Partly Scratchbuilt 1:72 Soviet Recovery Tank

I found this interesting article on the website of Henk of Holland (first part can be found on his website, too) and suddenly I knew whats to build next. Actually the this mod was for an Tamiya SU-122 kit in 1:35, but I used my kit of the SU-100 from AER, or was it PST?

Here are some pictures of the almost finished model. There are only some smaller parts to attach, then the kit will get its sealing.

Almost all parts are from the SU-100 kit, the tracks and the saw are from the Revell T-34, the other small parts (pickaxe, cable eyes, hatches) came from Pegasus. All other parts were build from scratch.

I had to correct the positions of the roadwheels, you can find more about this big fault in the kit in the AER T34 kit review at On the way models.
The crane is made from 1mm steel wire, booth parts were connected with heat shrinking tube. The steel wire is actually made of copper wire and the winch is made from plastic card.

I used the same color scheme on this model that I used for my ISU-152.

The last picture show the model while constuction.

Offtopic:

a) I wanted to rework my links and give them an own site but it does not work as I want it, so this operation is moved to the future.

b) This new Blogspot editor sucks. I have some problems with sizing the font. In my view, the option "small" is too small but the option "normal" is too large. I managed it to get the fontsize that I wanted to have.

If the text is too small to read it, you still can use [CTRL] and [+] or [-] to change its size.

Great Find At Ebay

About 1 1/2 weeks I found this on the bay.
Hm, I think I've seen the sprue with the figures on the picture somewhere else before and after some search on the web, I decided that I must have that stuff.


Today it arrived. And what a surprise, I got the ESCI Wirbelwind manual that was not included in my Wirbelwind kit. The auction also included an old Fujimi BMW motorbike and some spare parts. Great, I like the old Fujime/Nitto kits, even if the are harder to get than the usual Revell/Italeri stuff.


But I did not bid only for the BMW. Maybe, if you watched the first picture, you already have seen what made this auction so interesting for me.

So here it is, I got my (first?) ESCI Nebelwerfer kit, hooray for that. Since I started with modelling I wanted to have one of these kits. And now I got it. For an unbeatable price, in my opinion. I don't think 5,55 (p&p included) was not too much for this stuff, or do you ?

By the way, I will re-structure some elements of this blog on the weekend, also the link list. So if you want your site or blog linked, please leave a comment or send me an email, the adress can be found below the links on the right side.

Even More 1:72 Soviet Tank Crews

The first figure on the first picture is from Orion, the rest of the figures is made by LW. After all these minis are painted, now it's time to continue to finish some other stuff that I already started with.

The third picture shows all tank crew figures in a group photo.

Even More 1:72 Soviet Tank Crews

I continued the painting of my Soviet tank crew figures. This weekend I painted some figures of the Russian manufacturer LW or maybe Evolution, I can't find the box right now, but the figures are the same in both sets. The used color are still the same that I use for my other Soviet figures, you can find the list of them here. One of the figures was slightly modified, the guy waving with the bottle got instead of that a new hand with a revolver.

By the way, Plastic Soldier Review has the first pictures of the new Soviet infantry figures from the Plastic Soldier company, you can find them here.

Pegasus/PST 1:72 Soviet ISU-152 With Crew

After two busy weeks I had some time to continue with my hobby. I finished these Soviet heavy self-propelled gun tank ISU-152. The numbers 61 and 62 are fastbuild models by Pegasus Hobbies, but they do not lack as many details as the fastbuild kits from HÄT/Armourfast. The tank with the 60 is a model kit made by East European producer PST, I did not use all parts for this kit to make all three tanks look equal.

The colors that I used for this tanks were Revell Aquacolor Sea green (#36148), mixed 2 parts color and one part alcohol via airbrush, after that I did a wash with Citadel Thraka Green wash (#68-21), then I drybrushed the tanks light with a bright grey color. I sealed them with Revell Aquacolor Clear matte paint (#36102).

The turret number decals were applied with the help of Agama Adhesol. They were included in the PST kit, the propaganda writings on the # 62 came from Peddinghaus Decals, the other decals came fron the spare box.



