Tomcat's 1/35 StuG III Ausf.G Diorama

[Tomcat64]

I've had this diorama in mind for about six months and have been gradually stashing up to build it, so having the Winter is Coming GB turn up gives me the excuse I need to get started. This will be the largest and most complex diorama I've attempted so I suspect I'm going to need the whole four months to get it finished.

The vehicle will be Tamiya's StuG III ausf. G Fruhe version


The basis for the diorama will be the buildings from this Miniart set - the SU76 and crew will be put aside for a future project


And the scene will be populated by a selection of figures from these sets:


The plan is for the StuG III to be a whitewashed finish over a 2-tone or 3-tone camouflage pattern, and for the whole diorama to be snow-covered and trying to give the impression of wind-driven freezing temperatures outside of the ruins, with the buildings offering some minimal shelter for those inside.

[Tomcat64]

Sturmgeschutz III Ausf.G Fruhe Version
Originally intended for infantry support duties, Germany’s Sturmgeschutz (assault gun) and abbreviated StuG III first appeared in combat during 1940. It had the durable Panzer III chassis with a completely new superstructure. To keep the vehicles profile as low as possible, the revolving turret was eliminated and the short barrelled 75mm L/24 gun was mounted directly onto the hull. As it was mainly intended for close fire support for the Wehrmacht, it was used as self-propelled artillery against the opposing enemy’s strategic points. However, when the German forces encountered the Russian KV and T-34 tanks on the Eastern front, the situation abruptly changed. To cope with this Russian tank threat, the Germans were forced to upgrade their existing weapons systems. The G-Type StuG III built from late 1942 onwards, used a more powerful, long barrel 75mm L/48 gun. The early G-Type had a square shaped gun mantlet. The superstructure was redesigned and an MG34 machine gun with shield, commander’s vision cupola and smoke dischargers were added. The thin steel plates, known as Schurzen (skirts) were attached to the sides of the hull beginning in the spring of 1943. The type-42 assault gun mounted a 105mm howitzer on the StuG III chassis and was developed to fulfil the StuG III’s original role of infantry support. Incorporating several minor changes about 7,800 G-Type StuG IIIs were produced.

Onto the kit. It's in the usual Tamiya box and comprises a number of sprue frames in a dark-yellow colour. As mentioned in the introduction the intent is to finish this out in two or three-tone camouflage and then switch to winter camo by adding a white-wash over the vehicle before final weathering.





I've already picked up after market grilles by Eduard (sorry the reflection is bad on the photo), and a stowage set by Legend. I'm intending to also add an after-market gun barrel and potentially workable tracks as the kit includes the standard band-type tracks.

[Tomcat64]

This will be my second venture using a Miniart diorama set, and while working with vac-form plastic isn't my favourite past-time the end results are generally good (time will tell on this one). This is much more complex in terms of the amount of vac-formed parts to get in place and pointing in the right direction, but fortunately in this case I can potentially cover the joins where the walls meet the base with piled snow on the outside and rubble on the inside.

The box describes this as Budapest in 1945 but I'm hoping the congregation will grant me enough poetic license to use this as a generic ruined building in Russia circa early 1943.


Onto the plastic:




I've just realised that I missed a set of walls so I'll come back and add them in later when I start the build - sorry about that!

The first side of the instruction sheet covers the building of the SU-76 so this is the side we'll be working to - it makes it all look so simple...


And using a previously build Panzer iii means I can check that the StuG iii chassis will fit in the intended area of the building with a slight overhang.

[Tomcat64]

Finally here are the inhabitants of this small part of the world. I won't be using all of the figures from these sets, and whilst I know exactly what I've got planned for some of them a final decision as to which of the others to include and where will be taken after the bulk of the build has been done.









So there you have the basic components.

I'm planning to start this with the buildings rather than the vehicle as that's where I'm most likely to run out of traction and need a break so the StuG itself may well act as relief before I head back to the vac-form stuff.

[privatepete]

Hi Tom you are certainly packing a lot of action in this one, good luck with the build.
Pete

[Tomcat64]

I finally managed to grab some time to cut some plastic on this and as mentioned in the intro I'm starting with the diorama base.

Firstly some more shots of the pieces as they came from the box - the detail in the vac-form parts is generally good, but the plastic is very thin and easy to cut or split.

