Finally finished my 1/35 DML Elefant. Sorry the pics aren’t super clear - only have a digital camera that can’t get a good focus close up.
Elefant is fully detailed both the interior fighting and driver compartments are from verlinden, and also a scratchbuilt engine compartment using 2 mayback engines and other scratchbuilt details. Also has an aluminum barrel, fruil tracks and drive wheels, eduard and voyager photoetch details and some tamiya add on tools. German cross and numbers are painted via stencils.
Any comments and criticisms are appreciated! (I’d actually appreciate some constructive criticism if you have it! Thanks for looking!
Details look great! You fully loaded this eh? Good man! I just got one thing, I don’t know if it’s the pics, but there looks to be a lot of overspray?? The tracks are to shinny for me, but other than that, she looks great!
Thanks for the feedback Anthony. The pics do make it look like there is more overspray than there really is - but there definately is overspray. I’m investing in a better airbrush soon as my badger 200 just isn’t cutting it for thin lines and I had to touch up quite a bit on this paint job. As far as the tracks go after I painted them I sanded down some of the high wear areas to expose the bare metal on the fruils - perhaps I overdid it too much. Oh well trial and error! Thanks for the feedback!
Excellent work and overall detailing. I wish we could get a look at the inside. The only thing I notice that seems out of place is the slack evident in the “passenger side” track. It looks like you should take out a link or two.You clearly spent alot of time and effort. Great job!
Mighty spiffy Elefant. Overall, she looks pretty good, but the rust on the hull in places is kind of overpowering to me in relation to the rest of the weathering. I think it might benefit from some drybrushing to break up the camo and the monotone look. The fruils are nice and I’m sure way better than those kit tracks which are the worst I’ve ever assembled. Is that the Cavalier zimmerit? I was pretty impressed with it myself. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for all the good comments and advice guys. Yep I knew that the fruils on one side had too much slack on them, but taking 2 pins out after i used cyano on them to seal them would be too much of a pain at this point to kill the extra slack. The zimmerit is eduard photoetched zimmerit - and let me tell you it is the last time I will ever use that. It just doesn’t add enough depth to the zimmerit. Drybrushing to break up some of the camo sounds like a good point and I did do that. The pics really don’t show it but it does look better and less monotone in real life. I wish I could have really dry brushed that zimmerit - but I tried and it looked TERRIBLE. Never again will i use that zimmerit. BTW the stuff that might be confused for rust on the fron fenders is supposed to be a little mud from the “impact” that bent them. Thanks again for all the constructive advice!
I hear you about the Eduard pe zimmerit. I couldn’t tell from the photos. I bought the Tamiya Panther with the Eduard zim and I screwed it all up, because I used CA glue and bent the heck out of it.
If you run into zimmerit again, give Cavalier a chance, it’s very detailed and fits pretty well.
Paradox01,
Great build by the way.
I agree with tigerman regarding the weathering.
The rust on the front just does not add up to the whole tank.
To me from the picture you put, the tank was just just roll out out of the assembly line.
If this is the case, then the rust should be remove for logical sake. Instead just add dusty effect around the sides of the tank.
But I would recomend to do washing to bring out the lines and depth of field to the model.
Plus doing a little bit scratch here and there will make it even better.
Overall it looks pretty darn good. Excellent camo. It’s hard to judge based on the photos, but the tow cable seems shiny or something. I’m only passingly familiar with Elefants, but I was wondering if the insides of hatches were actually painted white. Generally, most tanks will have the insides of the hatches painted in the exterior color. Nonetheless, that is a fine piece of work[tup][tup].
That actually wasn’t meant to be rust on the front of the elefant, but rather leftover mud from the impact that bent the front fenders some. But in retrospect you’re right, I probably should have left it as is without the mud since its the only place that has it. I wish I could get some interior pics but my camera sux anyways. The tow cable is from a Voyager elefant detail set and is made I believe from copper wire. I airbrushed metalizer burnt iron to make it less shiny but keep the “metal” look to it. From the reference information I could find the elefant interior should have been the same off white panzer interior color as that of other tanks, but the lower hull and floor of the fighting compartment would have been panzer grey. So thats what I went with since it was so hard to find almost any information on the elefants interior. Thanks again for the feedback it is all appreciated and will help me improve my next model.
[:)]Hi, I don’t use an air brush so I don’t know about overspray, but I do think the track is too slack. The sag does not look right to me. Other than that I think its a fine build…Kenny[;)]
Nice job! I always loved this Elephant and after looking at your work, I just bid on a 1/35 italeri Elephant kit. I hope to win it and finally have a courage to build one.
Keep us entertaining by posting more of your great accomplishments!
i also love the elefant and it looks like you done a good job here, i would love to see the interior, like to echo what others have said about knocking some of the new look off it but thats only my preference, mine usually look like they have been in the field for 30 years straight heh, well done and thanks for the look.
I followed some of the advice I got from you guys on here (that is the point for asking isn’t it?) and I knocked off the mud / rust from the front and rear fender since after really looking at it I agreed with you guys that it was just out of place. I also went and took off several links from each side of the fruil tracks [banghead] (which were sealed with cyano) to tighten them up some for a more realitic sag. I do believe that with those two adjustments the model does indeed look better overall. Thanks again for the feedback guys. Here are a couple of pics after the adjustments - and I did try to take some interior pics but there is just no way with the camera I have to focus that small.
