[youtube]048jNxT_tEE[/youtube]

Hope you like it! Jens

[MassterOzymandias]

Hi Jens. Great details with the Katyusha and the accordion is so amazing. Keep it up!

[NonProlificModeler]

Thanks a lot, José! Just woke up and I'm already thinking about what to do next. But one liter of coffee first, hahaha!

[NonProlificModeler]

Hi, guys! First time to work with PhotoBucket. I hope it does the things I want it to do! The "Katyusha" is almost completely built. Bits are painted. I've been quite prolific (hahaha!), because I'm working on a D-Day +2 dio ("Vidette Is Coming To Town") at the same time. Now, let's see if I can post my pics here!



Aha! That worked properly!




So much for the wheels at the moment. Been working on the cabin and doors (inside), too.




The assembly of the chassis is finished. The weather is fine today, so I'll go out in the garden to prime it.





And I can prime the launcher unit as well! I'm sorry for the bad lighting on these pictures, but suddenly the sun appeared and I had to close the curtains. Well, who wouldn't like the sunlight?





I'll have to build the launcher racks though, but that'll be finished tomorrow. Looks a bit like mikado at the moment!



Ah, and I changed the guards of the headlights. They were too thick, so I sanded them down by about 50 or 60%. Then I rebuilt the frame from plasticard (.5 mm) and sanded that thinner, too. You'll see the final result in a few days.





That's it for today! Take care, be good and keep on modeling! Jens

[Thomas2542]

Looks great. Good luck with the rails.

[NonProlificModeler]

These are really easy to assemble. The worst part is cleaning the mold seams, but that's what I'll do after watching telly. Then I'll glue them together and tomorrow they'll be cured and ready to prime.

[NonProlificModeler]

Back again with some more pics on the rails. I made myself this tool some years ago for sanding resin, but of course it works for styrene as well. It's a 19 mm MDF board with 400 wet sanding paper glued to it. I cut off all the rail parts off the sprue and did a little cleaning with the knife. Then I sanded them on the board using four fingers to press them down. That way I achieved an even distribution of force to the parts. After that I pulled all parts through some steel wool to get them as smooth as possible.




Assembly was absolutely simple and the general fit was fantastic. Remember, it's an old kit by Italeri, reboxed by Zvezda and re-reboxed by Revell. I was amazed by the rather good quality of this 'grandpa' kit!







Because of the plastic cement the whole structure had a slight tendency to get warped, but it was really stable. So I put it on an even surface (table) and put a heavy book on top of it. This morning everything was cured and the alignment was perfect.

As I told you the weather was great yesterday. I was in my garden to prime the chassis and the launcher unit. I already gave the latter the base coat: Tamiya TS-28, olive drab 2 from the rattle can. I was able to achieve a nice and even spray job.



Okay, I didn't hit the top of the right rear leaf spring, but I'll sort that out with the black base coat.






The last three pictures show some dry fitting of launcher unit and rails. I'll paint the rails seperately to make it easier for weathering.





Next steps will be: finishing the cabin interior and starting the paint job on the outside, base coating the chassis, continueing the figures and starting the weathering on all vehicle parts. Till then! Take care and keep on modeling! Jens

[TommyKillander]

Awesome work, Jens!

I love the attention you give to details. The accordion looks great

Keep up the good work!

Cheers!

Tommy

[NonProlificModeler]

Thanks a lot, Tommy! I hope I can finish the project till the end of April!

[OliveDrab]

Its good to see someone building a "Katyusha"! Great work with it too

[NonProlificModeler]

Thanks a lot, mate. Yes, to me the "Katyusha" is some kind of symbol for the end of WW !!. I'm really glad I had her in my stash.

[NonProlificModeler]

Hi, guys! I've finished all the skin areas of my figures for this project! It took me five days, because I had to let each layer of oils cure thoroughly. I started with a base coat of sand for the men and flesh for the women. I used acrylics for that coat, because I found out that the oils would dissolve the enamels I wanted to use. So, next step was a wash with burnt Siena oil, diluted with mineral spirit. First real layer of oils was pure yellow ochre. Then I painted the eyes. Although they look white in the pictures, they're pale blue. All further steps are listed in the pictures.









I applied each of those mixtures on the raised areas like forehead, cheekbones, chin and jaw with a fine brush. Then I blended the paint carefully away from the creases using a flat, not to wide brush. Last step was a pin wash with burnt Siena oil in all areas where the shadow effect was a bit messed up during the process.
Next will be all hair on the figures. Of course I'll do that with oils again. After that I'll paint the uniforms.