The base:


The front wall (and one part of the ceiling/floor):


The outside side wall:


The inside wall:


The roof:


And the remaining parts for the ceiling/floors:


There are also two identical sprues of injection moulded plastic to form the doors, windows and street furniture. The quality isn't so crisp and there's some flash to deal with, but it'll be workable:






First job was to cut all the parts away from their backing sheets - here they are all ready for the sand-a-thon that follows to tidy them up:


A quick check showed a little more surgery will be required to the main wall


Remembering a tip I picked up from DBMiller in the Summer Sci Fi SIG he filled out the vac-form he was building with expanding foam to give the structure more rigidity, so with a little lateral thinking and finding this in the garage:


I decided to experiment with one of the smaller (ie expendable) pieces of debris and filled out one of the triangle-shaped lumps:




So far so good - it hasn't melted the plastic and is quite solid without being too heavy


So have decided to try the same trick with a larger piece of debris before moving on to the main components


If this works it'll allow me to drill through and use reinforcing rods to help hold the whole lot together.

And finally for this update I've been experimenting with creating icicles using Vallejo water effect teased into shape; it needs a little more practice but I think we can get there:


Thanks for looking.

[privatepete]

Hi Tom another good filler for diorama building is tile grout.

[Tomcat64]

Hi Tom another good filler for diorama building is tile grout.

Thanks Pete - I'll keep that one in mind if I run out of Polyfilla (or it melts the bits!)

[OliveDrab]

OK you have my attention now, this project will be much fun to follow!

[Bissyboat]

[Stokesy44]

Looking good, I've often thought of buying one of those mini-art sets.

It will be interesting to see how it builds up.

[Tomcat64]

Thanks for the encouragement guys - it's much appreciated!

So, good news everyone (one for the Futurama fans out there) the large chunk of rubble survived the filling process and I was actually able to use the filler to bond the two halves together - there's still some gaps to be filled and sanded but nothing too much out of kilter:


So that means we can move onto the main components. The instructions on the Miniart website about how to sand down the bigger parts involve placing a full sheet of sandpaper on the desk and then rubbing the component in a circular motion - I don't know if I'm being cack-handed but all I achieved when I tried this last time was skinning my fingertips, I just couldn't get enough purchase on the component to make this effective. So the way I do this now is to use a coarse sanding stick and work my way around the edges.

First up was the inside wall - this has been sanded, filled and bonded in the same way as the large chunk of rubble seen earlier and again the result is good enough with some filling and sanding to be done to finish off preparation


While that was setting I moved on to working on the floor/ceiling sections. I've decided not to fill these as I think the extra weight would cause stability problems when it comes to putting them in place against the walls, so these have been sanded down and then just glued using a thin poly cement.

The upper deck looks ok - this is the part that will fit just below the roof, although there's no clear indication on the inside wall as to exactly where it should sit. Again some filling and sanding is required to finish it off.


The middle deck looks more or less ok from the top


But when flipped over it's a different story


I can only assume they thought that since it was unlikely to be viewed from below it'd be ok, but I'm going to trim back the planks to match the beams and then fill the gaps underneath - it just looks tatty. I actually checked back through the box to make sure I'd got the right parts here because it looks like such a glaring mismatch to me.

So that just leaves the roof and the outside walls in terms of joining up halves. I did another check on the alignment problem with the front wall and from inside it became apparent that in order to match up with the inside wall I'll have to trim off parts from each of the areas where it sits in the moulded wells rather than just one end as I'd originally hoped; so I think I'm going to remove the last brick from each end to give me enough wiggle room to manoeuvre everything into place and then backfill as necessary when it's installed on the base.


That's all for now, I'm hoping to get some more work on this over the weekend - thanks for looking!

[Tomcat64]

The sandathon continued through the weekend and I cleaned up, filled and joined the outside side wall first, then cleaned up and joined the two halves of the roof and then moved onto the front (main) wall.

I trimmed up the bottom end first to get the wall to drop into the footings on the base


And worked around all the edges to remove any excess and in a couple of places probably overdid it and have ended up with some gaps that will need to be filled after it's all joined up. I then added guides around all the windows, the door and a couple of the other straight edges to help keep the two halves aligned - one of the advantages of all the trimming earlier on is that I've got a decent pile of scrap plastic to use for this.


