Decided to start another what should hopefully be a quick build with the new Tamiya 38(t) kit.
The next real build I wanna work on is a Hetzer, so doing a 38(t) seemed appropriate.
I built up most of the lower hull without remembering to take pics, so sorry about that.
Fit seems pretty typical for tamiya, and goes together well.
I have some after market parts for this kit, but the tracks looked good enough that I didn't need to spring for fruil tracks.
These tracks went together really nicely. Better than most kits Ive built. The tolerances seemed to be just about perfect.
I built my armor with the wheels off to make it easier for painting, but that can sometimes make adding the tracks a real pain trying to get them on and fit them snugly with the wheels and keeping everything together.
Heres a tip I've found really useful. Tack your wheels or other parts on using masking fluid. It makes for a pretty nice non permanent fit and clean up is easy before painting:
I went to add the fenders and found they have these crazy deep recesses from the molding process, and are unfortunately pretty visible even when the tracks are on. I filled these pretty sloppily with Tamiya white putty, Once its dried I'll sand it back, but Im not to worried about making it perfect as I'll texture the underside of the fenders with mud and dirt anyway.
Im waiting on that to dry, and they need to be in place to continue building so Im calling it there for tonight.
I had some after market barrels for this kit. Honestly the quality of the kit part here was nearly as good, and mostly isn't work upgrading, but I already had the barrels and they are just a bit nicer.
The kit part came molded as a single piece, so I have to drill out the barrel with a rotary tool to replace it.
Before and after:
Lower hull put together:
After market barrel for the main gun also:
Turret done:
Paint down. Just tamiya german grey, and highlights are a mix of tamiya dark grey and medium grey.
Decals on:
Nice color modulation. What method/product did you use?
Honestly I just winged it. Its Tamiya paint right out of the bottle mixed 50/50 with lacquer thinner. Maybe 65/35 for the light color highlights.
looking great!
This ended up getting put aside for a few weeks as I was putting new floors in my model room and some other parts of the house. I wanted to sit down and just try get a build finished, so I didn't get any in progress pictures of the rest of the build. But here are some finished shots:
Fantastic - great weathering. Well done!
Paint and weathering made this an interesting armor subject. I normally don't find early German armor anything I pay much attention too, for one reason or another. But I watched this complete build, anxious to see how well it was going to turn out. Very good work. I enjoyed your build.