I worked on the "Katyusha", too. The chassis is painted black and recieved the first dry brushing with grey enamel. The leaf springs and exhaust are pre-painted in dark red brown for the upcoming rust effects. The rear bumpers are painted white, well, let's say 'off-white'. It doesn't matter that the white colour turned out somewhat 'offish', 'cause that makes a good base for the weathering process. The steering column is painted Tamiya oliv drab 2 to match the vehicles base colour.






Been working on the interior, but didn't take any pics. My accu said 'goodnight' and needed recharging. Well, tomorrow I'll glue the rails to the launcher unit and start weathering the complete sub-assembly. More pics as soon as possible. Till then. Take care, be good and keep on modeling! Jens

[patrickroos]

Great stuff going on here!!

[NonProlificModeler]

Thanks a lot, Patrick. I'm sorry for the tardy reply, but I had no internet acces from Friday till noon today. Horror! I used the time for working on my two projects and I'll load up some pics later. At the moment I'm checking all mails and posts and it takes me ages. There doesn't seem to be an end to it!

[Svenne009]

Going well, keep it up

[NonProlificModeler]

Tak, Svenne!

[NonProlificModeler]

Alright, the only person's stupidity I could go nuts about is my own!!! My plan was to have the accordion player sitting on the truck's step. He fits there without any problems. Well, there's but one problem. I wanted the cabin's door to be wide open so I can look inside and see the interior. With an open door the accordion player wouldn't fit or at least can't be seen properly. That's why I stopped all detailing of the interior. You'll see next to nothing with closed doors. Would have saved me a lot of time if I had checked this earlier!

Okay, now for the latest pictures: 1st, the last pictures of the interior.







Then I primed the cabin. It's not glued together yet, only the grille is held in place by two drops of REVELL Contacta Liquid Special. This is not a real glue. You can take the part off easily by just light pulling. I used an old trick to put a handle to the assembly to get a good grip and being able to turn it the way I want it to spray from different angles. I took a long piece of sprue, heated one end and pressed it flat onto the table. So I got some kind of "plate". I sanded that a little and glued it to a spot of the underside of the cabin that won't be visible on the finished model.




I did the masking of the wind shields with normal masking tape and pressed it tightly to the clear parts with a piece off wood. I went all the way round and did that job as carefully as possible, especially in the corners. Then I took a fresh blade for my Xacto and cut carefully and precisely along the window frame. That done, I got rid of the rest of the masking tape.

I sprayed the cabin with Tamiya TS-62, olive drab 2, from the rattle can. I messed up some small spots, because I touched them too early, but I fixed that with a paintbrush. The slightly different colour doesn't matter. I call that 'field repair' and it will look like it later on!







The windows will get some cleaning with a damp Q-Tip to remove the finger prints. I like especially the head lights. I think the effect with clear yellow on silver plus the light bulbs looks great. Did it the first time that way, but I'll never do it another way again.

I finished the rebuild of the guards for the head light, but they need to be painted seperately.



Last, but not least a little appetizer! I started with the clothes of the young woman. I do them in oils. I painted her legs just in flesh colour, painted a seam down her legs with a superfine black permanent pen and then put on black oil and blended that away till it looked like stockings. The skirt is purple red, applied the same way, on red brown.




Hope you liked my little update! Take care, be good and keep on modeling!

[MassterOzymandias]

Great advances Jens. The oils are very nice and the bodywork of the truck looks well.

Greetings!

[NonProlificModeler]

Thank you very much, José! More pics later during the day!

[NonProlificModeler]

Alright, guys, no new pictures! I was about to put up an update vid on YT anyway, so I integrated all new pics there! I almost ruined the paint job on the cabin, as you can see! In the meantime I dry brushed cabin and launcher with two different shades of olive green and it's fine again, phew! I'm really much better at rescueing paint jobs than doing proper ones from the beginning! Take care, be good and keep on modeling! Jens

[youtube]zAbzMhK92oA[/youtube]

[NonProlificModeler]

I was busy reapairing the paint job on the cabin of my "Katyusha". Then I did almost the complete weathering on it. I'll just show you some pictures of one side of the cabin, but what you see there was done to the entire thing.



That's the cabin after dry brushing with two different shades of olive green and some high lighting with a light olive green.



Then i wrote this slogan onto the door ("In the Reichstag") using thinned Tamiya white acrylic and a Revell 5/0 paintbrush.









Chipping with Tamiya German grey, buff, red brown and a pencil.





Fading with burnt umber, dark green, lemon yellow and white. The rust I applied before vanished somehow as did the slogan! I used burnt Siena for the rust then and wrote the slogan again. When all is dry I'll apply some flat clear from a rattle can to secure everything.







