Heres my third build of the year, Dragons Ardennes King tiger. This was a great kit, with a small fit issue with the upper and lower hulls, but it turned out alright. The PE screens really help give detail to the kit, and all the parts were molded with good quality. One thing I didnt like were the metal tow cables provided with the kit. They look good in the end, but were very difficult to get to curve to the right shape, and glue down. I wasnt sure how to paint the camo on this tank, as I still dont have an airbrush. What I came up with was to paint the tank red/brown and mask the camo patterns with silly putty. Then I would paint over all of that with dark green, and mask the dark green camo with silly putty. Finally I would paint the rest of the model dark yellow so when all the silly putty came off I would have all three colors painted on. It turned out well, only needing one or two touch ups. Then I hand painted all of the dots of the ambush scheme, which was a real pain, but the end result looked great. I then dry brushed the tank with Burnt umber craft paint, followed by weathering with tamiya weathering sets. Some rustwas added to the spare tracks and exhaust ro finish it up. The mud was made by using tamiya weathering powders mixed with a couple different brown paints and water, and applied with a brush all around. I also used some aluminum paint for dry brushing the tracks.
So what do you guys think? This is deffinately my favorite tank I have built so far, as I have always wanted to build a king tiger. Its also looks extra mean next to my Sherman.
It looks like a great job…BUT…I think you might have an issue with how you mounted the mud guards. What caught my eye was I seem to be able to see “toomuch” of the idler wheel in your side view photo. They struck me as being “high” …They should slope at more of an angle towards the rear of the hull. :
If you look at your rear view pic compared to mine…check out the relationship to the rear mudflap;
I dunno, maybe I just can’t see straight…but something doesn’t look right, here’s my Henschel, you should just barely be able to see the track on top of the Roadwheels?:
Your weathering and paint look great. If I am right (I’m sure the other lads will chime in on this), repositioning the mudguards should be an easy fix. Nice job on the T2!
Your right steve, my mudguards are mounted a bit high. What happened was when I glued them on I was so worried about getting the front part lined up accurately, further back the guards lifted up. Now that I look at it, the rear section sould be lowered down. Im not sure how Im gonna move it because the entire thing is glued, but ill find a way. Thanks for posting your KT’s a a refrence it helped me see what was wrong with mine. Thanks for telling me.
nice tiger 2,the camo and weathering look great.the silly putty masks really did the trick.i built tamiyas ardennes tiger and hand painted the camo .if this camera of mine would cooperate i would show it to you.anyhow great model.
Really nice work. I like how the rear end turned out. Those mufflers looks mighty real. Camouflage looks pretty good also, especially considering you have no airbrush. I have that beast in y stash also, I don’t know when I’m gonna build it but after seeing yours, it went up in the to do list.
[8)] Doesn’t look like you need an airbrush ‘cause it turned out just super. [;)]But… you “do” need a power cable goin’ to that front headlight. [tup]Really good looking.
looks damn great MG42!! the camo came out great with you handbrushing it. i can’t even tell there is a hard edged line with all the nice weathering you did. i only noticed one thing, it looked like you over brushed onto the tank when you weathered the spare tracks on the turret, on the sixth pic. not sure if this was on purpose or not, or if its supposed to be like that, also a little bit of overbrushing on the right exhaust onto the tank. i’m still a newbie, and learing as i go, so i’m not sure if its supposed to be like that, but WOW!! it looks nice. i bought me some silly putty from winn-dixie for using the same tech you did, just haven’t had a kit to use it on yet. [:(] did you use fruil tracks, or is that the aluminium paint you was talking about? the metal shine on the tracks and wheels looks very realistic. looks really good.
Very nice job on the camo especially by hand, i have built one of these in my early modeling days and have a second one in the pile so next time i can really do a decent job on it, yours looks really good i hope the fenders dont give you too much trouble.
Thanks for all of the comments everybody! First, I think what I posted might mave confused people. I didnt hand brush all of the camo, I only handbrushed the small spots all over the tank. The rest of the camo is a result of silly putty being put over that particular color, and being removed in the end. I dont have that much confidence in my hand brushing skills, but the dots were ok. And the camo was supposed to be hard edged. Ive got dragons 251/17 halftrack coming next so Ill take some more pictures when I use the same technique to better explain. Its not the best way to do it however as it uses 3 layers of paint, but its the only way I can do it for now. Also, roosterpelo, yes on top of the spare track on pic#6 I did accidentally brush onto the tank. Unfortunately I only spotted it after I sprayed the dullcote to seal all the weathering, so I think I might hide it with some built up snow on top of the track. The rust behind the exhaust was supposed to be there, its on the left one too but you cant see it in the pictures. I thought that since they are right next to the tank, the exhausts might make some rust behind them. I dont know how realistic this is, but I thought it looked cool. The tracks are the individual link magic tracks that come with the kit, and the drybrushing silver made them look metal. The paint I used was a testors enamel paint from one of the little jars called aluminum. Its not as shiny as regular silver so I think it looks more realistic. I find that enamels are much better for dry brushing than acrylics. Today I hope I can fix up the problem with the mudguards
