Subscribers Gallery – armour J-L

Here is my Jagdpanzer IV, 1:35 made from the Dragon kit. Here are a few details:
ABER photo etch (PE)
RB-Model Barrel
Friul tracks
Paint: Tamiya
Weathering: Oils, MIG pigments.

Glad you like it,
Martin V.

This diorama is set in Germany in the final stages of the war and features two Military policemen or “Chained Dogs” as the German troops called them due to the chained half moon gorget worn around their necks, they are out patrolling the streets looking for deserters with their Alsation dogs ready to be slipped off the leash. The Jagdpanther is parked at a road block in an ambush position and the commander is being questioned by one of the MP’s. The MP’s and dogs are by dragon and are straight from the box except for the dogs leashes, they’re painted in Humbrol enamels for the uniforms, artists oils for the faces and various paints for the insignia. The Tamiya 1/35th. Jagdpanther is extensively detailed with etched brass etc. and metal individual link tracks. The ruined house and fountain on the diorama are old but still available Italeri kits, I made the window frames and glass from balsa and clear plastic sheet, made the door from plastic sheet with scribed wood grain and the handle from wire, the drain pipe from plastic rod. I filled the hollow interior walls with Polyfilla and the wallpaper is a very old gas bill envelope upstairs and some paper with stripes drawn on downstairs. The flooring is all balsa with wire nails added and the pavement is built up from ceiling tile covered in Polyfilla then textured and scribed to make the slabs and curb stones.

Finally my 24 hours model challenge done (but spent one week)…
The model background base on two pictures from “Combat History of s’Pz Jg 653” by JJF and “Panzer Wrecks Vol3” Jagdtiger (P) “115” commanded by Lt. Hans Knippenberg operated in it’s last position. Northern Schwetzingen, Germany, 30 March 1945 before knocked out.

Hope you all like it!
Gary K.

Totally finished the 1:48th Tamiya JS 2.

I have added various earth and dust colour pigments to the tracks, lower hull and suspension plus over the whole model in selected areas. Also added metal effects to road wheels, return rollers, idlers, sprockets and track guide horns with AK dark steel pigment and cotton buds, plus some general wear to hatches, grab handles etc. using an HB pencil.

Added exhaust stains with back pigment. Some very light and limited streaking effects plus extremely limited rust effects using artists oils raw umber and burnt sienna.

I’m happy with it now and was in danger of going too far with it.
Cheers, Andy.

Tamiya 1:35 scale

I was given this kit as a present but at the time was concentrating on WWII German armour, however an interest in modern tanks piqued my interest and I decided to give it a go.

What can you say about Tamiya kits that hasn’t been written about? Fabulous engineering and an ease of construction, had the basic hull and turret built in a few hours and ready for primer. Once the primer was dry and I had looked for any imperfections it was ready for camouflage.

I wanted to do something different and had a look at winter improvised schemes. The ones I came across didn’t really inspire me so I decided to embark on my own take on it.

Once I had sprayed the green and brown pattern, I lightened the colours and sprayed on the higher panels to give a slight colour difference. I then applied an off white colour in a wavy pattern to break up the standard colours to replicate a form of winter whitewash for manoeuvres.

I left it to dry thoroughly for a few days and then it was time of weathering.
My aim was to recreate a tank after being on exercise. I opted for thin colour washes built up over a few days and various oil paints to replicate the streaking.
Pigments were added to the running gear and wheels to give it a muddy look.
The only added extra was carbon fibre aerials.

James S.

JSU 152: 1:35 Tamiya base with ABER barrel and Friul tracks, Miniart boxes. (no PE)
One of my bad ass looking models. I really like the look of this thing.

A quick build but lots of fun weathering.
Paint: Tamiya

Weathering: oils, AK stuff for mud.

This is my 1:72 Airfix/MPC Kamov Ka-25 Hormone, Indian Navy.
Picked up this kit at a contest several years back so it’s been around the block a time or two. How many remember that ‘Golden Opportunity Kit’ promo MPC had going back in the day?
I replaced the chin radar dome as the variant I’m building has the smaller, less bulbous version. Looks much better, IMHO.
Wish there was more to say about the paint scheme, but not much to say about Naval Haze Gray.
As for the decals, I wanted something other than the usual Soviet markings found on most Ka-25 build ups. I think Indian Navy markings do the trick rather nicely. I made the Hindu script on the tail boom on my computer and then printed it out on decal film. The rest of the decals came from the scrap bin.
I applied a few coats of Acryl semi-gloss clear.
Albert Moore

Both kits Trumpeter, 1:35, both excellent with the usual Trumpeter knockout punch marks to fill.