One of the balancing acts with this stuff especially around the doors and windows is to get enough pressure to make a good join between the two halves without warping the plastic as it's really thin in these areas.


The two halves were then filled using the same putty as mentioned previously and are now put aside to bond and dry out.

I then moved onto the base. You may remember from the introduction that when I placed a panzer iii that I'd built previously onto the base it overhung a little at the back, so I'm going to add an extension of about 2cm (just under an inch) to the back of this section of the base.


I started this off by gluing a couple of sections of I-form plastic bar together and then covering them with scrap plastic cut to size (not the most thrilling of photos)


The base also has a depression in it where the floorboards have dropped under the weight of the tank, once again this is much shorter than the track run for the StuG so I'm going to carve out a couple of sections here and extend the dropped floorboard area to the full length of the base.


I also decided to remove the larger blocks of debris from the track runs to give me more latitude in the final placement of the StuG and also because I figured the stone blocks would most likely have been crushed anyway. So here's the "I hope I know what I'm doing" moment


And then there was no going back, in this shot I've worked my way down the larger parts of the rubble removing them with a scalpel and sanding back. I've also added strips of scrap plastic into the gaps at the back to act as the "hard deck" for when I put the floorboards back in


I then blanked off the holes with more of that scrap plastic and started filling out with Deluxe Perfect Plastic Putty - in restrospect I think I should have used something slightly stiffer such as squadron green but I'll just build this up in layers and then rescribe surface detail when I want it back in. This shot also has the extension placed in position for reference - it's not glued on yet


I'm going to leave the filled walls to set for a few days as there's quite a bit of putty in there and continue to work on the base, roof and decks this week.

Thanks for looking.

[Tomcat64]

A week of filling and sanding on the repeat cycle but we're making progress...

The two internal floors, roof and internal wall are all just about ready for primer now. I chopped off the overhangs on the middle deck and then remodelled them and the underlying beams with squadron green putty and sanded to shape. The roof and upper deck just needed filling and sanding until I'd caught all the gaps. I also ran along the edge of the upper deck with Vallejo textured paint to give a rougher edge to the broken stone.


I did the same with the "broken" edge of the internal wall and then scribed the blocks back in. I'll do a little more work to this but I'm happier with the rough surface it produced. I'll also trim off a small section of the bottom layer of blocks on this wall to give me some play when it comes to settling the sections together onto the base.


Another thing that occurred to me this week was that although the putty filled components weren't too heavy individually, once they were combined there'd be about 600g (just under 1.5lb) of weight which would inevitably flex the base. So I added beams under the base to the same height to support the wall sections. The only reason I'm using I-beams for this is because that's what I have handy and I'm trying to avoid heading to the LHS as I know I'll cave in and buy something else (see next section).


So while I was doing some unsupervised browsing I decided to add this as a little scenery to be propped up against the short outside wall


On opening the box I had to call out a search party to find the parts (I'm guessing they just use the one standard sized box for everything)


But quality looks good as always in my experience with masterbox. There's one sprue section with the bike itself


And the other section has a selection of accessories which will probably either go into the parts box or get added into the diorama somewhere


And something to test the PE skills


So I should be able to get some primer on the roof and decks as they're going to be painted and then added into the final shell. I've got some work to do with the two outside walls in terms of sorting out the joins and cleaning up detail this weekend, and I'm hoping to get the topside of the base progressed. I may also use the bicyle as a mini-project to scratch the itch of needing to build something after a couple of weeks of prepping (ok ok - it's flimsy rationalisation and I know it!).

Thanks for looking.

[spock1701]

It doesn't matter how flimsy the rationalization is, just as long as it exists.

I think adding the bike to the diorama will improve the realism a lot. All that tiny PE though...

[Tomcat64]

I think adding the bike to the diorama will improve the realism a lot. All that tiny PE though...

Yup the PE will definitely be a challenge

I didn't get as much done this weekend as I'd hoped but still managed to make some progress.

First up was the base where I laid the cut planking back down and added a bend at the ends to represent the sag from the weight of the vehicle. Once this has set in place I can start filling in the gaps and working the rubble sections back in and overspill onto the extension plate which I also fixed in place.


