Kit-Bashing Figures: Pt. 1

Models always look more realistic with figures, so this new section is dedicated to creating figures from multiple kits, better known as "Kit-Bashing". The idea came to me after I had finished the Zimmerit on my Tiger I. The kit looked rather unrealistic with only commander Michael Wittmann (the tank is based on Wittmann's final Tiger, 007) and I had left the hatches open for an good interior view, but the inside looked very barren, so I decided that it needed another figure. After an unsuccessful hunt for tank crewmen on the internet, I realized that I would have to take matters into my own hands: I needed to make my own figure.

I started off by looking through the good old spares box. In there I found some British 8th Army crewmen from the Tamiya Universal Carrier, and decided that one of them would do. I then found a German hat for him from the Tiger  ,put it on him, and he strangely looked really good and it was a perfect fit. Thankfully, the figure will be inside of the turret, because I don't know of any SS tankers in Normandy wearing khaki shorts and long combat socks!

Tip of the Week

There's almost no need to buy expensive model paints; I suggest that you go  to your local dollar store and buy some cheap acrylics. That's exactly what I do, I can get every color that I need in Deco-Art paints, each squeeze bottle costs under a dollar.

Tip of the Week

The first Tip of the Week for 2009 is to never get rid of old sprues, because you just never know when you're going to need an unused piece or make a new one. This has helped me on multiple occasions.

A Belated Christmas Present!

Scramble for your bazookas everybody, there's a new Tiger in town! The Tamiya Tiger is almost done! Reconnaissance reports show these blurry new pictures of this Tiger, probably preparing to storm the front lines in early 2009!

Finishing the Tamiya Universal Carrier Mk.II: Pt VII

The final step to finishing my Universal Carrier was to weather. First, I made a wash out of Burnt Umber paint, (don't ask me what sort of paint/water ratio I used; I just poured a glob of paint into a cup and put some water in with it) and painted over the chassis with it. I let it dry for about 30 seconds and then wiped it off. The results were FANTASTIC!!! I then applied a wash of Light Avocado and painted over the decals to look like worn paint. I highly recommend this to anybody who wants to add extra realism. Also, I applied deep cuts to the paint and plastic and washed over them with Forest Fern, not with silver. After reading magazine articles and seeing multiple tanks up close, I learned that when a tank receives a cut or a chip, it doesn't immediately wear down to bare metal, but reveals a less faded version of the main base coat.

After that I added a coat of mud to the lower part of the vehicle. For this I used Tamiya's Weathering Master, (item 87079), and painted on the mud color. This is a very accurate and cheap way to give your model added realism. For the tracks, I simply applied a red-ish brown wash and put them on. This was fairly simple, but most of the time, you need a second set of hands.

Overall, this was a fantastic kit that I really enjoyed building as an early armour model.

***** 5/5 to Tamiya for such an excellent kit!

Finishing the Tamiya Universal Carrier Mk.II: Pt VI

The most daunting task on the road to finishing my Universal Carrier was markings. Personally, I wanted to model my Carrier after the Universal Carrier of the Calgary Museum of the Regiments, the first one that I saw up close. I VERY CAREFULLY painted in the insignias on the front of the vehicle. This took multiple tries, having to redo the maple leaf on many occaisions, making this a fairly tedious process. Then I placed some decals from the kit, #'s T-252910 and carefully painted a "C" in front of the "T's" in order to make the vehicle Canadian. I then applied a wash of the base color to blend in the decals.

Finishing the Tamiya Universal Carrier Mk.II: Pt V

After finishing the Jerry Cans and other accessories, I wanted to make the "lived in" feel to my model even more obvious so I went foraging through all of the extra parts given for this kit and decided to add one of the extra helmets. The only problem with this was that the inner part was far too small to be accurate a this scale so I took my Dremel tool to the inside and made it far deeper. I then took a piece of paper, cut it into a circle and glued strips of tin foil onto it to make helmet liner and straps. I painted the liner Tan and the outside of the helmet Forest Fern. I then added it into the driving compartment along with some ammo boxes.