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.