Very nice job latch. I like the camo job. You did a real nice job on weathering the wheels and tracks. Did you use the kits tracks? I’ve heard they aren’t that good. Thanks for sharing.
I did add a PE set and I “roughened” up the armor surface. I also used a set of custom decals specifically for the 653 Panzer Jaeger Abtl.
I did use the kit tracks. I think the problem tracks are in the Elephant kit and not the Ferdinand. But I may be mistaken. There was an “early” and “late” version of the tracks for this beast.
The mistake I think you probably made in posting was copying the url for the pic from the address bar instead of right clicking on the pic, selecting properties and then copying the url from there.
Great looking Ferdinand you have there Latch. Nice job on the camo. Some pesky Russian infantryman steal the tow cables or are you still fitting it out?
Fine looking dirt and dust too!
The Ferdinand is the DML kit in 1/35. I added the Aber Photoetch set (intended to convert the Italeri kit into the Ferdinand) and I roughed up the armor with a dremel bit. I wish I could remember the decal company I used, but the set is one which is specific to the 653 Panzer Jager Abtl. It came out right after the Fantastic book on the 653 by J.J. Fedorowicz. They are absolutely beautiful and give you enough decals for several of the groups vehicles during the entire lifespan of the group.
The kit is painted in MM enamels. Weathering is done with a combination of paint, oil based washes, and weathering chalks (I used the old Prof. Weathers chalks).
I drybrush in three different stages. Each stage gets it’s own “intensity”.
The first stage is a mix of 75/25 of the main color with white. This gets put down pretty hard over the entire vehicle.
The second stage is a mix of 50/50 of the main color with white. This gets put down mainly over the large raised areas (hatches, ventilators, and of course all the edges).
The third stage is a mix of 25/75 of the main color with white. This gets put down very sparingly. I only use this to hit the highlights on the extreme corners.
There should be subtle changes between each stage, nothing really “hard” should show. I’ve played around with this technique for a while and so far I like the results. Maybe I can get some “good” photos posted to show what it looks like in person.
Unfortunately the “overflashed” pictures show the drybrushing WAY too much, and the “no-flash” pictures hardly show it at all. So it’s somewhere in between in reality.
LOL, the “Pesky Russians” did get the tow cables.
I was building this for a contest and did not have what I needed to scratch the tow cables (time got a little tight), so, they didn’t make it to the completed kit.
Shermanfreak,
Thanks for the posts. You are exactly right on what I was doing. I’ll try to post some others later today using your suggestion.
Thanks for the help.
Eric (tigerman), if it’s the stuff I told you about the DML Elefant tracks you’re refering to, the tracks themselves are excelent in quality and level of detail. The problem is with the cleats molded on the face of each link. They’re pointing the wrong way. This wouldn’t be a problem with the Ferdie tracks because they don’t have those cleats. There are NO ejector pin marks on the links. They put the ejector pins over on the sprues next to the attachment points for the links. The one unfortunate result of it is that the attachment points are WAY heavy, even for DML.
The tracks that come with the DML 1/72 kits are a different story. They are vinyl “rubber band” tracks. They are really nice in detail. I had no trouble painting or glueing (ca) them. However, the accolates stop there. The tracks for the Elefant kit didn’t have the cleats molded onto them, so they are actually Ferdie tracks. (Same tracks are in the Ferdie kit!) (Remember, we’re talking the new 1/72 kits here.) Also (and this was a much bigger deal), the tracks are way too long. At least they were in my kit, unless I made a construction error. I had to cut four full links off the tracks to get them close to fitting right. Rather, I should say, shaved off four links. I left the “male” end alone, shaved the underside of the first four links from the “female” end, making them look as closely as possible to the original molded end, then cut off the end four links. The included two links of the original end, and two more that I’d shaved down. I did four because it was easier, for me, to have the first two out of the way to get at the next two. (Also, on the first side, I was doing a slice and fit to see how many needed to be removed.) Anyone else had this problem with this kit??
Since the 1/35 kits have indy links, this doesn’t apply, of course.
