Hey guys,
The last couple of days have been very productive for me. I’m putting the final touches on my 251 c. It’s going into a dio along with an other (yet unbuilt) 251. They will be crossing a partially destroyed bridge trying to escape the Falise pocket. Thanks for looking, and let me know what you think.
looks great! Your addon stowage is a nice addition…
Sweet buildup. I like the paint job and the weathering. I’ve heard some negative reviews of the build, can you share your feelings on the matter?
Thanks Tigerman, I appreciate the compliment. I thinks it’s a great kit, comes with lots of extra “goodies” The biggist thing to pay attention to is the placement of the floorboard. If you are off even just a smidge, it will throw off the whole top half, and you will be doing a lot of extra sanding and filling. I would also strongly suggest you go through the instructions first, (this can be said for all DML 3 in 1 kits) and make sure you follow the steps for the particular vehicle you are building. If you don’t pay attention, it’s easy to get the steps confused. I went through and highlighted the appropreat steps for my vehicle first. Other than that, it’s a smooth build.
Great work! Nicely painted & weathered, i love it!
Jan [:)]
Fantastic work. I especially love the weathered wood on the sides, and the overall weathering is very nice.
Great job! Love the camo and detail! I have a halftrack in my stash and now want to do it lol…
Wow, that is a very nice looking job. I am also wrapping up my 251/7 project. It is only my second armor model, and 4th model overall, that I have built since I got into modeling back in October. I do have a few questions for you if you don’t mind me asking:
How did you get that gap to appear between your side wood boards and the bottom of the bridge that is over top of it? This allows you to see into that area where you have extra gear stowed, and really adds to the realism of the model. My side wood boards left absolutely no gap between these two items, and it also did not provide a center support beam for the wood like you have. There is absolutely no way to even see anything in this area between the wood and the side of the vehicle, let alone to get anything in there. Did I miss something, or did you scratch build a little bit on this model?
How did you get your weathered wood look? It looks great. I ended up getting a wet reddish looking wood appearance through dry brushing the wood with Red/Brown, but I like your dry looking wood better.
As far as decaling goes, I noticed that you seemed to go away from the directions in the kit (assuming you are building the same Dragon kit I am building- Kit # 6224). You put one of your decals on the front left angled engine block armor instead of behind the front left light. You also put a number plate on the front of the vehicle where Dragon’s directions do not have you putting a front number plate on your particular model. I am guessing that Dragon’s decal directions are very basic, and this leaves the modeler with all kinds of options if they do their own research. Do you have any information to share with me about where you are getting your markings information at? I am really struggling with what decals I can accurately use on my particular 251/7 that goes beyond what Dragon has in their directions (they provide an entire extra sheet of decals to use, but do not provide any directions on where to put them). I am modeling an “Operation Barbarossa” (latter half of 1941) vehicle in Panzer grey, bridge laying equipment mounted on top, and two machine guns in the personel area of the vehicle. I am trying to keep everything as real as possible, and up to this point I have stuck with the decaling directions provided by Dragon.
Thanks for any help, and that is a great looking build.
Truly inspirational. The worn wood on the sides is amazing, as is the dirt detailing on the coiled rope on the front. You, sir, are a master of dirt!
Looks awesome!! Love the weathering. It looks very very realistic…Cant wait to see the dio
David
Hey guys, again, thanks for all of the kind words, I really appreciate it.
Hocking, I will try to answer your questions.
1)That gap you see is because the ramps are sitting on top of the pins that would normally secure the ramps to the braces. The ramps are going to be used in the dio, and won’t be attached to the vehicle. I just wanted them to be in place for the photos. Also, I added the center metal strip along with the bolt heads.
The weather on the side boards was very easy. I installed them at the time of the build, and painted them gray along with the rest of the vehicle. Then, after I weathered the vehicle, I went back with a sanding stick, and sanded down the face, and edges until I was happy with the look. BTW-I used bass wood.
As far as decaling goes, this is where i took a bit of artistic liscense, and I needed this vehicle to “fit” a dio I’m working on. The vehicle is marked up as a 251 from the 9th panzer division. It will be placed in the Falise Pocket along with an other 251 crossing a partilally destroyed bridge. The 9th was in that area at the time, and did have a engineer division, but I could not find anything definitive saying they had this particular 251. So, that being said…The front plate is something you see on a lot of 251’s, and i just wanted one on this. The decision to put the decal on the armor plate was just the result of research. I looked at hundreds of pictures while researching this, and the one thing that can be said about the german army, was almost nothing was standard. Policys changed all the time, and units did there own thing a lot. I’m sure, someone out there with more ref. material than me, can prove that this vehicle did not exist, but like I said, I had a dio planed in my head, and I needed this vehicle to “fit” that plan. I try to be as accurate as possible, but also, keep in mind that the war was 60 years ago, and this dio is not going to be based on an actual event. I hope this helps, and good luck on your build. I would like to see some pics as you go along. Let me know if there is anything else I can help with.
Thanks alot Parks 20. Your comments are very helpful. Before you made your post, I had applied some “Dark Mud” weathering powder from MIG Productions that really added a nice wook look to my side boards. It took that deep red out, and made them look more like weathered wood.
I have not been modeling for long, and I am starting to see what you mean by about how hard it is to determine standard features of German Armor. I guess in the end this makes it easier on us since we there really isn’t a right or wrong answer as far as decals and colors are concerned for German Armored vehicles. Thanks again for you comments.