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For this project I originaly envisaged a fairly new, lightly weathered vehicle. Having been hastily despatched to a new bridgehead, I planned to have it sat on a heavy duty SSys rail car awaiting disembarkment. No camo had yet to be applied yet there had been light damage to both track guards and the tools stowage box. To get this project finished I now aim to build this as a stand alone vehicle with maybe a few figures.
After a surreal end to 2025 and a crazy start to this year, modelling content has been thin on the ground. Getting creative at the bench has been near on impossible, but I’ve finally managed the life balance scales to find some time for modelmaking again. And speaking of balance, the reason for the delay is I was diagnosed with an unannounced acute vestibular balance issue at the start of this year, which had been literally disorientating, and very debilitating to begin with. Not only was I dizzy but my vision was also unsteady. Rehab is well underway but it is going to take a little time for complete normality to resume. Although still a little unsteady on my feet, sitting down now presents no such issues. So, with the rehab schedule actively encouraging coordiation excersises, I'm hoping some Quality-Time-at-the-Bench should be just the ticket!
Quick construction builds or OOB (out of the box) builds are an immensely pleasurable activity in this hobby. Whether you are an experienced modeller or just starting out, swiftly creating a miniature replica by way of a simple construction process without any desire to embellish or create any unnecessary distractions, is one I regularly return to. A pure trip down memory lane.
Carrying out home improvements recently has unearthed a stash of old finished and part finished models, of which a selected few have since been cleaned and re-photographed. Still finding my feet and experimenting with all sorts of new materials, many of these early builds have so many building and paint finish flaws that it makes me cringe to look at them again. But we all have to start somewhere!
All my early builds were painted with rattle cans before I realised an airbrush was definately the way to go! As I slowly began to accumulate all the necessary basic tools and gained inspiration from other modellers I also made some early attempts at building resin kits, adding photoetch with more and more aftermarket parts. I hated PE until I fairly recently discovered rubberised black CA glues. Although 3D printed parts are slowly taking over, due to its strength and ability to be manipulated PE still has a place in the hobby.
There are many builds I remember being so proud of at the time and I still like to look at them now, but so many of them have rudimentry construction flaws and less than flattering paint finishes. Completing builds without construction gaffs whilst acheiving a consistent paint finish was still a long way off. They might all be flawed in some aspect or another, but they are all physical evidence of my creative journey. May I apologise in advance for some of the terrible photography.
Whilst I do love to build wheeled vehicles, I’ve never actually built a non-military one! And that’s odd since I have always had an interest in 1:1 scale automotive stuff. I purchased a Tamiya GR86 kit a little while back as I had once owned a Subaru BRZ, but am still yet to build it! I suspect that as I'm so accustomed to applying weathering effects over military vehicle's, I am a little intimidated by the smooth unblemished, immaculate paint finish that would be required.
I’ve always fancied building a few scale representations of cars I’ve driven over the years and that got me thinking about another predicament I found myself in. Getting the mancave ready I had planned a few upgrades, and one of them involved a trip to a hardware store. Trouble is, I didn't actually have a 1:1 scale car to pick the stuff up with!
This started out as groundworks for a vehicle project that turned out to be slightly too small and then took on a life of its own.
My inspiration was taken from images of the terrain around the Brenner pass in northern Italy during the German army’s retreat north through the mountains. Looking at photographs of the kind of materials that were used to build these roads I found a contemporary pic of a cycle race over the same terrain. I liked the idea of the tight bend and added height element that it would bring to a display.
Apologies about not posting any updates recently but there has been zero bench activity of late. This has been due to some heavy duty and extensive home renovations. This has affected every room in our home, so as you can imagine it has been extremely disruptive. What it has meant is that all my focus has been required to liaise with and manage the builders to ensure a productive workflow with the least disruption as possible. TBH most of the work went without hitch and any little snags are slowly being ironed out.
In all this time both our garage and my mancave have had to accommodate all sorts of personal paraphernalia so even if I wanted to just chill in the cave, I had no way of getting in! December will be occupied with getting our home respectable again and ready for the ensuing festivities. I should be back to some sort of normality early in the new year, so once the cave is accessible again normal service can resume.
Until then, a happy Xmas modelling to you all.
Los
The remaining construction went largely without hitch, but as you will see from the reviews you do need to conduct a little research beforehand if you want to model a particular vehicle. This is because the build instructions and the painting profiles for each variant is not 100% accurate. Zimmerit is not mentioned at all which is a little weird since two of the depicted versions require it! The kit tracks do look great once built up, but boy is it a mammoth task getting them cleaned up! I started one side then remembered I had a set of metal tracks already built up. Dodged a bullet there!
I’ve had to take a break from the hobby since the beginning of September due to some large home improvement work. Whilst doing plenty of re-shuffling of hobby stuff around I got to musing over why I model the subjects I do. Looking at both finished projects and ongoing work I do seem to have a propensity for depicting damaged or destroyed axis vehicles. So why is this?
