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Panther A Early
Ok guys, I've posted some other stuff that was either completely finished or the build was finished so I'm going to do this one the right way even though I've already completed some of the grunt work and it will take me forever to finish as I am notoriously slow. Anyway, I am working on the Dragon Early Panther A kit with the Aber superset (rediculous), cav zimm and friul trax...... I will start with the turret which I have already done a lot of the work on. First step is obviously to add the zimmerit coating. Cav is a bit of a cheat I suppose but when properly applied, this stuff looks great imo. The key is a seamless application. I attach the stuff with CA glue and then go around all of the visible edges repeatedly with CA glue and sanding until the seam between the hull parts and the zimmerit resin is eleminated. I will then go back and attend to the zim to zim joints with CA glue, putty and mr. surfacer until they look presentable. Once I feel that it is all in order, I go back with the airbrush to check the joints before proceeding any further. Once the PE goes on, all bets are off and there isn't much room to work to correct basic mistakes like these. Just wash the paint off with some windex and zim is done...... I have done my own zim on occassion but for this particular patter and ones like it, I find it especially difficult to come up with anything that I would be happy with. I have used the aber barrel from the superset and as you can see, it's a real beauty. I forget how many parts it has but it was a lot for a muzzle break! I have used the tamiya cupula just because I had one in the spares box and I like the texture better on this one than the dragon piece. I went over the hatch with some mr. surfacer to make it blend with the cupula a little better. I have added welds to the vision port cover. This is something everyone does a little bit differently so I'll share my method. I actually tape off the part leaving only the weld area showing with masking tape and then apply squadron putty with my hobby knife. It dries very quickly so you can work it with a piece of plastic, pin, blade etc. to get the desired look with little effort and in a short time. Just my two cents on welds, there are many other ways that probably look better but this is what works for me. I am going to mount spare trax all over the turret and am going to attempt to wrap the barrel in chicken wire! I also have a really nice Mori figure picked out for the commander. Maybe a base with other figs, who knows? It always starts out in grand fashion and by the end it manages to become much less ambitious. We'll see how it goes but this is where I stand at the moment. I havn't decided for sure what vehicle to make this into so any thoughts would be appreciated. I may have to take some artistic license with this one since they are somewhat limited in references. Any pics, references or ideas would help....
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