The track of the tanks were altered with some selfmixed mud, made of white glue, water, coffee and Busch Pine Forest ground cover (#H0 7259). This mix hides the not so detailed tracks very well.



I also managed to paint the Soviet tank crew figures by Orion that I showed in a previous post. Two of the figures were modified, the guy with the flowers got instead of flowers a piece of plastic, looks almost like a gun. The second modification was made on the strange runner. He got a new hand with a revolver from an old Airfix cowboy figure.

The colors I used for this figures were almost the same that I used for my Soviet infantry troops. All I have to do for these guys is to get them a better decorated base.

Update:
Instead of ISU 152 I called this tank ISU 155. I changed the numbers to delete this mistake.

Orion 1:72 Soviet Tank Crew 1943 - 1945

A closer look at the "Soviet tankmen and crew 1943 - 1945" by the Ukrainian manufacturer Orion. They are the newest addition to my growing collection. I read some time ago that they would appear on the market in the near future and now they are availabe.

I think they are a must-have for me (arrgh, more Soviets to paint), and when I found them at the bay on Monday I bought a set of them.

Today the set arrived, therefore let's take a closer look at them:

The box contains three sprues with total 39 figures in 13 different poses. There is almost no flash on the figures and no moulding lines except for on the bases. Three of the minis have no base attached.

The sculpting is very good and the theme is great, before these came out the only other Soviet tank crew figures that were available, were the LW/Evolution set (PSR review) and the Soviet Tank Crew figures of Preiser (On the way review).

There are two poses in this set that I do not like so much, it are the running mini in the first row (the man in the middle), he does not look natural. Second is the third figure in the second row. Why does he hold his gun to the side like a gangsterrapper?

All of the figures wear the standard tank crew helmet and most of them wear overalls, only three of them wear trousers and jackets. As you see on the picture above I splitted these figures into three different groups:

Maintenance poses:
A guy in running pose (could be combat,too), man with a big crowbar, a man running with a canister, and a guy with a wrench.

Combat poses:
A binocularist, a kneeling fig that fires his pistol, another kneeling fig with pistol, two crew men armed with PPsH, and a crewman with a pistol.

Parade/victory poses:
A fig leaning against something, a fig in parade pose for the tank hatch, and a mini that is waving a bunch of flowers.

The last picture shows some of the Orion figs compared with the tank crew minis by LW/Evolution. The LW figures are nice but in an ugly color, that you hardly see the details. For a closer look on the detail of the LW minis, check out the PSR link in the text above, they got their minis in black plastic where you can see some more.

Orion did a fine job with these set. There are only a few Soviet tank crew figure sets on the marketThese minis are a welcome addition to our hobby. They will look great when they get painted. But even the LW minis will look good when they get a good paintjob. But not in the next weeks, it's summer and I don't paint anything because in my hobbyroom it is alltime almost 30 degrees (Celsius).
However I have still a lot of fresh stuff lie arround that I will do some more small reviews for you. A little lookout for the next post, I will write some lines about the new 28mm figures of British manufacture Mantic.

Update:
I messed this up while reformatting, sorry to say, but I can not find the pictures from this post. This are the best pictures I have, but you can visit Plastic Soldier review to get a close look at the minis.

Armourfast 1:72 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 3

Soccer sucks...so here's part two of my small review of the Armourfast(HÄT) kit of the Sd.Kfz. 251. It is available via online shops and/or in your local model shop. I paid 13,5 Euros (postage included) what is a fair price.

The upper hull,from left to right:

Armourfast - ESCI/Italeri - Revell

It seems that the Armourfast hull is not as wide as the other manufacturer's hulls. After I measured the 3 hulls I can say that this is true. The Armourfast part is 30mm, the ESCI/Italeri part is 31,5mm and the Revell part is 31,3mm.
The wiki article about the 251 says that it is 2,1meters wide, divided with 72 give 29,17mm what means that the Armourfat kit is the most accurate kit or at least the width of it's hull.

I built some storage boxes from plastic card.

The Armourfast 251 with the rocket launcher
of the Revell Sd.Kfz. 251/1 kit.