Then onto the side wall; I wasn't happy with the way the join at the top of the wall had settled and with trying to sand it into place I was getting to the point where the plastic was getting too thin and at risk of splitting, so I added a piece of thin plasticard to the top and chamfered the edges to blend it in. I also used some Vallejo plastic putty to help with the blending.


Then onto the front wall where I still had to work around all the joins. I got the upper floor windows done, and fitted their frames in place (which also helps hide the seams)


But unfortunately when I moved onto the doorway some of the seams split open again so I had to reseal those and then refill the with PPP and left that to all set again before I start in with the sanding. Even with the plaster filling there's still some flex in the plastic when sanding, although it's not as bad as it is without the filler so it's definitely helped.


So while that was setting I removed the final part of the plastic on the front wall which will allow the side wall to make a butt-joint up against it when everything is in place. I'll chamfer this edge down as well once I've figured out how to hold it in place (possibly with thinned white glue) prior to final assembly.


So that was it for the weekend, but it did give me enough pieces semi-finished to allow me to build up the main shell in a dry fit (with a little blu tack) to get some idea of how it's going to look




Obvious work for this week if I can get to it is to finish the seams on the main wall and fill out the holes in the base.

Thanks for looking!

[privatepete]

Hi Neil, those seam or any joint you don't want to move use sprue glue if you have any or you can make some up you will have to let it dry over night, it's very handy, that will hold it and just fill over the top.looking good:cheers2:

[Bissyboat]

Looking good.

[spock1701]

That diorama is coming together nicely.

[SergioSolo]

Looks great! Love the bike. I've wanted to try one of those scenery kits

[hansolo]

Man, that dio needs a lot of work! Not as you might say the perfect fit.
You're doing an awesome job on it though! I see that you're máking it work.

[Tomcat64]

Looking good.

That diorama is coming together nicely.

Looks great! Love the bike. I've wanted to try one of those scenery kits

Man, that dio needs a lot of work! Not as you might say the perfect fit.
You're doing an awesome job on it though! I see that you're máking it work.

Hi Neil, those seam or any joint you don't want to move use sprue glue if you have any or you can make some up you will have to let it dry over night, it's very handy, that will hold it and just fill over the top.looking good:cheers2:

Thanks for all the encouragement guys - it's really appreciated I've not tried the sprue glue before Pete so will bear that in mind for my next outing with this vac-form stuff!

So this has been a good weekend of progress and I'm happy with the way things are coming together now.

First up I finished off the edges on the front wall and added the door frame and final window frame; as with most things in this kit nothing fitted quite as it should so everything was then filled with vallejo plastic putty


As you can see from the previous shot I also added 4x3cm brass lugs to act as locators for fixing the middle wall to the front wall rather than just having a plain butt joint. These are all cut from 2mm brass wire.


My original plan was to paint the walls up separately and then join them afterwards, but looking at the dubious bevelled joint intended for the end wall I decided to build everything up and then attach it all to the base


I also fitted a brass locator on the inside of the end wall to help the roof defy gravity


Joining the walls up and then using the base as a jig turned out to be a good option as it also let me test-fit the decks, and as it turned out the middle deck was too long and needed sanding down by about a mm to get it to fit snugly


But of course the upper deck by comparison was about 2mm short so I would need to add shims from spare plastic to get that to fit (more or less)


Having the walls all joined up also allowed me to see the somewhat dodgy join between the front and end walls




While the walls were setting I started in on the base, firstly using squadron green putty to bring the extension into the main base


To get some rigidity to the whole thing I mounted the base on some 5mm foamboard and then worked around the edges with Vallejo textured dirt to tie it all together (as it was a rough cut - looks like I need to change my blade)


I then mixed up some pva glue with some aquarium gravel to give a basic contour of debris and added some HO railway ballast to give a finer layer


And then used squadron green and Vallejo plastic putty to fill the gaps where the walls joined the base (the walls had been CA'd in place first)


By this time I'd also sorted out the dodgy joint on the end wall just by bevelling down with a sanding stick and then filling any left over gaps




Finally I added some more Vallejo textured dirt to provide the final layer of the basic debris and also to blend the broken edges of the walls into the base


And with both the inside decks adjusted to fit I can finally see what the whole thing looks like


The decks and roof are still loose fitted and will be painted separately to allow access the inside walls for painting; and that's pretty much it for this stage. I'm going to leave the whole thing for a couple of days to let the various putties and textured paints cure off before heading out to the garage for primer coats, and then hopefully get the basic paint job done in the next couple of weeks. I won't do the final details in terms of debris and weather (ie snow) until I've got the StuG and figures in place so I know where I'm working around.