I started scratch building stairs from packaging ribbon and plasticard. The stairs will be attached to the wall (outside) of the factory ruin.

More to come soon! Till then take care, be good and keep on modeling. Jens

[Avgas]

Looking brill.

[NonProlificModeler]

Cheers, Dave!

[TommyKillander]

Great progress

Clever to use the packaging ribbon to make the steps

Keep up the good work
Cheers
Tommy

[NonProlificModeler]

Thanks a lot, Tommy! I'm really having fun with this! Who'd have thought so? Jens

[NonProlificModeler]

Hi, lads! The ZIL truck got married to the BM-13 launcher! Chipping and fading are finished. I might apply more rust with burnt Siena oil. No, I most certainly will! This Katyusha saw a lot of combat action and bad weather on her way from Russia to Berlin. I applied graphite powder onto the rails using mineral spirit. I didn't want the powder to dust the complete truck and by using the mineral spirit it was easy to control and it settled right away. Need to remember this! 'Twas the first time I did it that way. I won't attach the rockets, 'cause a) the look shitty and b) war is over. No more need for the Russians to intimidate the German civilians. Now I can concentrate on building the factory ruin which will consist of three pieces: the factory itself, a wall and bars section and the remainders of an outdoor "restroom". Enough work to be done! 











Some detail painting, pin washing and the application of pigments are still to do. I'll do the latter as soon as I've mounted the wheels to get an even overall appearance. Take care, be good and keep on modeling! Jens

[NonProlificModeler]

Hi! I've been working on the stairs. The platform for the second floor is finished. The stairs themselves are a little tedious, 'cause every step needs two support pieces on either side. That will surely take me a while.




These are the steps of pre-finishing the wheels. Since the rims are black - like the chassis - it's not so easy to bring out the detail. Things I did before taking these pics were: dry brushing the rims with a dark grey enamel and applying some pigments to the treads of the tyres. Since Russian paints weren't too good back then, everything started to gather rust quite soon. To make the rust pop out more, I first applied one of my self-made weathering solutions (turpentine, burnt Siena and yellow ochre). The rust was applied like a pin washing, but the colour I used was burnt Siena instead of burnt umber.




Then I mixed Tamiya flat black and flat brown to equal parts and dry brushed the side walls. When you look at long time used tyres they don't turn grey, but rather a very dark brown due to the oil that was used for making them. The "rest" is in fact greyish, because it's like sanded by rolling on all kinds of surfaces. That's why I dry bruched these areas with Tamiya German grey. On the third picture here you can see the difference between "done" (left twin wheels) and "to do) (right twin wheels).





Then I pin washed the rims with the "usual" colour and glued the accordion player's jacket to the spare wheel. Again I show the difference between "to do" and "done" on these pics. The jacket was painted Tamiya khaki, dry brushed in lighter colours and pin washed with burnt umber.





I cut off the lower portion of both side windows, glued them in place with Revell Conatcta Liquid Special (with a tooth pick - NOT the brush) and applied some dirt. I really don't like how it turned out on the wind shields. Trying to imitate traces of water washing away some dirt went totally wrong, so I'll try to change that. The spare wheel is where it belongs and I'm happy with the way it looks. I pin washed the complete truck and applied quite a lot of the burnt umber/mineral spirit solution around the filling caps of both tanks and as streaks beneath the caps.






Next steps on the truck will be mounting the wheels and applying dust to integrate everything. That should be enough for the vehicle... as long as nothing else comes to my mind!

[patrickroos]

Wow, this is really really great stuff mate!
Just love Your paint and weathering work, outstanding!

[NonProlificModeler]

Thank you, Patrick! I appreciate it a lot! Jens

[NonProlificModeler]

Hi! I put up an update video on YT today! And what's new about this? Well, I mounted the wheels and I changed the look of the dirt on the wind shield!

[youtube]R-hTjzH8ZlA[/youtube]

[NonProlificModeler]

I must be sick, guys! Something's definitely wrong with me, because I'm working and working on my dio! I finished the base construction of the stairs. The alignment of the steps could be much better, but I made some mistakes while measuring them and that was too difficult to be fixed. So, I used them the way they are. Then I built the handrail around the platform. I used parts of the "Katyusha" rockets (fins) as supports for the posts. I'm really happy with the way that turned out.