It's a great kit, and with some time and little work it will look great. I'm looking forward to the future, Italeri will release a fastbuild version of the Sd.Kfz. 251 this year, that's why I will wait until I can make a direct comparison of both.

There are some parts that I changed or will change, the passenger storage boxes (see picture), a Notek light, a new trailer coupling and some minor things. Maybe I will drill out the holes of the roadwheels as I did on my StuG42 kits.
And then I will make my first experiences with airbrushing, I got the simple beginner pistol from Revell, it can be seen on the second picture. But before I do I have to finish some projects.

Armourfast 1:72 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 4

Here are some detailed pictures of the Hanomag Sd.Kfz 251/1 made Armourfast(HÄT). This kit was announced some years ago, I remember that there was almost every second week a post in the HÄT forum which asked for the release date of this kit.

Let's take a look at this kit:

Front look at the sprue.

All parts are casted well without any mould lines or sinkholes except for the passenger seats. But why they didn't use the tan color of their other kits.

Back of the sprue.
I think it is the C version of this vehicle.

Some close look at the details: the rivetted hull, the front wheels
the machine guns (without handles, strange) and the tracks

The construction manual at the back of the box.
Note that some parts are not mentioned.

A first look at the kit shows that it is simple but has a lot of hidden potential. With some simple modifications this could be a fine wargaming model.

Giant 1:72 American Infantry

Some months ago I wrote about the German infantry figures made by Giant. Last month I got some more Giant figures from the bay and the lot included not only German figs but also American infantry figs. According to Mr. Eric Yin, check out his two blogs, these figures are downsized copies of old Monogram figures.

This set contains some usual poses, a handgranade thrower, a guy with his rifle, a binocularist and a soldier with a flame thrower.

A mortar, a kneeling gunner and a soldier with a mine detector.

Some more standard poses, a lying rifle man and a lying heavy gunner.

My favorite pose of this set, a guy with a bazooka with the loader.
Why do the major companies not add a bazooka loader to their sets ?

The Giant figures compared with other US WW2 soldiers. The second figure from the left comes from the ESCI US paratroopers set (#209), the second from the right side comes from the ESCI US soldiers set (#202), all others are Giant figures.

All figure bases are marked with "Giant (R) Made in Hong Kong".

As little bonus I added a bigger picture of the great artwork of the label.

Scratchbuilt Handlebars For the Pegasus T34/85

The T34/85 made by Pegasus with some handlebars added. They are made from plastic bristles of a broom. These are easy to bend and gluable with any polystyrene modelling glue,at least the ones I got.
It took about 20 minutes to equip four tanks with these bars.

More Painted 1:72 Soviet Infantry

I continued the work on my Soviet Infantry forces. The colors are still the same that I showed in this post with one little addition. My local toy store has now the Revell Aquacolors in its sortiment.
For the officer's hats, their jackets and the rolled coats of the normal infanterists I used Revell Aquacolor Dark Earth (# 36182).

One of my six mortar crews.

From left to right:
converted officer (see here), a Revell figure with a Preiser (?) crate and the Italeri mortar gunner with a new head.


From left to right:
Airfix officer with the head of the Pegasus Russian Summer infantry, Revell LMG soldier with a new head and new legs, Revell grenade thrower with the arm/rifle of the Italeri Soviet grenade thrower and the sniper of the Revell Soviet infantry box.


From left to right:
converted officer (see here), Dimestore binocular officer, Airfix Soviet grenade thrower with new head and new grenade from his Italeri comrade and a Pegasus Summer Soviet with a new head.

This is what I already finished.

This is what I still have to paint.

I am waiting for some more figures that I ordered but his will take two weeks until they arrive. And off course I am still waiting for the new Soviet infantry figures of The Plastic Soldier Company that will appear on the market in the next weeks.

Italeri 1:72 JS-2 Tank

I just finished my first batch of Soviet hardware. The upper picture shows 2,5 of the tanks of the Italeri fast-build kit of the JS-2 tank, which contains 2 easy to build models. I found them at MACO Modellbau for a great price.
In the background you can the the AER model of the T34/85 with che commander cupola of the Pegasus T34/85 and an Aber Aluminium barrel. That kit is a mean bitch which needs a lot of putty to fill all gaps on it. More on this kit soon when it's finished.