Thanks for looking!

[spock1701]

Looking great! That textured dirt looks super!

Have to say, this thread is not turning out to be good press for Miniart diorama sets.

[Tomcat64]

Looking great! That textured dirt looks super!

Have to say, this thread is not turning out to be good press for Miniart diorama sets.

yes I guess I'm not likely to be offered a job in their marketing dept. anytime soon!

I'm happy to admit that some of the problems may well be down to my lack of experience in working with vac-form kits as this is only my 2nd attempt at a Miniart Dio (the first one just had two vac-form parts) but it's definitely thrown up some challenges of its own. On the upside I'm fairly happy with the results so far so it's been worth the extra work.

[hansolo]

Looking great! That textured dirt looks super!

Have to say, this thread is not turning out to be good press for Miniart diorama sets.

yes I guess I'm not likely to be offered a job in their marketing dept. anytime soon!

I'm happy to admit that some of the problems may well be down to my lack of experience in working with vac-form kits as this is only my 2nd attempt at a Miniart Dio (the first one just had two vac-form parts) but it's definitely thrown up some challenges of its own. On the upside I'm fairly happy with the results so far so it's been worth the extra work.

Yeah Tommy. I guess you'd almost be quicker of scratch building the whole dio, then trying to fix what they failed to do right in the first place.

[Fridgy]

I take my hat off to you.
I know I would have given up in frustration and thrown it across the room

[Bissyboat]

Nice progress on the ruins. Adding foliage that blends in with the house and environment can be a tall order

[panzerman825]

Ruin building is looking great. Vacuform kits are.challenging....you mastered it. Bill

[Tomcat64]

Yeah Tommy. I guess you'd almost be quicker of scratch building the whole dio, then trying to fix what they failed to do right in the first place.

I take my hat off to you.
I know I would have given up in frustration and thrown it across the room

Nice progress on the ruins. Adding foliage that blends in with the house and environment can be a tall order

Ruin building is looking great. Vacuform kits are.challenging....you mastered it. Bill

Thanks for checking in again guys - really appreciate the support on this one!

Not much progress this week as we had a fairly busy friends and family weekend so just grabbed a few hours here and there.

First up I gave the ruins their first coat of primer and wasn't happy with the seams around the inside of the main opening in the front wall. These were sanded, lathered in PPP, sanded again, had Mr Surfacer 500 loaded on top and then sanded again for good measure


I then primed again with ModelMates rattlecan black, then when that was dry dusted some Modelmates rattlecan dark grey onto the road and path sections and then finally used some Tamiya fine surface primer to add some coarse pre-shading


And around the back - I also spotted a couple of bad joins that I'd missed on the end of the outside wall, so these have had Mr Surfacer 500 worked into the gaps


I've also managed to do basic assembly on the figures I plan to install; as a reminder here's the selection box from the introduction


I've used all except one figure from the Tamiya field briefing (still undecided about the dog), one figure from the Tamiya assault infantry set, all five figures from the Masterbox cold winds set and so far just two figures from the Miniart tank crew set - I plan on using two more of these to complete the crew but don't know which ones yet until I build the StuG. In terms of quality the Masterbox set is certainly the crisper moulding, and also the most complex to assemble in terms of parts; there's not a lot to choose between the Miniart and Tamiya field briefing sets, they're both good quality albeit with more seam lines than the Masterbox set; and finally there's the figure from the Tamiya winter assault infantry (the traditional Tamiya green plastic for figures) where the detail is still ok but just not as crisp as the others. The figures need to be filled and sanded around the seams and then have final equipment fitted at which point I'll show photos of the intended groupings, weapons will be added after painting as I just can't work around them.

At one point Mrs Tomcat looked over and said it looked like I was building a graveyard - so here it is!


