My model making journey starts (2010)

It's late 2010. After starting the Tamiya Steyr kit I found a bunch of old modelling stuff at my parents. These included some quite well preserved figures, paints, and even the old but battered 1970's Tamiya Tiger I. What surprised me most of all though was that some of the Tamiya paint's were still usable!

I figured the Tiger I would be a great guinea pig so I set about trying out some of the latest techniques I had read about. One thing that I picked up early on is that the large Tamiya spray tins are not really suitable for 1/35 scale kits, and I would have to get my hands on an airbrush. I did some research and soon acquired an Iwata HP-C-Plus and compressor.

The Panzerwreck books really appealed to me so from the very start I was attempting to convey some wrecks. Scratchmod's site was a great inspiration and I soon set about destroying brand new but very cheap kit's, in my attempt to display wrecked vehicles.

 
 
                                   Tamiya's ubiquitous Opel Blitz gets the scalpel treatment.

Then painted in Vallejo acrylics
 






AFV Club's Sd.Kfz 11 early production got the same treatment

 

 


 

Around this time I started photographing my creations and it was apparent both my building and paint application needed drastically improving. I experimented with different techniques and different paints and realised that my airbrush much preferred shooting Tamiya over Vallejo and that mix ratios and air pressures really were the key. I stopped using the salt technique and finessed the application of hairspray in between subsequent layers of paint to minutely chip and distress the surface to reveal underling primers and even bare metal. It was clear that to display scale realism in this department less was most definitely more. 

 

In my rush to mix and match effects on one project I often attained good results with one medium only to cock it up with another. I also started experimenting with pigments and oils and a huge number of kits were started and never finished such was my appetite and impatience .

 

Zvezda's Mercedes L4500 was used to test the many variations of Dunkelgelb acrylic paints on the market and whether different brands could be combined. 

I really liked Vallejo's light and dark rubber acrylics for brush painting tyres, and this model also had many different kinds of pin washes tested on it

 

Cyber Hobby Sd.Kfz 251 Ausf C with the (rather overscale) Verlinden engine and interior set. I used Friulmodel tracks for the first time. They gave the model some much needed heft but compared to the kit's plastic tracks looked a little bulky. They were however much more robust and it was so much easier to attain the perfect track tension. 


The kit's lower and upper hull fit was not great so I ended up butchering one side to depict a round hit.





I learned a great deal making this kit and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. I see so many issues with it now but what I gleaned from making those errors has given me a much better understanding of what constitutes a well finished and realistic scale model.

My last model of 2011 was Trumpeter's Sd.Kfz.7 KM M11. This was like jumping in at the deep end and whilst I would definately not recommend it as a starter kit, it did give me an insight into what was required to make good some dubious moulding and shoddy engineering. It has undergone a few changes over the years and has been used as a guinea pig several times to work with new mediums and ideas  

 
 
Completed in 2011  





 

  Stripped in 2012 




 


  
 

Distressed in 2013 





 


Put out to pasture in 2015




 

So as 2011 came and went I was relatively pleased with my new found hobby progress. My next goal was to get to grips with improving my finish with the airbrush and even attempt a resin kit !