Daydream Notes

After a hiatus of over a year, I've completed a new tiny tank. It's a Panther tank, by Dragon. This is the late (no pun intended) model, the G version, with steel wheels. Most Panthers had rubber on the outside of their road wheels, but like the Russians earlier in the war, rubber shortages made all steel wheels more economical.  My 'pea-dot' camo turned out pretty well, I think. I used a paintbrush to apply the dots. The only real challenge was with my airbrush; it broke while painting the stripes, and I had to wait a month for replacement parts to arrive. The red-brown shade was something I mixed myself, using acrylics from Wal-mart. The other new technique I tried was with the tracks, which I got out of Alex Clark's book "Small Scale Armor Modelling." I painted the treads black, and then painted a brown overtop with a brush. I then blasted the tracks with thinner (in this case Iso alcohol) with my airbrush. I then painted on dark steel wh...

 Early last year, I finished a tiny tank: a East German T-72.  Brief kit review - Revell Germany made this T-72, and they did their usual excellent job. Lots of detail and good engineering at a good price. The difficulty is up a bit compared to most 1/72 tank kits, though, so you should perhaps get a few other kits under your belt before attempting it. Most of this difficulty is because this kit has a lot of stuff mounted on the turret with only the most basic marks for mounting points. That, and the surprisingly intricate IR spotlight mounted next to the turret mean you will need some familiarity with the superglue. As usual with tiny tanks, I tried out a few weathering techniques. I think the green might be a bit too bright, but I wanted a 'sun-baked' fading and not all experiments work out and LEAVE ME ALONE I KNOW ITS NOT RIGHT (weeps) ( ahem) I weathered the saddle tanks using the good 'ol hairspray technique, which I had never used before. The rest...