Build Blog - Tamiya 1/48 Flakpanzer Mobelwagon

[Hagen]

I have the 1/48 Tiger 1 Late and the Matilda III/IV on the way as well as afew others in the stash

Shows how little I've been paying attention to Tamiyas 1/48 scale, I didn't even know they had come out with a late Tiger. Always been one of my favorites and have been waiting for Tamiya to come out with one in 1/48.

As for the gun shields, I say half up for crew protection.

[davejb]

I agree , half up , it alllows for a bit more internal detail to be seen and also allows for inclusion of a crew if required at a later stage , Jason you mentioned you use Tamiya thin glue , have you tried the Revell professional contacta , it comes with a long thin metal tube type syringe which allows for very precise application and lasts for ages , its extremely good on adhesion and i have used it for years

[VolksJager]

I agree with you both, half up give the best mix between detail of lower hull plus internal detail. Will build the panels this way tonight, though I will leave them off for initial painting though.

I have used the Revell professional contacta previously Dave and I did find it works well. Sounds stupid but I found the little needle got clogged all the time. When I started again I did alittle reading and people suggested the Tamiya extra thin because of the brush applicator and plus the wicking effect of the glue. Seems to work well for me but I think all the glue these days are pretty good.

[VolksJager]

Ok so lets pick up where we left off. Yesterday I managed to get part 15 and 16 done, the building of the gun shields. I did build them for the half up look. I will attach these after the lower hull is painted as it will be easier to get the lower floor painted and chipped before they are attached.



At this point the building is stopped and the fun part can start, Painting!. I do like to pre shade, though It depends from model to model. So I got the parts ready to go on their stands etc and into my paint booth.



Once pre shaded with straight black its left to dry overnight. I usually pre shade in the darker sunken areas where you would want shadows, so vents, hinges, into the wheel/track area etc. I also paint the tracks black at this point so they have time to dry off before all the weathering.



One of the things I will show here is my airbrush cleaner pot/stand. Only cheap from Ebay but one of the best purchases I have made, good brush holder and keeps the clean out fluid in the one place. Dont tend to get the smells either which is good.



Flash forward to today and with the black dry I move on to painting the body with Vajello German Dark yellow primer. Quick thin coats are the name of the game here so you can control how much of the black paint is covered as you want that pre shaded layer to shine through. Though the pictures dont show it well the internal floor shows its shadows well. The side on pic probably shows the colour in person, more yellow than green. I also paint the road wheels on the frame so they are easy to handle.



More to come tomorrow.

[sandgroper]

Looking great Jase!

[VolksJager]

Sorry for the lack of updates folks but real life go in the way for the past week. My wife is out of town (Back tonight finally) so I am looking after my little one and time has been slim. I have the gun shields on and the inside weathered before I paint the camo so I will post updates of that in the coming days once I get my camera back!

Jason

[VolksJager]

Finally we have an update!

Now where we left off was with the Dunkelgelb base coat, which was left to dry for about a day or so, to harden off properly. With that done the first thing I do is mix some of the dunkelgelb with some white to lighten up the center of the panels.



When I do this I like to do it in an uneven, speckle pattern for want of a better word, helps to give highlights and low lights. Now thinking ahead, once the gun shields are attached, for the camo pattern, its going to be hard to get the weathering done on the inside. So lets get it done now. I want to add some chips and scrapes, the blend with oils and add a filter.

To start this process the first chips will be with a lightened dark yellow paint. Then I use AK Interactive's chipping colour to add some darker, down to metal chips.



Once dry we can start on the oil blend. For dark yellow I used the 3 colour blending shade



To do this I add small dots of oil to the surface with a toothpick, then with a brush that is just damp with white spirit I either streak on vertical surfaces or circle on flat, horizontal panels with a wide flat brush. Gives me a weathered, streaked result and dulls down the chips. I will show the whole compartment at the end of this post.



That bring me to tonight's work. Stay tuned!

Jason

[Scout]

Ill stay tuned alright :-)

Progress looks good.

[VolksJager]

Now this brings us to tonight's work! Oh the trouble I have had with the camo. I have tried may ways over the last week to get the stripes right. My .02mm nozzle was clogging so I tried with the .03mm and it was just bad, stripes to thick and un defined.

So... after some soaking of the gun in cleaner I got it the .02mm nozzle going again and gave it ago. I tell you I must have tried them about 6 or 7 times. The first setback was clogs and technical difficulties (never attempted a camo like this for a long long time). Then I tried with a new set of paints I got last week. They were AK interactive's German Late war armour colours. The light green from them produced this result



Disappointing to say the least. The colour was just wrong and I found them to be a little to thin, which made more of a splatter than a line. I suppose I could have backed the pressure off on the gun but I wasn't going to keep using it anyways. So back on with some more Dark yellow. This time I used the Vallejo Dark camo green, un thinned from the model air range. This produced much better results. This is with it half done



At this point I can still touch up any errors before the red brown goes on. For this shade I used Burnt Umber again un thinned from the model air range. This worked even better than the green and over all I am much happier with this result.



Also as promised from the last post, the last pictures shows the whole weathered gun compartment.

So from here I am going to apply the decals and then start to blend the surface, but that can wait for tomorrow

Jason

[sandgroper]

Looking good Jase!