Monday, October 30, 2023

Polish TKS Tankette

 1/35 scale Polish TKS tankette from IBG. Replaced the plastic kit barrel with a metal one from (I think) Aber. The driver and commander figures are from Miniart. I had to slightly modify the commander's right arm as he was not made to fit this vehicle.








Sunday, October 8, 2023

Panzer IIIJ

This is the Das Werk Panzer IIIJ in 1/16 scale. This is a very nice kit with great detail. The size of the pieces is impressive and it builds up to nice sized model. Assembling was easy and fun with only some minor fit issues.
 

The tracks are workable and the torsion bar suspension is fully functional. The tracks were easy to assemble but nonetheless tedious. The tires are separate from the hubs, but they don't quite fit so it will require some work to get them to fit over the hubs. The tow cables are thick copper wire and work well.

The stowage is from Value Gear and is quite detailed. The figure is from Jeff Shiu Miniatures and is a 120mm do roughly 1/16 scale. It is beautifully molded and easy to paint. The bucket is metal and I found it on an R/C tank website. It was weathered with Ferric Chloride.

The model was painted with Tamiya German Grey. Then gloss coated, decals applied and then the winter white wash. The white wash was applied by using Vallejo white with a piece of open cell foam and a pair of tweezers. The foam was dipped in the paint, then dipped in a bit of water and then wiped on the model. Then I went back and applied another layer with less thinned paint to get the brush strokes captured in the paint. This gives the field expedient appearance I was looking for. After all of this, I chipped the white wash with the German Grey, and then applied a pin wash and some dot wash. The snow is a Vallejo acrylic product called snow, and was applied liberally to the lower hull.
All in all, this is a good kit and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in a 1/16 scale model.