Well with the Weathering GB comming up and having put my Tamiya 1/48 Early tiger forward for it and not having done any washes and filters before I was wanting a test subject. What better test subject than the same machine (even if different brand). So I traded my 8 y/o his part built tiger for a Star Wars kit in my stash I was never gonna build.
So far I have stripped it down as much as I can (and needs be). Still need to strip paint off it. Given its going to be a practice for weathering I’m going to steal the PE grills and pioneer tools to add to the Tamiya Tiger.
Pics
I was able to rescue most stuff with minimal damage, what is should be easy fixed (ie tow cable broke into multiple parts)
That is a technique all in its self! Resurrecting a previously built model takes skill and patience.
A winter whitewash in many opinions IS weathering as most were a temporary coat of easily removed white paint, lime or whatever was available. A new (to me) technique I read about in FSM’s special issue this year was to coat the vehicle in ground up white chalk, wet down to form a slurry and remove it from there. The author did so on a T-34/85 with excellent results. Thinking whitewash due to white shown on the hull in the photograph.
Regardless I am sure your Tiger will turn out excellent!
Suppression, the “white wash” was the only hull painting my little master 8 had so far done (with green turrent and brown cannon).
So far have stripped the paint (acrylics do make so easy) though I couldnt remove the paint from some of the liberally applied glue. Dont know what to remove the glue with except sanding so I’ll being doing that one the major hull reconstruction is complete.
Talking about reconstruction, I have the hull back together and even applied the track gurds which hadnt been done before. Also had to remove the upside airfilters and reglue them, one was fine the other was a bit of a mess but you cant see that under the mounting brackets.
I built this kit when it first came out in the Skybow box several years ago. It had been my first Tiger kit in many years. I loved it; so much detail packed into such a small kit.
Got a little work done in the same session after posting the original pics. Mainly stripping paint then clean excess glue sealing around the vents and sanding it in other places (not shown)
Had a head cold for the last few days so nothing got done on any builds. Felt better tonight so powered along a bit. Noticed a few problems I didnt realize, mainly missing the commander hatch and some of the exhaust which I’ve had to scratch, and the stowage bin on the back of the turrent was 1-2 mm to high so after a bit of “manipulation” I was able to remove and mount it right. As far as I can see though its ready for a coat of primer.
You can see the obvious colour difference in the commanders hatch and the replaced parts of the exhaust (nb the replaced part on the right side isnt really kinked like that it just looks like that from shadow, soot discolour and angle)
Suppression I nominated a tamiya kit for the weathering GB, this is just a practice run for it to try out some things I’ve never done before eg preshade, washes, filters etc
Out of both kits which do you reckon to be the best (detail and general quality wise)? I still have my 1/48 Tiger I barrel and early 1/48 Tiger Friuls so obviously I’m going to want to do another 1/48 Tiger build at some point. How does the AFV Club offering compare to the Tamiya offering? I’m assuming that the AFV Club kit doesn’t have the Die-Cast hull which is something I’d like to avoid if I built this kit again.
Ben, the AFV Club wins hands down IMO. If what I hear tell is right the Tiger was one of Tamiya’s early 48 scale kits and it shows. While their (Tamiyas) Panther is still behind on AFV’s quaility you can see an improvement over the Tiger.
All up I’d call AFV’s kit at least on par, maybe better than my Dragon 1/35 T-34/76 (mod 1941) (Only other thing I can compare it to). AFV by the looks of it havn’t dropped the bar just because of the smaller scale where Tamiya have. One thing I must say that may seem silly I miss the weight of Tamiya metal hull [:S]
As for this build, I’ve just finished the main painting (preshade, yellow with green camo). I think I may have erred in my choice of greens, I’ll wait till after the filters and washes. Photo’s to come with some extra’s for you Ben
Ok heres the pics, As I said most of the base painting done, and prolly picked the wrong green. Just the wheels then tools etc to go paint wise.
ANY TIPS OR SUGGESTIONS ON WEATHERING ETC FEEL FREE TO COMMENT. This is what this build is about
Ben, a few pics for you, please take into account a few parts have been scratched replaced (see above) and some other are/were non fixable or it wasn’t worth the to fix it (ie a brand new kit in the hands of an experienced builder would turn out better
She looks like a very good kit - there’s definately a lot more visible detail on this AFV Club kit. Are those engine deck grills PE? They look like PE?
Is this going to be a proper build or just a practice base for your Tamiya kit? The Dunky looks spot on. What colour green have you used?
I’ve been experimenting with my greens for use on German armour and Tamiya’s JA Green (the number escapes me) is VERY good. I’ll be using that a LOT more now. You should try it. It was recommended to me by a modelling buddy from MAFVA here in the UK. If you find my original Tiger thread the green on there was the JA Green (Japenese Green). After weathering it looks great and makes the ideal shade imo.
ATVB and keep us posted - I’d like to see what you do with this AFV Club kit.
Ben, yes the they are PE grills (slighty mangled). I was going to save them for the tamiya tiger but my plans for that have changed a bit so did use them on this build.
Its a practice build, will be donoted back to my 8y/o when its finished. He will get more fun than me out of it once its built.
Colours. I used Tamiya XF-60 Dark Yellow, on my panther I mixed it 50/50 with Deck Tan (XF-55) but I felt that was to light so I went unmixed to see how it went. The green was XF-61 Dark Green the suggested tamiya colour for panzers. On my panther I used JA Green (XF-13) and was happier with that, I may try some olive green next time (XF-58) see how that goes.
Andrew, the correct “Panzer Green” from Tamiya is actually called “Field Gray”. I don’t know why they don’t properly label it as such, but it’s basically their “Geman uniform” color. It is, for all intents and purposes, “Panzer Green”–or the closest thing they’ve got.
If you really want to do a “testbed” weathering, this would be a great time to try out Oil Dot Weathering. Here’s link to my Hetzer in which I explain the whole process. Once mastered, it’s a great way to really bring out some aging and color
Well this is my first serious attempt at a wash (in this case a pin wash). I think it looks good, not to overdone for a first go though it might after the dot weathering.
