GazzaS

Any plans for a figurine or some dock works?

VEry nice woodwork!

Nice!

Oh... sorry. All the pics I have are black and white and don't show the difference between the two colors. It's one of those things that is widely accepted as being true but not visible.

Oh... you can count on it. But that's a ways away yet as the sunlight is fading and my paint booth is outside.

Ok... lets compare your Mirage and a Sturmgeschutze. You can make broad, long strokes with your hand and sanding material without hitting anything in many areas on the Mirage. Whereas in a 1/35 scale StuG, the longest distance between details (excluding the barrel) is a mere 2cm.... in many places shorter. So, it's not feasible to sand the StuG any more than absolutely necessary. Now... I wet sanded my FW 190. So, water and the sanding debris ran following the direction of gravity and I wiped it off with a soft cloth. But with a StuG...that debris is going to find a crevice to get into. Moreover...it's easy to accidentally sand away a raised detail or paint on it. So... I can't really beat up on a painted tank like I can a painted aircraft. My technique for aircraft is to use multiple tints of the surface color and then sand them to get a worn look. But on tanks...and on the Albatros...I did everything with oil paints. Hopefully this helps.

It's dark! Very dark! I've painted the upper half with SMS Premium German Gray RAL 7021. For your comparative pleasure, I've placed a bottle of Tamiya flat black, and a bottle of Tamiya Panzer Gray near the tank. And taken pics from three separate angles to allow for lighting. I've also laid the tracks across because I think the color I made for 'track brown' is actually a very nice match for Dunkelbraun #45. I used about 1/4 of the bottle of SMS paint just to do everything above the return rollers. It's a big model. Happy modelling!

Yay! Finally onto the good stuff! Congratulations!

Looks great, Carl!

Kai, thank you for your faith. There are some major differences between painting an armor model and painting a streamlined airframe. Even the Albatros I just did... I had to treat as an armored model instead of an aircraft.

Thanks Peter. I wouldn't say it's flawless... but the extra effort certainly takes a lot more time than my teenage method of twisting the parts from the sprue and gluing them together without a hint of dry-fitting.

Thanks, Kai. I'm curious about how it will look, too. I've never done Dunkelbraun over Dunkelgrau. So... it will all be new for me.

Thanks Rob... tiny, yet very important. The Pz I made up more than half of German Panzer strength during operations in Poland.

Great start!

Lovely scribing! Definitely brings that huge hull to life.

Thank you Peter... And here we are... with all of the pre-paint gluing done. All of the unpainted, loose parts are either dry fitted, held on by blutack, or in the case of the tracks, joined by brass pins. Happy modelling!

Nice work... though it looks more like an alien saucer than a weapon system.

Yes, fixing all of those booboo' s is a PITA ... Is there a German phrase or colloquialism for that? Anyway... still hanging for that first splash of color.

Can;t say I blame anyone avoiding the AZ.

That is some impressive spaghetti!

OOh... this will be cool! A very interesting vessel.

Good solution, John! sometimes we must find our own method even if it is contrary to the instructions.

Once the wife was partially pacified, my bench would be set up and ready to go. Priorities, man!

Thank you, Phil. This will be the end of my 1/16 scale soiree. It's all about cost really. The only person making great 1/16 figures if Jeff Shiu. But due to shipping costs I'd be looking at well over 100$ just for a figure.