Neverending tracks

There was a serious doubt in me about it. But finished the MK track finally. Now it's time to finish the running gear. And the weathering. And then the vehicle will be ready. But not the crew, equipment, or the diorama...

Some more brass

Added some more stuff on the fenders, the hull is almost done. Now I play with the side shield locks, quite small parts but look cool when finished...

Fender ready, soldering done

First time in my life I felt some success and joy when soldered the parts of the fenders. The result is not 100% but taught me some lessons and I had my first burning feeling on my fingers as well :)

Fender

First time in my modelling life I feel that I succeeded a soldering task with satisfying results. I'm still working on the fenders and other bits and pieces which does not worth a full post here. But I'm quite proud of this fender...

Slowly getting to shape...

And here I am again. During the recent weeks I've tried to use my spare minutes (even half hours sometimes) to work on the Flakpanzer. I prepared the body to adapt the PE fenders (under construction, trying to improve my soldering technique with little success...) which means I had to fill some holes and attachment cuts. Also painted the underside black because the engine air intake openings will be hidden under the deck and I wanted to be sure not to forget to shade them. Glued the side and back armor of the fighting compartment in place, made the two radios rack from really tiny PE stuff and decided to hide the driver's compartment. But still hesitating about the engine bay. I'm thinking about an action setting, firing flak, tension and so on. But that would need a closed hatch. However, I like the engine and would like to show it somehow... Life is full of hard questions.

Free hours

At the weekend we had a few hours of completely free time. That meant some progress with the flakpanzer. I cut&cleaned the running gear parts and assembled the hull sides. The drivers compartment has been closed and I just can not decide whether the engine bay hatches should be closed or not... All in all I enjoyed hours of undisturbed modelling, first time in 3 years...

Driver's compartment ready

Just finished the driver's compartment at the weekend. The chipping and other fancy "weathering" stuff was intentionally kept to minimum as the vehicle was quite a new one. Some dry-brushing on the steering and braking system is hardly visible on the photos. Next time I'll spray a much lighter shade of both the green and red-brown but this time I didn't want to spend more time with a part which won't be visible. Now it comes to the funny parts: the hull. With lots of PE and worries.

Paintjob

I've painted the drivers compartment. I hesitated a lot what colors to use as the vehicle is a late war model but based on the same basis as the Pz 38(t) tanks. But I'm quite sure that it wasn't constructed by "cutting down the tank parts and welding on the flak parts" method so the early war Czech paint scheme was not good for my purpose. Instead I decided to use the red-oxide floor, Elfenbein walls and green machinery as an alternative. No clue how exact it is historically (I guess not too much) but it seems to be a probable alternative - and not to forget: it won't be visible after finishing the model. The red-oxide color was a gloss paint so I had to overspray it several times with flat cote but with moderate succes. My explanation of the result is that the floor was greasy and oily... the wall is not purely white but the lighting and the camera of my iPhone resulted in a much lighter color than it is in reality.

 The green parts look nice with a little shine on them (though the paint was flat as indicated), maybe I could use a lighter shade as the weathering will not be too visible on this color. (note: the exact color codes must be updated to this blog entry)

And finally - after a few years of modelling I first time felt that I've cleaned my airbrush really thoroughly. Sounds a bit odd but it's true - now it shines like diamond and sprays like hell :)

Engine bay 99%

The engine bay is nearly finished. Wiring, battery is in place, now it only needs some more heavy weathering and dirt. But now I want to finish the driver's compartment first and then weather the two parts together.

Engine bay getting shape

Some more washes, metalizer paints from Model Master and a few wire. Still lot to do but starts to look nice...

Some modelling happened during my holiday in August though the photos are published only now. Assembled and painted the engine (paint is ModelMaster metalizer steel, and some dry brushing with Model Color Oily steel)
Dry-fit in place, waiting for additional wiring (brass, as I plan) and weathering. I'd like to leave the engine hatches open so the engine should look cool...
The progress is very slow. However I enjoyed to play with relly tiny bits again. So built some parts from scratch - please note the white line in the background - that square is 1cmx1cm :)

Engine started

Though my modelling activity could be called inactivity instead it is still not completely hopeless. I have a nice inventory of partly done or untouched models and it is only thirty plus some years until I retire :)
But for now I continued the Gepard and glued the engine together. Surprisingly many parts and a quite impressing detailed result - however the Tristar engine seems to be more accurate I don't really mind. Dragon made also a good job and with some extra wiring, bits and pieces I will have to leave the hatch open to make the engine visible.

New project, new phone

Half year pause and I'm right back. The no-time-problem worsened a bit with a not-too-serious Skyrim dependency (a cool fantasy game) but I still do some modelling sometimes. However the question of when to shoot and post photos has been solved with my new phone. Takes nice pictures and can publish post easily. Who said it's not a perfect world? :)
I started a new project the Flakpanzer 38(t). Though not too much will be seen of it, I upgrade the interior a bit mostly based on my imagination and a few reference photos found on the web. PE is Griffon.