Tamiya Black Panther Ausf. A

this is tamiya’s oldie but goodie panther A.

I built it as a chance to work with scratch building techniques (the side skirts) and various weathering techniques i hadn’t tried before (shadowed panel lines, etc.)

Yes, I’m perfectly aware that Panther’s weren’t grey, but it looks cool, and there was a thread awhile back about how there MIGHT have been a grey one. I rolled with that.

the numbers were hand painted on the sides. The balankruz(is that right?) were also hand painted.

overall it looks a little bland, and I would like some feed back as to how/what i should do to make it look a little more interesting. I’ve done some chipped paint.

thanks

So far so good, but if you want to make it more intreseting, you could always battle-damage the side skirts. For example make the side skirts look like it was attacked by a bazooka or hit by another tank’s shell. Just a suggestion, but hope it helps.[:)]

cool idea, how would i do that? drill a hole, then use putty to make a mound around the hole?

i know different shells leave differrent holes.

Honestly, I don’t know how to do it, so I don’t want to steer you into the wrong direction. But I can help you by giving you two references. [:)] The January 2008 issue of FSM has a section called Destruction Construction by Karl Logan “the doog” and that has some great info which can sorta help you out. The other reference is 2008 Great Scale Modelling, on page 88 is a photo of a Panzer III with badly damaged side skirts, maybe it could help out.

Hope this helps.

awsome, i have both of those.

thanks for the start in the right direction

Since you asked: the schurzen plates on Panthers were very thin metal developed to defeat Soviet AT rifle penetrations. They were mounted on not very robust frames. Any hit by a HE or AP shell would rip them clean off. They could withstand some shrapnel but anything else would rip them off. No gaping holes would make sense at all.

so maybe some gouges in the plastic to make it look like ricochets and shrapnel blasts.

thanks