The platform "needed" another figure. I used this chap from the ICM kit "Soviet Motorized Infantry 1943 - 45". The figures from that company have the best fit of all plastic figures I ever built. Compared to them MB figures are "bad"! Well, the guy will have his right foot on the lower rail and his right hand on the upper rail. There was no matching arm in the kit, so I used one from the "Katyusha" kit's figures. The hand's position needs to be altered, too. This time I made the strap for the weapon (PPSh 41) from the lid of a can of dog's food. When I stopped in 2009 I didn't have dogs and I used to make straps from paper, but I think that's too stiff for that purpose. On YT I found a video tutorial on how to make them from thin metal foil (Michael Coen) and I decided to give it a go. That turned out to be a good idea!







What would a dio with Russian soldiers be if there wasn't any vodka? Here you see the prototype of a vodka bottle I made from stretched clear sprue. As I said: the prototype, because I won't use it. It didn't turn out as I wanted it to be, but there'll certainly be some of them. Na sdarovye!!!

[TommyKillander]

Duuude !

The stairs are awesome - they look really great ! I have to keep some of the packaging ribbons next time a get a delivery for sure..

Love the vodka-bottle, can't wait to see the real one.


Tommy

[NonProlificModeler]

Thanks a lot, Tommy! The real bottle's in the fridge, hehehe! Too large for the dio.

[MassterOzymandias]

I love the stairs! It's a great scratch work!

The bottle looks nice too. I will make a pair of them with a similar technique like yours.

Greetings, Mein Freund!

[NonProlificModeler]

Thanks a lot, José! And a special thanks for using the "vodka bottle technique". It makes me happy when fellow modelers try and use things I show. And of course it isn't possible to build a "Russian" dio without vodka! Jens

[NonProlificModeler]

Last update for this week, hehehe! The stairs are almost completed. Handrail's done, then I glued stretched sprue around all edges and and applied some more glue to soften the material. Then I used a small screwdriver and tried to imitate weld seams. I think it doesn't look too bad. (Strange that the CA glue bottle fits precisely the height of the stairs!)








The new figure's assembled and - what was not done when I took these pics - the right arm is in the correct shape on the backside. Good to have a motortool for jobs like this, hehehe! I placed figure, weapon and rucksack as they ought to be placed later on the dio. The figure tilted a bit, because I moved the stairs for the photo, so it looks like he wouldn't fit exactly in this position, but he does!





Quite a while ago I searched the web for propaganda posters of all European countries during WW II. As you can imagine I found tons of them. Same with maps. I scaled them down, put as many as possible on one page in Excel and converted the whole thing into several PDF files. These are the three I'm gonna use, maybe one more with ad posters. Anyway, if anybody cares to get them: I would send them to your mail adress. Just tell me if you're interested.





Alright, lads! Have a good start into the coming week. Take care, be good and keep on modeling! Jens

[NonProlificModeler]

Hi, guys! The stairs are almost completed. They're primed, painted Tamiya XF-56 metallic grey, sealed with semi-gloss clear and I applied a wash of burnt umber oil and mineral spirit. That's what they look like now while they're drying:










The new figure was primed, painted with Tamiya XF-59 desert yellow and the skin areas were painted with yellow ochre oil:




Well, all that stuff needs to dry now and I used the time to start with the first factory wall - the one the stairs will be attached to. I'll build the wall from styrofoam, as I usually do it. This will be a brick wall, so I started drawing lines on cardboard:









The cardboard will then be glued to the styrofoam. I'll do the same things to build a second wall. The ceiling will be different, because the office is upstairs and will have a wooden floor. Maybe that's a little difficult to imagine right now, but bear with me. I'll keep you posted! If you'd like to see something similar I'm working on at the moment, visit my YT channel and watch out for "Vidette Is Coming To Town" (seven parts up to now).

Alright, see you soon! Take care, be good and keep on modeling! Jens

[NonProlificModeler]

Hi, lads! I made a small tool to keep the size and setting of the bricks as correct as possible. That way I didn't need to measure over and over again. Next you see the progress on the brick wall and some dry fitting without and then with the styrofoam "wall". At the moment I'm working on the inner portion of that and the second - much smaller - wall of that ruin.


















The stairs are done. The last two steps after drybrushing them with Revell enamel 99 aluminium were drybrushing with Tamiya XF-10 flat brown and applying some rust streaks with burnt Siena oil.






Seems to take ages, but in fact I'm only working for five weeks on this project now. And parallel to a second dio! So, I think I'm not too slow. Next update on Saturday or Sunday. Till then. Take care, be good and keep on modeling. Jens

[rodrant]

What I'm seeing here is a terrific Build Thread ! Admire all the little details and work that you are putting in this Dio mate ! A winner for sure