My Most Audacious Build Thus Far

This is the model of a M4A1 (76) W Sherman that I have just finish building. It is my most audacious built so far.

The lower hull is the Tamiya M4A1 kit. The upper hull is from Tank Workshop. Almost everything on the upper hull comes from the Hobby Boss M4A1 (76) W kit, except for the front loops which is also from the Tamiya kit. (I lost the Hobby Boss one in the building progress. The turret is from the same Hobby Boss kit. The gun barrel is from Gasoline. The periscope fixture is from Hauler. The machine gun, which I will fix on late rs will also be from Hauler.

Soviet's Giant - KV-2

The Kliment Voroshilov (KV) tankswere a series of Soviet heavy tanks, named after the Soviet defense commissar and politician Kliment Voroshilov. The KV series were known for their extremely heavy armour protection during the early war, especially during the first year of the invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II.

This model of the KV-2 is the Tamiya 1/48th Scale KV-2. It was built straight from the box and painted with Gunzo Sangyo's Russian Green lightened with Sail Colour. The horizontal surfaces were further lightened to create the colour modulation effects.

The models was then washed with diluted Raw Umber oil paints and pin washed with diluted Raw Umber mixed with Black. The paint chips was achieved with a mixture of Raw Umber oil with Black pigments. Finally, the dust effects was achieved by spraying diluted Tamiya Acrylic Buff.

Hope you like this model.

WALL.E

Those of you who have read my previous post will know that there are a number of changed in my life. One of the side effect was lost of patience. So, I decided to do something different for a change too.

The WALL.E model is actually a toy. It was pre-painted and there was already some weathering. I gave the model a generous coat of flat coat before embarking on further weathering.

I first gave the "model" a coat of Raw Umber oil paint wash. After that, I did pin point wash on all edges. This is followed by some paint chips by gently dipping a hard brush loaded with Raw Umber oil paint.

The base is first given a layer of "mid", made up of a mixture of wall putty, white glue, fine sand and static grass. The mixture was dyed with Tamiya Acrylic Flat Earth and Flat Black. After applying the mixture, "WALL.E" was pressed onto the mixture to create the track marks. The problem with that was that there were wheels below. So, I can only use the front and and the back part of the bottom tracks.

The trash and debris are electronic parts from an old and completely damaged cell phone. The boot holding the grass was cut out from an old but horrible looking 1/16 scale figure. The grass came from the bristle of an old brush. All these were pressed into the base while it was wet. Raw Umber oil paints were applied as wash when every thing was dry. Finally, WALL.E was glued on.









The entire model was entered into a Mini-Diorama Groupbuild organised by my friend's hobby shop. The other entries can be seen in the links below.

http://www.themworkshop.com/MEVENT_GROUPBUILD_MINI_DIO.htm

All comments are welcome. Thanks for viewing.

Pacific GB British 150th Armour Regiment M3 Lee

Hi all. On the morning of 16th September 2009, I woke up with extreme headache on the left side and numbness arms and legs. Being a former medic, I knew that I am in trouble. I admited myself into the hospital immediate. A MRI scan confirmed my fears. I had a stroke. However, all my symptoms were gone the next day. The doctors had some good news for me. I had a very minor stroke as I had a clot in one of the vessels in my brain. The only injury I had was the blindness of my right upper peripheral vision, which will take some time to recover. Thank God.

After being discharged, I still wanted to continue the models that I committed. However, I find myself loosing patience as I had changed my eating habit and quited smoking (out of fear...lol). I also needed a pair of magnifier to paint my model, which take some getting used to. In the end, I decided to give up the group build. However, I felt that since the tacks for this M3 Lee is sponsored, I should finish it. Therefore, I decided to give up on the half-track group build but continue with the M3 Lee. (Sorry Lu.)

The base kit for this M3 Lee is Tamiya's M4A1 Sherman. The conversion kit is from Ken Swenson and the tacks is from one of our sponsor,Fighting 48.