Acrylic sand base coat with my usual chalk green and brown cammo. This is the largest area of chalk I have done to date but it seems to have worked fine.

Figures are MiniArt for the workers in their fatigues and Dragon for the two in more conventional uniforms.

Pete S.

Here’s my Kingtiger Dec/Jan Production series, SS s’Pz Abt 503. Tactical No “101” (USchF Turk) Potsdamer Platz underground station, Berlin. 30 Apr 1945.

Hope you all like it!
Gary K.

Tamiya 1:35 King Tiger

This model was built from the box with the addition of the Tamiya separate track links and etched grille set. It built very well, only the track links taking some time to make up. I made up a top run, lower run and front and rear curved sections; these then being painted and weathered before attaching to the completed tank.

• I cut a section from each track guard and held the remaining guards in position with Blu-Tack for the spray painting
• The tank was painted using Xtracolor paints, X801 red/brown, X806 olive green and X29 light stone for the yellow
• I first sprayed the yellow, then masked up using Blu-Tack string and masking tape for the red/brown
• The masking was repeated for the olive green
• The red/brown and olive green were then faded by adding some gloss white to each colour
• The wheels were camouflage painted freehand
• The ambush scheme of olive green spots on the yellow and yellow spots on the red/brown and green were applied with a small brush
• The tactical number decals were then applied
• The entire model was then sprayed with Klear to protect the enamel paints from the oil washes
• For the washes I used burnt umber, raw umber and Humbrol dark earth all thinned about 10:1
• The wheels were then added, followed by the tracks and then the track guards, fixed on with super glue – finally the spare track links, towing cables and tools were detail painted and added on.

The first thing to deal with is the sheer size of the kit. The original was a large mass of metal and in building the kit that same mass and metallic quality is important to a realistic presentation. As with any kit, there is a basic choice to be made – is the kit going to be built as a model in the pure sense, or as a scale representative of the real object? There are virtues and drawbacks to either approach. With some models, such as sailing vessels, I like the model approach. With armour subjects, I prefer the realistic approach, which means trying to make the plastic look like metal. Meeting that challenge is a large part of the joy of building. The railway gun, because it is such a large mass of metal, allows that in its pure state. This kit was built some years ago. I do recommend the kit to any who have the space and interest.

This one is built from an old (30 years) Austin K6 Crashtender from the 1:76 Emergency kit from Airfix.

After a few years, last year after the 2018 North Shields Model Show I decided to make the car better, and a more realistic colour for an RAF car in 1943/44.
So I made new windows, headlights, and mirrors.

The result that I found much better…

Hope you like it! Gerhard La C.

The main subject of this project was the Trumpeter Kommintern Tractor from 2012, 1:35 scale.
As I was building the tractor kit, it occurred to me that a tractor really should be towing something, so I searched through my ‘loft insulation’ and came up with Trumpeter’s BR-2 152mm artillery gun. So that the two models looked as if they were meant to be together, I built them at the same time and painted / weathered them in the same way.
The models were built (mostly) straight from the box.
Trumpeter’s Kommintern Tractor kit is typical of their armour kits in that it fits together well, but there are maybe a few extras that could be added by the modeller, particularly inside the cab.
The BR-2 gun attracted me because of the odd-looking tracked carriage. This kit originates from 2013 and again fits together well (apart from the vinyl rims for the rear wheels), while again leaving a few areas that could be improved.
The gun carriage has almost no detail on its underside and I’m sure that there were a lot of rivets that could be added here as the rest of the carriage is covered in them. Because of the way the kit fits together there are a couple of awkward looking gaps in the gun carriage behind the tracked suspension units. I covered these over with thin card and detailed the area with rivets made using a punch and die set. In retrospect there is almost nothing of this correction that can be seen on the finished model, so I probably need not have bothered.
A few boxes representing ammunition crates and general stowage were made using 20 and 30 thou card and old photo-etched parts left over from other kits. These were painted in several different colours (using anything except green to get a little much needed colour onto the model). These were placed at random into the back of the tractor along with the two shell carriages from the BR-2 gun kit.
I enjoyed building these kits, but noted after their completion that the towing points on the tractor and the gun are at completely different heights making it impossible for the tractor to actually tow the gun. However, as long as I don’t mention this in a popular online modelling magazine nobody is ever going to know.
Dai W.

Here is my latest, it is Trumpeter’s 1:35 Krupp Steyr Waffentraeger being hand finished on the production late in the war, very few were made and resources were stretched. Amazingly, they got a King Tiger gun onto such a small vehicle.
 
The kit is straight from the box, a comprehensive build review by Chris Mcdowell, on SMN, May 2018, shows the details supplied in the kit.
 