One figure I will highlight is the commander from the tank crew set - he's posed to be keying his radio-mic


But since I wanted him out of the vehicle and chatting to a couple of others I grabbed a couple of mugs from a British infantry set (sorry guys) and reworked his right hand to be holding the mug. There's still a little tidying up to do to fix the joins along the fingers and because his arms aren't quite joined at the original angle I'll need to give those joints some filling and shaping.


That's it for now, next up is starting to lay down paint on the ruins and filling and finishing the figures - oh and building the bicycle of course. I think I'm also getting dangerously close to actually being able to start work on the StuG itself.

Thanks for looking!

[Tomcat64]

Have been making steady progress on the ruins throughout the week and grabbed an unexpected couple of hours yesterday morning at the bench too

Last time we left the ruins they'd just had the primer applied, so first thing I did was to add a little variation to the road section by spraying Vallejo German Grey randomly onto the cobbles, having masked this off I then painted the paving slabs with Scale 75 Rainy Grey. I had originally used Brown Grey but decided this was too dark (yep this photo was taken retrospectively as I forgot to take a picture when I originally did the work - something that'll crop up a couple more times during this update!).


This was all then masked off using a combination of tape and my first foray with Panzer Putty.


Then around the back the floorboards were base-coated with LifeColor Cold Wood Base.


And I noticed that I'd had a problem with the Vallejo putty collapsing into the gaps under the primer - this is the second time I've hit this problem so I don't know if it's because it's not happy with the propellent from a rattle-can primer but something I need to be aware of. Anyway - the gaps were filled with Deluxe PPP this time and not too much of a problem as the runs along the bottom of the walls will be buried in rubble by the end of the build


This was all then masked off as well


I hadn't decided on the final colour combination I wanted to use for the stonework so grabbed the large piece of rubble I'd used for a filler test earlier on and sprayed one side with Vajello Light Grey, and the other side with White Grey (both ModelAir)


And then added a Dark Umber wash to both sides before settling for the White Grey version


With that decided I base-coated the stone work with White Grey


And around the front


I then masked off the stonework on the front and layed down ModelAir duck egg blue from the RAF set as the main colour for the building (I forgot to take a picture of the masked version but there's plenty more masking to come!)


I then left this to cure overnight as I wanted to mask the blue to pick out the plaster trim around the door and windows etc and didn't want to risk lifting the paint by masking too soon. So in the meantime I experimented on the middle deck and unfortunately since I was experimenting I didn't take any photos of the intermediate stages, but for the wooden top side I basecoated with LifeColor cold wood base (as per the floorboards), I then washed this with Vallejo natural wood grain which didn't do quite what I expected... so then dry brushed with Scale 75 walnut and added an uneven black wash to get this


Underneath I based coated the whole thing with White Grey and used a dark umber wash followed by a Brown removable wash on the stone section, and then just a grime removable wash for the plaster section - I'll be using this combination throughout the rest of the project. The beams and underside were given a couple of layers of wash to distinguish them from the floorboards.


The next day I masked up the front of the building ready for the next layer of White Grey. I also laid down the same base colour for the plaster sections of the inside wall at the same time.


And here's the result - happy with this


Then around the back it was another maskathon to get ready for the internal colours of the rooms. Masking is done with a combination of tape, Tamiya 2mm tape for curves, panzer putty and a couple of small bits of white-tack



The main room upstairs was painted with Scale75 Dark Red, the end room upstairs was ModelAir Interior Grey Green, main room downstairs with Faded PRU Blue, and end room downstairs with RAF Dark Green (the latter three colours from the Vallejo ModelAir RAF sets) and once I'd tentatively pulled the masking off I was left with this - there's one or two bits that may need touching up but overall really happy with this


I then removed all the remaining masking and was left with this from the front


And then this from the back


Unfortunately the joint down the back of the end wall has sprung again (I think while I was trying to get the masking in place for the decorators) so that's had some PPP worked back in.

Next up is finishing off the floorboards in the same style as the middle deck, finishing off the road and paving sections with some washes and then the stone work. I also want to do the initial "Grime" weathering on the inside walls and will probably do the same on the outside to dull down the colours a little as it all looks a little white and clean at the moment!

Thanks for looking!

[Bissyboat]

Fantastic wood texture on the floor boards. Fancy stencils on the rooms, as well as the outside of the house. Love that turquiose colour! Keep up the good work!