Building the kit is pretty straight forward. The lower hull, sprocket, road wheels, ideller comes from the Tamuya kit. The hull and turret comes from Ken
s Conversion kit. Looking through the only reference I have, Osprey's book on the M3 Lee, I realise that the main gun is different and there is no machine gun turret on the M3 of the 150th Armour Regiment. Therefore, I also used the main gun and commander's hatch from the Tamiya kit.

The model is first sprayed with Gunze Sanyo's Mr. Colour Dark Earth + Black then Dark Green + Sail Colour. The bolts and nuts were painted with dark yellow. The whole model is washed with diluted Raw Umber oil paint. The pin point wash was done with a mixture of raw umber and lamp black oil paint. Some paint chips were added after that followed by some dirt streaks.

The tracks and base were treated with a mud mixture of fine sand, static grass, white glue and wall putty. The mixture is dyed with Tamiya's Flat Earth and Flat Black before applying. After drying, the area is misted with Flat earth, followed by Buff to create the dust effects.

I cannot really see how I do with this model. I hope it is still as good as before if not better. All comments are welcome. Thanks for viewing and putting up with this long message.

I have not been posting for a while, neglecting my 3 cats that I have completed for a while. Well, here they are.

INTRODUCTION

The Panther was a tank fielded by Nazi Germany in World War IIthat served from mid-1943 to the end of the European war in 1945. It was intended as a counter to the T-34, and to replace the Panzer III and IV, though it served along with them as well as the havier Tiger Tank until the end of the war. The Panther's excellent combination of firepower, mobility, and protection served as a benchmark for other nations' late war and immediate post-war tank designs and it is frequently regarded as the best tank design of World War II.

Until 1944, it was designated as the Panzerkampfwagen V Panther and had the ordnance inventory designation of Sd.Kfz. 171. On 27, February 1944, Hitler ordered that the Roman numeral V be deleted from the designation.

The Panther tank was a compromise of various requirements. While sharing essentially the same engine as the Tiger I tank, it had better frontal armor and firepower, and was lighter overall and thus faster, and could handle rough terrain better than the Tigers. The tradeoff was weaker side armor, and so the Panther would prove to be deadly in open country and shooting from long range, but vulnerable to close-quarters combat.

The Panther was also far cheaper to produce than the Tiger tanks, and only slightly more expensive than the Panzer IV, as its design came to fruition at the same time that the Reich Ministry of Armament and War Production was making great efforts to ramp up war production. Key parts of the Panther tank, such as its armor, transmission, and final drive, were compromises made specifically to improve production rates and address Germany's war shortages, whereas other parts such as its highly compact engine and its complex suspension system remained with their elegant but complicated engineering. The result would be that Panther tank production would be far higher than what was possible for the Tiger tanks, but would not be much higher than what had been accomplished with the Panzer IV. At the same time, the simplified final drive became the single major cause of breakdowns of the Panther tank, and was a problem that was never corrected.

The Panther tank arrived in 1943 at a crucial phase in World War II for Germany. Rushed into combat at the Battle Of Kursk before its teething problems were corrected, the Panther tank would thereafter only be fighting outnumbered in Germany's steady retreat against the Allies for the remainder of World War II. Its success as a battlefield weapon was thus hampered by Germany's generally declining position in this war, with the loss of airpower protection by the Luftwaffe, the loss of fuel and training space, and the declining quality of tank crews. Nevertheless, the Panther tank demanded respect from the Allies, and its combat capabilities led directly to the introduction of heavier Allied tanks such as the IS-2 and the M26 Pershing into the war.

I had in my collection 2 Panther Gs (1 of them was a gift) and 1 Jadgpanter. I decided to do them all back to back, starting with the Panther G Early.

THE MODELS
All the 3 models are done using the same colours and methods except for the IR (Infra-Red) Late Panther G. The camouflage was masked and spray. The colour used are the same ones I used in previous German Armour projects. Weathering are pretty much the same. The only difference are the crew. The Early Panther G uses a Tamiya. The figure for the IR Panther is from Mig's Production and the dog in the cupola is from ....I am sorry, I cannot remember it....

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this model.

Panzwekamptwagen V - Panther G (Early)











Jadgpanther G










Panzerkampfwagen V - Panther G (Late)