So I recently started “tutoring” the 13 year old son of one of my friends - somehow he heard I had gotten into modelling pretty hard over the past year. So in order to introduce him to our fine hobby, I picked up a couple each of 1/72 scale Italeri Elefants and Panthers cheap from Squadron (good starter kits) and we’ve been building them together on the weekends. We finished the Elefant and started on the Panther yesterday…while his aren’t quite ready for general consumption yet (they will be soon though…he’s going to be good!) I snapped a few of my finished mini-Elefant.
That’s really nice of you to spend your time and share your hobby with that young man. Your Elephant looks great, I could only imagine how hard 1/72 is to work with. Can’t wait to see your pupils work.
Top job tutoring there Lycra man. Theres not many ppl that would put there weekends aside to help someone to model. Hope hes very appreciative and that your getting a good buz out of it.
Honestly, it’s a lot of fun. Makes me think back to the days when I first started modelling, wishing I had someone who had a half a clue to show me some stuff. [8-]
Besides, throwing these little guys together is a blast! Talk about fast assembly. Of course, the level of detail isn’t there (although the wee DML Sherman he picked up is pretty sweet), but 2 days from start to finish is kind of refreshing after spending a couple of months on one kit. Heh.
Atta boy Dupes. Sometimes it’s more rewarding to help someone along then to do it yourself. Two of my faves are the time that my son and I completed a couple of his builds.
Absolutely! Besides, now I have a modelling club to belong to! [(-D]
He’s pretty interested in all aspects of WWII modelling…hopefully I can get him to avoid the dreaded “leave for 15 years between the ages of 18 and 33” syndrome. Heh.
Great job on the zimm. Would you consider sharing your secret with us? I also do 1/72 armor and never bother applying zimmerit to mine because I didnt wanna use putty or buy aftermarket parts.
I also started modelling at about 12-13. I wish I had someone to model and share with, all my friends thought video games and pokemon were cooler. I live in a small town too so there is no model club and for a while I was convinced Im the only one who builds intown.
I agree with Cam. Don’t know a single person who builds models. In fact, never even seen another built model in real life, except for the tabletop gaming figures at the hobby store where I buy paint. Must admit it is impresssive how detailed those figures can be painted by the right person.
Zimmerit on 1/72 can be very effectively portrayed by careful use of the ol’ Exacto blade. I think dupes did a decent job with the razor blade, but it looks even more realistic if you zimm it with a sharp blade and an Optivisor magnfier–I zimmed this tiny 1/76 Tiger this way…
Scribe the vertical columns in first, and then the horizontals. It takes a bit of time, but thankfully not as long as a 1/35!
Wow Doog, that looks great! It appears that you spent a bit more time on yours than I did [(-D]. I was just shooting for some semblance of realism while sticking to my 6-hours-or-less time frame.
Just penciled in the vertical lines, then scribed the horizontals (no optivisor needed…or available - heh). You can use liquid cement to soften things up a bit, but if your razor blade is sharp enough you shouldn’t need to. I went for the “tiled” zim on the Panther I’m doing, I think that one came out a bit better with the blade method. Pics to come on that guy in a few days!
You know, IMHO, you gotta be careful nowadays,even with the 1/72 kits–“semblance of realism” is getting harder to get by with, with the vastly improved moldings now of the latest kits. Back in the day when the moldings were really kinda soft, you could let things slide because the imperfect detail would just blend in with the rest of the kit. But now, I find myself striving to detail and correct even the smaller kits!
Alas, I do have some awesome photos of me in the spandex–but thankfully they’re in film format, not digital, so I have a believable excuse for not posting them![(-D][(-D]