MiniArt’s excellent figure sets ‘Welders’ and ‘German Repairmen’ provide all the figures and accessories, both are superb.

Pete S.

This is a Hobby Boss kit 1:48 scale and built straight from the box. Using Tamiya paints, a dark green is sprayed first, then using Blue Tac putty, the main areas are masked off and to get the chipped look I dabbed on Maskol (masking fluid) using wire wool. To get an uneven look, an uneven coat of white paint is sprayed on. Once the Blue Tac and Maskol is removed, I use soft artist pastels and oil filters, to get the dirty look.
Neil P.

Trumpeter KV1 1:35 kit
I think that fashions come and go within the modelling world. Techniques such as dry-brushing which were once popular seem to have gone the same way as the maxi skirt and (thankfully) the tank top. Something that is currently in vogue these days is the use of hairspray to introduce a water-soluble layer between two coats of paint so that the top coat can be removed with water, revealing the layer of paint underneath to represent chipping. I must admit that though I’ve experimented with this I’ve never really got on with the technique and the results I’ve had never seem to look as good as those achieved by other modellers.
Because of this I’ve experimented with a few alternatives. Here I’ve applied a green base coat to one of Trumpeter’s excellent KV1 tanks. Tamiya’s Nato Green was used over a dark green undercoat to produce the base colour. Following a picture I saw on the internet I then applied Tamiya Matt White toned down slightly with Buff to represent the temporary white overcoat.
To represent slight wear on the white areas I mixed a green colour that approximated to the same shade as the green base coat using Vallejo acrylics. These seem to be the best medium for doing this. Chipping was then done by dabbing this colour on with a sponge and using a fine brush in areas where things were difficult to reach or a specific effect was required.
This was done lightly to keep the effect quite restrained as I’m not a fan of heavy weathering on my models.
The turret number was applied using a home-made mask. The colour being slightly different from that used for the temporary whitewash finish to imply that it had been added at a different time.
This method of simulating chipping / wear on the white paint is exactly the same as that used to represent exposed metal under worn or chipped paintwork except that the colours used are different. I think that this may be a useful alternative to using hairspray or a chipping medium over a single base colour, but may not be a practical alternative when used over a multi-coloured scheme.
Hope you like it?
Dai W.

This is a Hobby Boss kit 1:48 scale and built straight from the box. For this kit I used Vallejo Model Air, starting with a coat of Tank Green, then a light coat of Camouflage Light Green, keeping away from the edges. After leaving to dry overnight I used oil filters to give the dirty look.
Neil P.

The subject of this project was the 1:35th scale Trumpeter KV3.
Trumpeter has covered the Russian KV tank very thoroughly with all the main variants produced in kit form including one-off prototypes and in the case of the KV3 a vehicle that reached only the mock-up stage.
Those who have built any of their previous KV kits will find much that is familiar here and I believe that the hull is based on that of their earlier KV220 kit.
Having reached only the mock-up stage it is hard to say whether the kit accurately represents the vehicle as it would have appeared had it reached production, though photos of the mock-up show an extension on the side of the turret under the commander’s cupola which is not present on the kit turret. There is no way of knowing if this feature would have been carried over to the production vehicle so I felt that I could live with this.
Having said that the kit was a quick, easy and enjoyable project in between more complex and demanding builds and is a welcome addition to my rapidly expanding collection of KV variants.
Dai W.

This kit is the recently released Trumpeter KV7 in 1:35. Trumpeter seems to be going through every single variant of the KV series including some one off prototypes such as this. These kits have been around for a few years and I must admit that I love them! They are easy to build and accurate, with very little needing to be done to them in order to get a very pleasing model straight out of the box – though I daresay that a few etched grills on the engine deck would not go amiss.
I often build one of these kits as a nice simple project in between more complex builds and often use them to try new techniques – well new to me anyway.

In this case I tried using oil paint as a filter. Having put on an acrylic base coat onto the model, this was sealed with a coat of Jonson’s Klear in preparation for an oil wash. However this darkened the paint alarmingly though I managed to partially restore the colour with an overall filter of green oil paint.

I believe that Trumpeter are about to release a second version of this vehicle which was used to test the idea of mounting two 76mm guns – this will probably be a nice restful project for me at some point in the next few months.
Dai W.