[ElCapitan]

Looks like it was a rather nice house before the current occupants moved in!

[privatepete]

Hi Neil coming together very nicely, well done, keep it up

[Tomcat64]

Fantastic wood texture on the floor boards. Fancy stencils on the rooms, as well as the outside of the house. Love that turquiose colour! Keep up the good work!

Thanks mate - I think it's finally heading in the right direction!

Looks like it was a rather nice house before the current occupants moved in!

Yeah - you know what it's like when new neighbours move in and then someone has the great idea of knocking two rooms into one...

Hi Neil coming together very nicely, well done, keep it up

Thanks Pete - great to see you back

[demarcation]

Great work mate!!

[Tomcat64]

Great work mate!!

Thanks mate

Have been able to grab a few hours this week so far to make some more progress on the ruins

First up I laid down some dark dirt removable wash onto the floorboards for the middle deck and I think this is now finished except for adding rubble after final construction is done


Onto the main ruins and used dark dirt on the paving slabs and various mixes of light and dark dirt on the cobble roadway section. This is pretty much done now as most if not all of this will be covered in snow by the end but I wanted to have something so show through if I decided on sections with a thinner covering


Then onto the floorboards in the main sections; this is the process I followed for the middle deck floorboards - first stage was to cover it all in a wash of Vallejo natural wood grain


Then a rough dry-brush of Scale75 walnut


And then finally a black wash followed by dark dirt - I'm not completely happy with the way this has turned out as I don't think it gives enough definition so I'm going to dry-brush the edges of some of the planks to dry and bring out additional details


And then the walls were washed - stone sections with brown and plaster sections with grime (always nervous at this point in case I wreck what I've achieved so far!) I masked off some rectangles on the plaster section to try and give the impression that paintings may have been removed


And around the front


So some additional work needed on the floorboards and then picking out the moulded rubble and door and window frames and that's probably it done for this stage of the build. The miniart kit did include some street furniture in the form of lamps etc but I've decided not to use them so they'll be heading for the spares box, or maybe for use in some of the debris that I'll be adding later.

Thanks for looking!

[Stokesy44]

Looks awesome mate. Completely unrecognisable from the kit parts you started with. The filling, painting and weathering looks superb.

Cant wait to see what you do with the STUG and all the figures.

[Bissyboat]

Speechless mate…

[SergioSolo]

Amazing!

[Tomcat64]

Looks awesome mate. Completely unrecognisable from the kit parts you started with. The filling, painting and weathering looks superb.

Cant wait to see what you do with the STUG and all the figures.

Speechless mate…

Amazing!

Thanks guys

This has been a good week for grabbing a few hours each evening so there's a little more progress before the weekend

I realised I'd been neglecting the upper deck and roof in my excitement over making progress on the main structure so here's the upper deck

Top side is a little dull - it's just a flat sheet of nothing so this will be rubbled up when it's in place - just my usual white-grey base coat and grime weathering


And the underside, the lattice pattern has been picked out in lifecolor Warm wood dark shade


The underside of the rafters; this was base-coated with Lifecolor Cold wood base (the same as the floorboards) and then washed with brown and grime and it became readily apparent that the detail wasn't deep enough to catch the washes in places


Because the vac-form plastic is too thin to risk scribing the detail I worked over the whole thing painting the lines in with the warm wood dark shade. I also added some variation to the main beams by dipping a bit of kitchen roll into the dark shade, rubbing most of it off and then wiping the residue along the beams (dry wiping?). I remember using this technique to add wood grain to WW I aircraft props many years ago. The rough-looking section towards the top of this photo is where the roof will join the top of the main wall so I'm trying to keep it relatively paint free for glue purposes.


So that's the rafters done... on the outside... umm still a bit of work to do there with the tiles...


And then back to the main base, I added some lighter wood shades to the floorboards to try and pick out some variations


And finally picked out the moulded rubble


I've still got to paint the door and window frames and then I think seal it with a matt coat and obviously work is needed to the roof to get that finished and then I can get all the components glued in place and set the building to one side for a while. Now I've got it to this stage I think I could probably tinker with it forever so need a bit of discipline. We're out tomorrow but will hopefully get a few hours in on Sunday.

Thanks for looking and thanks again for the support - have a great weekend!

