Desperate Defense - Korsun Pocket 1944 - Dragon (6273)

Hello Everyone

Yes it's time for some 1/35 Figure action!

I got this set as a gift from my father ages ago, but never got around to actually building/painting them. But that is about to change in the near future. I'm currently in process of painting quite a few sets, so these might not be finished this week or the next :-)

About the kit, all I can say is:

It's fantastic, when they can make plastic figures this detailed I almost can't see the point of resin figures, almost.

If you want to read a in depth review of these, I would suggest looking right here.

Painting

I only primed them so far, still having to figure out how I want to paint them, since I'm abit rusty when it comes to 1/35 figures.

Stay Tuned!

Elephant - Dragon (7253)

I build this kit same time ago, last year actually, and what can I say? it's a good kit, just like any other Dragon kit in this scale. It's almost identical to the Ferdinand I build, the kit who got me hooked on this scale.


This kit might not be quite as detailed as the newer Dragon kits, but if you would like to build an Elephant Tank Destroyer in this scale I would recommend this one without hesitation. I believe most of the Elephant tanks produced was build with zimmerit, and as you can see on the box art, it's depicted with it here as well. Sadly Dragon haven't included it in this set, which they do on some of their newer releases (which is awesome). But if you want zimmerit I don't think it would be to hard making yourself on this kit, since all the surfaces are quite large and accessible, or you could buy some PE zimmerit, which I'm sure you can find somewhere to a decent price.


Painting

I started by priming the entire tank with a grey primer from Vallejo.

Then I painted en entire tank with Dark Yellow, also from Vallejo (I ran out of Tamiya Dark Yellow...) but it's actually quite nice.

After the yellow had dried, I started with my camouflage pattern, nothing fancy really just Red Brown and Olive Green (Tamiya)

 The last thing I managed to get done before I had to stop for the day, was a coat of gloss varnish in preparation for whatever washes I might decide to give it.

Next step would probably be some sort of general brown wash, haven't decided if it should be oil or acrylic yet.

So I went ahead and gave the entire tank a general wash, I believe it's called a filter, I used some cheap oil colors I had laying around, which I have had mixed results with before. It feels like it might be wise to spend abit more on oil colors since the quality really matters for the result.

I then gave it another clear coat and I have started doing some pin washes with a darker brown/black'ish color. Afraid I don't have any pictures of this so far, but since I'm not done with it, it doesn't really matter :)

So let me just start by apologizing for not updating this for quite a while, that said I still managed to piss this guide/review down my leg, since I forgot to take progress pictures in the end, so sadly I only have pictures of the finished kit :-D hope you'll live.

But let me just sum up quickly what I did:

1. Pin wash with dark brown/black'ish color
2. Drybrush with buff/sandy color
3. Decals
4. Matt Varnish
5. Painted tools, tracks etc.

Think that was basicly it, in the end this build just kinda annoyed me, didn't quite turn out as I had pictured it, but I suppose It ain't to bad, so guess I can't complain.

But let me show you some pictures of the finished Elephant.

Hope you liked it.


Until next time!




Chris

PzKpfw IV Ausf. J - Tamiya (35181)

So I always wanted to build a Panzer IV, and since I haven't gotten my hands on a 1/72 kit yet, I thought I would build my 1/35 Tamiya kit I had laying around.

Prepainting

Well what can I say? it's a Tamiya kit, even though it might not be as detailed and pimped as the new Dragon kits, it just fit perfectly together, the instructions are perfect and the details are totally adequate and if you wanted to pimp it with some PE parts, you could easily do that, personally I'm thinking about getting myself some PEShürzen for my tank, since it isn't included.

These old Tamiya kits aren't that expensive compared to todays standard (well they are almost 20 years old) so you can afford some extra things before you reach the Dragon prices. I got both my Tamiya Panthers in a garage sale for about 13€ as piece, and this kit was roughly the same as far as i remember.

Painting

So before I stopped for the day I started priming the tank (I assembled it a few weeks ago, but never had the time to begin painting, since I was working on my Panther).

I'm trying out my new Vallejo Grey Primer, and being used to spray Tamiya paints I still gotta get used to the Vallejo Air series.

*Update*
This project is temporarily shelfed until I get some parts home from Chinaland (Shürzen). I've decided to apply some zimmerit aswell, since alot of the pictures I've looked at of the J version had zimmerit, and it's always a nice thing to practice.



Stay tuned for further updates.
Chris