This subject of this project was the Trumpeter KV7.
The KV7 was a prototype vehicle built to test the idea of carrying multiple guns to knock out static fortifications such as pill boxes.
The prototype appeared in two forms. The first carried one 76mm gun flanked by two 45mm guns. The vehicle was later modified to carry two 76mm guns.
It was eventually decided that the KV7 was difficult to operate particularly for the gunner who was expected to fire two or three guns at the same time. Vehicles mounting one much heavier gun were considered to be more useful and practical and no further development of the KV7 was undertaken.
Trumpeter has produced both versions of the KV7 and I built the earlier version some time ago. To make this model look a little different I decided to paint the main part of the vehicle in natural metal using several layered shades of Alclad paints working from dark to light. The ‘add on’ parts such as the wheels, guns and hatches were painted in green to look as if they had either been taken from an existing vehicle or had been supplied to the factory already painted.
There seem to be only a few surviving black and white photos of the KV7 and it’s not immediately obvious from these how the vehicle was painted. I think that overall green would have been a more likely scheme and that what I’ve done here probably comes under the heading of ‘speculative’ to say the least. However, I thought it looked a bit ‘different’ and I rather liked it!
Dai W.

Here we have Paul’s impressive model in 1:35 scale of the LVT II Saipan. Note the colour and what a difference this will make to your usual ‘green’ AFVs! Thanks Paul for helping to inspire others… Geoff

This my attempt at Accurate Armour’s 1:35 Land Rover Snatch conversion. This is the N. Ireland version. I used the HobbyBoss RSOV chassis and the rest is from the conversion set. Tamiya Nato Green for the colour and AK Interactive dust wash for a little light weathering I didn’t want to go overboard.
I have to say the kit was an absolute joy to do and am looking forward to doing the RUC Tangi conversion that they have just released. Hope you approve? Kind Regards
Mark McKevitt

Here are some photos of my Tamiya 1:35 LRDG chev.
I’ve used a conversion of Resicast to make the Breda carrier.
Hope you like it?

Here is a fantastic piece by Nobuyuki Hamano – really inspirational stuff that he has kindly agreed to share with you all here – good isn’t it? Storytelling at its best! Geoff
http://hobbyshopandy.com/gallery/2-001.html

The subject of this project is Takom’s kit of the Canal Defence Light based on the hull of the M3A1 Lee tank.
The Canal Defence Light (CDL) was a weapon developed around a carbon arc lamp which was intended to illuminate enemy positions at night. The lamp could also be used much like a strobe in order to blind and disorientate enemy troops. The CDL was developed in great secrecy and the designation ‘Canal Defence Light’ was used by the British to divert attention from its real purpose and to draw as little attention as possible to the new vehicles. The Americans used the term ‘Shop Tractor T10’ and referred to the turrets as ‘coastal defence turrets’ for the same reason.
The British mounted their lights on Matilda and Churchill tanks while the Americans chose the Lee which carried a 75mm gun in a sponson in the hull allowing the vehicle some offensive capability.
The secrecy with which the system was developed turned out to be an issue when it came to deploying the vehicles operationally. Few commanders had even heard of them, let alone knew how to use them and had therefore not factored them into their plans.
The vehicles saw limited operational use during World War Two notably in holding the Ludendorff Bridge against German attempts to destroy it following its capture in 1945.
The Takom kit is of a light mounted on the M3A1 Lee which had a cast hull which makes a change from the rivetted hull vehicles more readily available to modellers. The kit was easy to build, though I found that care had to be taken with the etched brass light guards. Luckily Takom provides two small jigs for shaping these which would probably serve for other models as well.
There are markings supplied for three vehicles, but these are all essentially the same being in overall olive drab. Transfers are provided for large aerial identification stars to be placed on the turret roof and engine deck. I thought that there was little chance of me applying these without the carrier film silvering and so I attempted to cut my own masks based on the kit transfers. This proved to be beyond me and I ended up with a twisted and completely unusable pile of tape! I ended up using brass masks that I acquired years ago. Not being able to burnish these down onto the surface of the model the stars ended up looking a little ‘fuzzy’, but I felt that this was not too noticeable under some washes and weathering.
All in all, this was a quick enjoyable project and I think that the kit can be recommended to all fans of ‘something a little different’.
Dai W.

This is the Meng 1:35 Leopard 1A5. An out of the box build with the exception of a set of Fruil tracks.

Sprayed with AK Real Colours Nato paints freehand. The foliage is moss I collected locally. Dipped in a liquid resin and painted various greens.

Thanks very much for taking the time to include it in the magazine.
James S.

This is 1:35th scale Resicast model of REME workshop. I’ve posted some pics of vehicle before it was mounted on its base.

Ian R.

This is my Revell 1:72 Luchs 2 A2
o OOB of a quite decent kit
o wheel tires assembled from multi-layer parts (a very good design and seldom seen in this scale), depicting better defined tire treads
o busy assembly beneath vehicle but hardly be seen unless placing the vehicle upside down
o size of decals cannot cover two rear white-red panels being a major drawback of this kit
o NATO camo treated same way as previous Leopard 2A5.

Hope you all like it!
TF Au