[Tomcat64]

Got some more time at the bench today and although I feel like I've achieved a lot there's only a couple of photos to show for it

Masked off the roof with Panzer Putty and sprayed on a couple of coats of Ultimate red oxide primer. I was going to highlight this with some more brick-like colours, but decided I was happy enough with this as the base colour for the roof tiles.


So I washed that in dark dirt, picked out the window and door frames in a dark blue, tidied them up and then coated everything in a couple of coats of AK Interactive Ultra Matte varnish (first time using this and really like the way it sprays) and then waited for things to dry... before taking a deep breath and breaking out the CA to put everything together.

Ladies and Gentlemen - this is the house that Tomcat built




I will add weathering to the dark blue as it looks a little too clean at the moment and then details such as the front doors and inner window frames will be added as well as rubble as the overall project comes together but I have to say I'm really happy to have got this far before the end of February.

Onto the StuG next

Thanks for looking!

[Bissyboat]

Sensational mate!

[Tomcat64]

Sensational mate!

Thanks mate - feels like I've done a project already and I'm only about half-way through!

[Quax]

[Bissyboat]

Sensational mate!

Thanks mate - feels like I've done a project already and I'm only about half-way through!

Thankfully you´re only halfway though with your diorama. I can´t wait to see the next part. You got fantastic space for your tank on the ground floor.

[privatepete]

Hi Neil it's coming together relay nicely, it's come a long way from a not so good,ill fitting load of plastic to a stunning piece of work if you don't mind me saying so, well done and keep it up

[Tomcat64]

Thankfully you´re only halfway though with your diorama. I can´t wait to see the next part. You got fantastic space for your tank on the ground floor.

Hi Neil it's coming together relay nicely, it's come a long way from a not so good,ill fitting load of plastic to a stunning piece of work if you don't mind me saying so, well done and keep it up

Thanks for the kind words guys, it's very much appreciated and I'll try not to make a complete Horlicks of the StuG and figures!

I grabbed a few hours over the last couple of evenings using Heinz Guderian's lesser known prequel "Achtung - Fahrrad!" as a reference to put this together:

Not my tidiest build by a long way but this was definitely not designed for my thick thumbs (I apparently have ten of them when using PE parts) and it pretty much sent me cross-eyed but it's more-or-less bicycle-shaped even if a couple of the spokes may need to be straightened. The only reason there wasn't much swearing with this was because I found I was holding my breath a lot of the time!

This has now been added to the pile of things needing paint - I wonder if I gave it a whitewash finish it might count as winter camo...

Thanks for looking!

[Tomcat64]

So with the scenery and figures built up and waiting for paint and rubble it's time to finally break out the StuG. It feels like forever since I put the intro together so here's a quick reprise of the kit and the after market I've picked up for it along the way.

Tamiya's StuG iii ausf. G early version


Here are the sprue frames - I won't be using the kit crew for this one


And I won't be using the schurtzen either... hmmm... going to be a lot of spare plastic...


Aah... wheels... lots of wheels...


And here's the hull and superstructure


The instructions are Tamiya's usual fold out paperwork


Onto the after-market - first up a metal gun barrel by RBM


and more photo-etch - this time courtesy of Eduard


The stowage set by Legend. I've not decided how much of this I'm going to use yet and will make a decision after the main build is done. Some of this may actually make its way into the diorama without being on the StuG


My very first venture into workable track links. Many thanks to Stokesy44 for pointing me in the direction of the Kaizen sets. I decided to go with standard tracks with added mittelstollen rather than using the wider winterketten purely due to the space available in the track runs in the ruins


And another first for me - a full interior. I wanted to build the StuG with some of the hatches open, and noticed from a glance at the instructions that I should be able to build it with a removable roof plate so decided to go all in with this


One of my main references for this build will be this


In my original introduction I had planned to paint this in a three-colour scheme prior to whitewashing, but I've since decided to build this as a unit from early 1943 (perhaps somewhere around Kharkov) which means it would have been delivered in Grey and without the schurzen which was added later that year. So I'll be aiming for something like this:


I'm looking forward to getting cracking with this and with all the aftermarket I'll definitely be down the deep end!

Thanks for looking!

[spock1701]

I look forward to seeing that Stug put together. That's an awful lot of AM

[gaz45]

Awesome work there mate