Abandoned axis softskin vehicles lie in a field in Saint-Lambert-sur-Dive 1944, after the escaping from the Falaise gap
Being naturally blessed with wizard like hyper focusing abilities, you would assume that during the past decade I would have produced a vast portfolio of work. That is one of the upsides of the condition. However, there are far more downsides being neurodivergent which make things a little more complicated!
My condition appears to be getting more difficult to deal with as I get older so a return to scale modelmaking has been a lifesaver in so many ways. The hobby has created a quiet, calm, anxiety-free space that I rarely get to experience in everyday life. I love other shit too - obviously, I’m not completely mental, it’s just that most regular day-to-day stuff makes my cranium internals spin, like it’s occupied by ten highly caffeinated squirrels!
History
The Jagdpanther was preceded by two attempts at mounting an 8.8 cm gun as a self-propelled anti-tank weapon; Ferdinand - also known as Panzerjäger Tiger (P) - These used the ninety-one leftover Porsche-built VK 45.01 (P) chassis from the Tiger tank competition it lost to Henschel in 1942, and the Nashorn on the Geschützwagen III/IV (which used a combination of the Panzer III and Panzer IV components) chassis. Ferdinand proved to be too heavy, and Nashorn lightly armoured and under-powered.
And so, at last, after more than thirteen years of neglect, may I present the finished article. I hope you like it.
‘der Grashüpfer‘
Oil paints were used again to accentuate areas at the rear of the vehicle over existing acrylic dust layers. This was done by adding both oil paints and pigments. Once dry, areas around the handles and steps had the dust layers smudged and dirty deposits were also added onto high wear surfaces.
The next stage of weathering effects is one I have used on a couple of
projects to date, and the results can look convincing. Looking at progress so
far, I decided to add a subtle toned-down application to just the lower front,
rear, and sides, and see where it would take me.
If you like a dusty operational look to your AFV models and are quite handy with the hairspray technique, this process can create realistic looking disrupted dust and light mud effects. What we are aiming to do is to selectively remove, mark, and disrupt an airbrushed dust toned layer of a paint. We are effectively reverse ‘hairspray chipping’ the surface, by leaving larger deposits rather than creating small chips. This works best using acrylic paints over a layer of hairspray or chipping fluid.
All these images on this page show the effect on late war axis AFV's with a three tone camo, so you have to look close up as the effect can appear very subtle. Using these weathering effects on early war axis vehicles or green allied or Russion AFV's will produce a much more pronounced effect, with a starker contrast against the vehicle's paintwork.
I prefer to add any textured build up of mud before this dust layer effect is airbrushed on, as I like the dust layer to be the final weathering layer. This is just a method of application I used on these projects, so if the vehicle is to be portrayed as just having driven through fresh mud, that can just as easily be applied over the dust layer. Or you can mix and match if you find that visually more appealing. Likewise, adding pin washes before or after this dust layer, or both, will produce different results.
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
These selectively applied and time consuming oil paint stages are not for everyone, but Mike Rinaldi’s work in his Tank Art books convinced me it was worth the effort. These effects look very convincing and very much appealed to me. The richness, depth, and versatility that working with oil paint brings is unparalleled in my opinion and has now become an important step in
most of my projects. In my pursuit for in-scale realism I will happily spend
days going back and forth adding tiny effects to try and compliment the overall
look, often spending hours on one particular feature. I love the results that
can be achieved and find the whole process enormously therapeutic.
With the vehicle fully built up it was time to put a personal stamp on the project. For this first stage of weathering here are the steps I followed:
After being kept apart for so long it was finally time to permanently fix both sub-assemblies together! The two mouldings are mated by way of small keyed joint connections. Following the build steps as per the instructions it's simple enough to turn the body upside down, align all the keyed connections and fix the chassis down onto the body. As already noted in Chapter 3 the connection is not at all precise and requires a little rework to achieve a clean flush fit between the two assemblies. The instructions have you mate the two parts early on in the build steps so handling the parts and sorting the issue is easy to resolve. It will be far more of a challenge if paint and fragile fixings are already added!
Before commencing the first weathering stages of the build, there were a few areas of the model that I still wasn’t 100% happy with. Firstly, the paint colour on the re-worked sprockets wasn’t a great match to the rest of the running gear. Although this was more likely due to my choice of primer colour than the actual base coat mix, they definately exhibited a more creamier tone as opposed to the greyish hue of the existing track wheels. Rather than masking and re-spraying paint I stumbled upon a solution. Applying Abteilung buff oil paint seemed to be the perfect answer. This was carefully stippled on and blended out from the wheel centre.
Left for 72hrs to cure I then sealed the oil paint work with VMS matt varnish. This was essential as both enamels and pigment effect work would still be required to harmonise with the existing chassis tones.
Regarding decals, what’s provided in the kit is not surprisingly extremely limited. In addition to the instrument dials only a pair of licence plates along with a 'prototype' plate are included. Interestingly Trumpeter don't match the ones found on the restored vehicle!
Both licence plates were added and sealed.
