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DML 1/35 Flakpanzer IV Kugelblitz


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Thought I'd post up a build that I've been working on recently.

The kit is DML's Flakpanzer IV Kugelblitz. Overall a pretty decent kit, the fit wasnt too bad anywhere.

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Gotta say I had a real blast cleaning all the individual track links, haha, all 101 on each side, haha.

When gluing them in place, I managed to get what I think is a fairly realistic amount of sag in them, which surprised me.

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Paint is all Humbrol. COlors are Middle Stone, Red Brown and Khaki Green.

Base coat.

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Used Silly Putty to mask off the camo pattern. Worked out a whole lot better this way. Took 3 tries to get the camo how I liked it

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Masked for final color

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And how she sits right now

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The next step is painting little polka dots across the top of the body, and then it will be on to weathering.

The plan is to put it on a base, and there will be mud & snow on the ground. The history I've found on these, is they were mostly prototypes, but 4 or 5 were built, and if they saw any action, it was only during the winter & spring of Late 44 & early 45, during the Battle of Berlin. I'm also hoping to include a couple of figures w/ it.

Edited by Adam Baker
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Its polka time! Polka dots that is.

I finally got around to putting the dots on my tank, and I have to say I'm fairly happy w/ the results. Just took the end of a paint brush, dipped it in the paint, and let a couple drops call onto a pallet, then thinned it w/ a couple drops of paint, and then painted 'em on by hand, in a fairly random pattern.

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Let it dry tonight, and then tomorrow I may clear coat it. Now I'm getting into the stuff that really worries me. I've done detail washes before, but thats it, I've never tried any serious weathering, so I'm not sure what to do from here. So it'll be quite a bit of trial & error.

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Adam,

YouTube has some good video's for weathering armor. Below is a link to one of them, but if you type in "Weathering Armor" in the YouTube search you find several good one's in addition to the one provided. Your model is coming out great!

Robert

Edited by Ro-Gar Hobbies
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  • 3 weeks later...

Finally some progress to report on this. Havent been real motivated lately to sit in front of my model bench, plus w/ the new job I started last week, dont have a great deal of time in the evenings now to work.

Since the last update, I've progressed a few steps.

I started by clearing the whole thing using Future. Had a couple missteps and had to strip the first coat of future off, and sprayed it again, and the second time it came out a bit better. Still not 100% happy w/ how it went down, but it was better than the first, and good enough to move on.

Next, I tried Sin Industries "The Filter" for the first time, and I think it came out good, it helped blend all the colors together a little bit, and tone things down. I used just the Tan filter. I think I took some pictures after using the filter, but looking at them, it seems to be kinda hard to tell that I did anything. The effect was probably a bit on the subtle side, which explains why it doesnt show very well in pic's.

Then this weekend, I decided it was time for a detail wash. I had originally planned on going w/ an Oil Pin Wash, but just couldnt seem to get it to go down correctly, so I went w/ my Pro-Modeler Black Wash, and I'm very happy w/ the results.

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Now I'm at the point of trying to decide if I want to go w/ a Dot Filter.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ok, this might hopefully be the last update, before this heap is finished up. Last week I went through and tried a dot filter for the first time, and it didnt go well. The biggest problem was that I just used way too much paint, so I did my best to remove what was on it, and move on. Tried it a second time, w/ about half the amount of paint, and I think it came out very well.

Unfortunately I goofed, and forgot all about putting the decals on prior to weathering, so I applied them today. I was planning on redoing the weathering over the decals, but I'm thinking that they look faded enough that I might jsut let it be and go w/ it like it is now. I had thought about using pigments on this build, but I've decided to just pass on it for this build, and try pigments w/ my next build. I figure the use of the dot filter for the first time is enough new things w/ this build.

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Hopefully I'll have this done tomorrow, and officially complete my first build in over 3 years. I have thought about putting this in a small vignette but I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to do it or not. The plan is a snow/mud base to put the tank on, but I'm going back & forth as to whether I want to do it or not.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Now that this build is finished, I've started working on the base I'm going to put it on.

This weekend I acquired some models from a friend, one of them being a Mini Art "The Corner" dio base.

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And a couple shots of the 'blitz sitting on the base.

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I knew that the model was most likely going to hang off the edge of the base, but unfortunately I didn't expect it to hang off as much as it does. So, w/ the help from the friend I got this kit from, I've decided that I'm going to make the street portion of the base larger, by using blue foam insulation and I'll cut the brick street into it. I'm probably going to try picking up the blue foam tomorrow at Lowes during my lunch break.

On the base, I'm thinking about adding debris around the base of the building, as well as inside. I'm also thinking about trying to frame together a second floor for the inside of the building. I figure I'll probably use balsa wood for the exposed wood framing. The nice part is that the wall panels already had a couple openings for floor joists, so just I'd only have to add a couple more openings in the 2nd wall panel, and I should be good to go.

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Thanks Holmes!

Thought I'd post up a short update on this project. Havent gotten nearly as much done as hoped this weekend, but I've been "distracted". Friday night I picked up a 37" flat screen TV and a PS3, so I've spent most of my weekend watching movies & playing video games. But I was able to get some work done on this last night and this morning.

Got all the wall panels cut apart, had the first panel done last week, finished the 2nd one last night. I've now started working on cleaning up the joints, which is going to take a lot of time and careful work. The joint between the 2 walls is going to be a real task, but I'll get it. Just going to have to take it very slowly, making sure it all matches like it should.

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This week I picked up a panel of the Dow blue foam insulation, that I will use to make a new street. The street on the base will be cut off, and replaced completely, so that the Kugelblitz wont hang off as badly as it is now, hopefully I can get the spacing right, where it wont hang off at all, but we'll see.

