"Greetings from the eastern front", part two
Painting
Admittedly I did not adhere to the rule 30% tinkering, 70% painting, since otherwise this project would have been finished by next year. As so much has already been written about the " correct " painting technique, I can drop exact specification. Only as much: I used the so-called pre-shading-technique, that is applying a base coat of dark brown, followed by spraying a light cover of dark yellow basic tank colour. One should be careful, not to let the darker spots disappear by extensive spraying. Subsequently, I applied several "filters". This is a technique that is intensified up to masterlyness by Miguel Jimenez, a spanish modeler (see Internet-reference for more information). Old and new engagement damages and lacquer wear were represented with micro painting before and after the different filters. Slight drybrushing and applying pastel chalks (usually I scratch across the pastell chalk with a medium hard brush and paint this onto the surface, sometimes I make a mix with scratched pastelpowder and dull varnish) the basic weathering is completed. By means of aluminium colour (Humbrol) and a pencil, used grasps and worn places at the tank surface were obtained. The kill rings developed by means of a spray gun after previous masking.
Dirt at the tracks and the lower hull can be represented very realistically with a
mash made out of earth, sand, white glue, food soda, cut off brush bristles, static
grass and brown acrylic colour (or at least water-based colour). After drying, this
mass was drybrushed with a brighter brown dithering at selected places.
A veil strongly diluted drab (70% thinner, 30% colour) sprayed onto the lower vehicle
portions concludes painting. Only a sealing with silk matt laquer remains to be done.
Nevertheless I forgot to tell you, that still the markings have to be applied in advance!
The emblem of the StuG Abt 191 is self made: After scanning it from the booklet
" tank colors, part 3 " of Bruce Culver it is scaled down and printed on decal foil
with a color laser printer.
The figures
As the figures, that came with the kit were very proper, I used one crew member with changes of arms and corpse for positioning him on the hull top. Because of the use of other arms, than those of the kit, I had to make new seams along the sleeves. This was done with stretched sprue, welded with plastic glue. Before the glue turns hard, I pushed my crafts knive into the "seam", to simulate its irregularity. The commander "lost his head" but immidiately got a new one from VERLINDEN. As my only spare head, that nearly matched the appearence of Hptm Mueller unfortunately showed an SS-skull on the commanders cap, I had to remove this. As a substitute, I made the Wehrmacht-insignia out of TAMIYA-putty. The workshop soldiers from Tamiya were taken almost unchanged: The fingers of the standing maintainance man were slightly bent for a better ergonomic appearance. Furthermore the czech-type overalls, taht were in common use among german workshop crews, had to be upgraded with two back pockets each, which were again made by using aluminium foil. Now switching to the painting of the figures: The flesh areas were done with artist oil colors after grounding them light brown. A drop of glossy varnish onto the eyes gives a realistic shining. As assault gun crews wore grey panzer style uniforms, I featured this as well (a good reference is the book of Schlicht/Angolia, which is mentioned in the appendix). Again I used a mix of washes, filters and drybrushing, as well as airbrushed layers to gain the different shades of sunburned, washed out, worn and "weary" clothings. The leather belts and shoes were primed with black, resp. dark yellow for the officer´s belt and drybrushed with burnt sienna or raw umber. (Tip: the mid-war shoes didn´t have shoe nails on the sole. So don´t paint them!)The construction of the Diorama:
I wanted to keep the base simple, so I scribed a pattern of concrete plates onto plastic sheet and added a mixture of sand, white glue and plaster in the upper right edge. Before getting hard, some spots were covered with static grass. After attaching white glue with a syringe into the grooves of the concrete plates, I sprinkled them with static grass too. Spattered drops of white glue fixed dispersed sand, in order to represent pressed down dirt spots, left by passing tanks and personnel. Bristles that were cut from a rough brush were used to tinker the "elephant grass". Finally everything was painted with my airbrush. The workshop items came partly from ITALERI, TAMIYA and by myself (many things in the tool box). The canvas plans on the ground and the lift off vehicle roof developed by pressing crumpled aluminium foil onto the surface underneath. It makes convincing folds. The vice, the anvil and other metal parts were primed with aluminium colour, "filtered" with black and polished with graphite dust, scraped from a pencil. Wodden parts were grounded in dark yellow and finished by a highly diluted burnt sienna, as well as raw umber oil colours. Finally the base was framed and got an information sign.Last but not least:
At the end there are some more impressions from the details and another "old picture" for you to watch. Finally I would like to still mark that this project literally costed me blood, sweat and tears, although however furnished very much fun. Additionally it was a very favorable work, if one considers, that I was busy with only one model more than half a year and I avoided many after market "nice-to-have-but-costly-items" (an interior detail set would have costed approx. USD 53,-!) Only with the tracks it could have been of some advantage to use a product of " Friulmodelissimo"... To everyone, who might think, that I am too slow at tinkering, I would like to give him one slogan from the far east for considering: "the way is the target."© 2001 Schachinger
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