Tamiya 88 mm cannon

Modeling Subjects Armor
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What do you think?
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philo, very nice I’d say, but I don’t understand the big blotch of red on the gun shield?

It may just be the camera, but it looks like,…well, RED red! (not “Armor Brown”???)

To be honest, the rest of the build and painting realy looks great, but I would seriously think about repainting the gun shield with only the tan and green camo…the “red” looks like a mistake, like you started applying it bit realized it didn’t look right but you just left it there…you could really have an excellent model there if you fixed that![8D]

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Yes I see what you mean!I believe that I accidently oversprayed it with red oxide primer. I think i’ll re-paint it when i get a chance.
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You asked what (I) think, so I’m going to tell you…please take this as purely constructive, I’m not trying to be demeaning, just attempting to help in a positive way…

Something is off with the gun tube, it appears too short, like the weapon was assembled in recoil (out of battery), compare the length to this build:

It maybe a result of over tightening the cassion phillips screws, but both are skewed and give a “warped” look to the model. The splattered hull red and the silvered Afrika Korps decal are obvious. The recoil cylinder end cap has “popped off”…I can’t tell from the photos, but it appears that the gunners folding seat is missing as well.

I would offer that the overall construction of the kit looks hurried and is, for lack of a better term, a bit “sloppy”. You have missed the cable reel attachments, etc. The loading tray is assembled wrong, it’s on the forward side of the swing bracket…look here for proper assembly:

If we take away the obvious red splotch, the dunkelgelb and mottled green cammo is pretty good. I would definitely wash in the details to highlight them, and overall the weathering is not well executed.

These old Tamiya 88’s are challenging even though the have been around for thirty years or so. I would take away two lessons from this project. Take your time in the construction phase, do some research to portray the weapon properly in its historical context, and you will be rewarded with a very nice build.

regards,

Steve

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I don’t know much about the 88s, but I’ve built a couple of these in the past. I have a few points to make. I think others have already made them, though.

Crocket appears to know a lot more about this subject than I do. The only things I saw were:

  1. The red…I can see what you were going for, but you should get rid of that and just stick with the dunkelgelb and green on this one. It kinda jumps out at you, and looks out of place.

  2. The gun barrel…It’s in half-recoil, you need to fix that - extend the barrel all the way out, so that it’s at its full length.

  3. Some of the decals are silvering…If you’re gooing to use the kit-supplied decals, use Future or something like that to eliminate the shine from the decal film.

Other than these three things, I thought it was a cool-looking build. I like the camo, other than that one red thing. Once I got those three things fixed, I’d probably be looking at some really cool-looking weathering, with oil washes, pastels, maybe some pigments. You know, dirty it up a little.

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Philo: Thanx for posting!!! You’ve gotten some helpful comments. I’ll add one more. The trapezoidal gun aimer’s hatch on the gun shield: it only could rotate upwards (counterclockwise). Yours is rotated clockwise which wasn’t possible on the real gun. HTH

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Looks great! Keep up the hard work and remember, you are the builder, enjoy your work. I completed an’88 just a few months ago and along with the gun crew in action poses, which are still good quality from Tamiya. Using a simple diorama and some camo netting made from surgical gauze my wife thought I had really put a lot of hard work into the whole diorama.

By the way, the cammo patterns on many German pieces of equipment were applied in the field, by the crew and they used whatever paints were available at the time. It would be reasonable to show a model German -anything weather-beaten, mis-matched colors and above all looking like the paint was brushed on. Some crews had only gasoline to thin the paint with and crude brush strokes on a model would look very realistic. Save the airbrushing for scale model aircraft or base coats for armor that you want to look new.

Keep up the great looking work, I’ve been seriously modeling for 40 + years out of 57 and still learn from each and every model I have now and in the past. Also if you are interested look at my threads on Acrylic paints and what they can do to improve your models.

johncpo

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Thanks for the comments guys!I built the kit in 1988 so ididn’t realize it was so flawed!
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OK, I mixed up some matching paint and used my Paashe VL to"erase"the errant oxide red.How does it look?
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Another view
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…I have to respectfully disagree with the assertion that one should put away the airbrush except for a/c models…the Germans applied three-tone camo on a routine basis using air-guns in the field…in fact, it is more rare to find brush applied camo than sprayed-on camo…

…I do agree that there are endless permutations of German field-applied applied-camo, but clearly the poster admitted that the red was accidental overspray on his model, not any form of artisitic license or copying a documented anomoly…

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[#ditto]