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  • 3 months later...

SCREECH!!!!!

That's the sound of the cover being opened on this, its been quite awhile!

Finally drug this topic out again to work on it, had to wipe of quite a bit of dust! haha

So the last time I posted, I'd progressed pretty nicely w/ the building, but was really trying to figure out what to do w/ the street portion. I had cut a large rectangular portion but didn't know how I was going to get it to the oval shape I needed. Over the last several weeks I've been looking at different options. Iron Mike sent me some You Tube links to people who had made their own hot wire foam cutters, but unfortunately I lacked any of the stuff to do it, so I've been looking to see what I could find.

A few weeks ago, I found a hot wire listed on the Hobby Lobby website for 35 bucks, but it only had 2 reviews, and both reviews were bad, so I really wasn't sure. I looked at it one day while at HL, and just wasn't sure, so I held off getting it. Well, was there again today w/ a 40% coupon, and bit the bullet and got it, and have to say I was extremely pleasantly surprised.

Here's the hot wire cutter.

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Here's what I was able to do w/ it. I printed out a large oval the size I wanted, using the printers at work, and then cut it out and taped it to the top of the foam, and then followed the outline using the cutter. Unfortunately I had it cut out, before I thought that I should have taken pictures of it.

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After cutting it out w/ the cutter, I went all around it w/ sanding sponges to clean up the cut, and it looks really great I think. The very nice thing is that I can use the scrap pieces I cut off, to make debris like bricks & other detritus. It will also be very useful for making other bases in the future using the foam. I've also seen tutorials on line of people using hot wire cutters to make complete structures, so I'd be able to use this to make bombed out buildings out of foam, so the possibilities are endless.

So after getting the base cut and cleaned up, I started laying out how I wanted things to go which can be seen in the picture above. After figuring out where I wanted the blitz and the building, I outlined it, then using the cutter, I cut out the area where the building will sit. The plan is then to shim that area, leaving a raised area and a curb and sidewalk. I think what I ended up w/ came out pretty good.

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The lines drawn on the foam are going to be used to help line up the cobble stone pattern that I'm going to have to carve into the foam, so there's a whole lot of work left to go.

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Spent time last night & this evening working on the base, and so far I'm very pleased w/ the results, but still have a long way to go.

This evening I finished up the sidewalk portion. Got a few places where I felt like I goofed stuff up, but I suppose it adds to the "character" so I'm not too worried about it. And it starts to bug me, I'll just cover the areas I dont like w/ debris, haha

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Also made progress on the street, but this is going to take awhile, I've got the straight mortar lines cut, but still have to cut the individual brick pattern.

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Hopefully tomorrow evening I can get the brick pattern cut and then the first coats of paint. Planning on painting it w/ either Tamiya or Vallejo paints. I dont want to use anything but acrylics, to keep from having any chance of the solvent based paints reacting to the foam.

Using the foam cutter, I've maanged to cut a couple dozen "bricks" from scrap foam, so I should be able to make some nice piles of debris to go w/ the building.

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Working on the street portion right now, and figured I'd post up some progress shots. I think it looks pretty good. Trying to keep it fairly random w/o it getting out of control, and I think I'm doing a fairly decent job of it, haha. Had really hoped I'd get the first coats of paint down tonight, but its not going to happen. At this point I'd be really happy just to have the street finished up so that I can get some paint down tomorrow night. I still have to figure out what colors I want to use.

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Nice work! I like those Miniart building kits, but, as you've found, most of the bases are too small for anything larger than a Jeep or motorcycle. The foam is a great idea. Are you cutting the grooves with a knife? I would think you could probably just "draw" them on with a ballpoint pen? One thing to keep in mind before you paint the base is that some paints may attack the foam--I would test whatever paint(s) you're using on a scrap piece first, and then seal the whole thing with something like Future before you did any washes or anything like that.

Good luck,

Curtis

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Yea, used a #11 Exacto blade to make all the lines. After I was mostly complete, a friend suggested using a toothpick to get the lines, which is a great idea, that I'll think about the next time I do one of these. This wont be the last time I use foam for something, that's for sure. I've found links for a couple really great articles on the net, on using foam for buildings & such.

As for paint, the plan is all acrylics. I'd already thought about the possibility of any kind of solvent based paint eating into the foam, and I absolutely want to avoid that. I've already put down a couple coats of future, but I'll probably put down at least 1 more, to make sure its good & sealed. Then when I start painting, its going to be all Tamiya or Vallejo colors, and then I'll use thinned Tamiya for washes, and any pigments I put down, will be fixed w/ rubbing alcohol.

I thought I had posted these, but I guess not, below are the latest pic's of the base. I finished all the cutting on Saturday afternoon, and then put down the Future I mentioned above.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Looking Great-nice how you've found your way along on this one project. Also like the Mini-art building sets. I think they got it figured out with the Vac Halves. When first saw them at IPMS Nationals, nobody knew who they were, and they started handing out the building kits to us when my friend and I started asking about them. Years ago when I got a Dragon Kugelblitz kit I thought I was stuck in the "Paper Panzer" realm from reading how it was prototype/test only, until I found an article done by a historian. There was a photo of him standing next to the ring or shield laying against some trees in Northern Germany. Can't recall the town, but it said he found out from inquiring with the people that it was among other armor defending the area in 1945. They said there was no documentation made at the time because apparently the US was having real trouble with this unit and resorted to using phosphorous rounds against them which I think they said was a no-no. Anyway, I think you got it right by doing a late war Ambush scheme. Keep sharing the work please, looking Nice!

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