The colors I used were Revell Aquacolor Sea Green (#36148) for the upper structure followed by a black wash. The tracks were painted with Tamiya Metallic Grey (XF-56), then I used a selfmade wash (made of Revell Aquacolor Rust (#36183), GW Chaos Black (# 61-51) and, of course, water) on them.


I did only two minor modifications on it, the first was to drill the muzzle of the barrel. The second modification was that I made three handbars of 0,5 mm steelwire on the tower.
All tanks were sealed with a coat of Revell Aquacolor Clear Matt color (# 36102).

In the next days I will order these decals at Peddinghaus that will be applied to them.

1:72 Toolset by MACO Modellbau

A closer look at a great addition for models which comes from MACO Modellbau. MACO Modellbau offers this toolset on the picture above as a limited edition. It contains an axe, a shovel, a boltcutter and a pickaxe.

The tools are a great addition to the simple wargamer kits of HÄT and Italeri, and the price is not to beat. You will get 10 sprues of the toolset for only 2 Euros. If you want to buy them you have to be fast because it is a limited edition.

Check out the website of MACO where you will find all other excellent model kits made by MACO and from a lot of other companies, too. You can find the store at http://mc-modellbau.de/

Update 04/2018
http://mc-modellbau.de/ has closed it's gates.

Pegasus 1:72 German trucks

Not much text today, I had a little accident at work which made me a big headache. An empty beverage box, I remember it was a Coca Cola box, felt on my head from 3 meters height. It caused no blood but made a lot of pain.

Used colors:
When I got them I painted them in grey, can be seen inside the drivers cabin. But I was not satisfied with that. So I repainted the trucks with the following colors:
Revell Aquacolor Sand plus Seagreen and Citadel Bestial Brown for the camo pattern, then a mild black wash. Citadel Chaos Black for the tires and Citadel Catachan Green and Citadel Thraka Green wash for the cover.

Modifications:
- added Headlights from the spare box
- a scratchbuilt Notek for booth trucks made of plasic card
- driver mirror made of steel wire and plastic card
- a windshield made of clear plastic
- build spacers, I hope it is called spacer, of steel wire. The balls at the end are drips of pva glue

There are still some little spots I will have to rework (what I actually wanted to do today) and add some decals but the two trucks are almost finished (for today).

Some 1:72 Soviets (Work In Progress)

Beside I was a little ill last week, I think it was some kind of flue, I was very, very lazy. But here're some pictures of the progress I made on my Soviet forces. In one of my first posts in this blog I showed some pictures of the figures, but now they got the final matte varnish and are glued on their bases.

Heavy machine gun support, a DSchK 12,7mm machine gun. The figures are from Mars, the bases are pokerchips. I changed the positions of the gunners arm because it looked poor in its original pose. The structure of the base (and all other bases) is made from a mix of birdsand and pva (white) glue.
I have alternative hmg teams on the workbench, some Maxim guns from the ESCI/Italeri Soviet set.


Some antitank rifle teams. These figurese came from Mars, too. I took the barrel of the at gun from the Revell "Siberian Riflemen" antitank gunner, the handlebar is made of scratch plastic. The base is from some plastic card.


More figures from Mars, this time a 60mm mortar. The legs of the mortar were made of 0,5 mm steel wire. There is a small bag with mortar ammunation for every mortar which I can't find anymore. When they are found they will be added to the base, too.


Some mortars. The smaller mortars are of 80mm calibre, they come from the ESCI/Italeri Soviet Infantry kits. The two larger models are from the Airfix Soviet Infantry set, they shall be the heavy 120mm mortars. I added some static grass to their bases, I still have to do this on all other figures in this post.


Light machine gunners, the are from the ESCI/Italeri Soviet Infantry kit. Every rifle squad has a light machine gun for fire support.

The color that I used were:
Skin:
Citadel Bronzed Flesh, then Citadel Ogrin Flesh wash
Uniform:
Citadel Desert Yellow, then Citadel Devlan Mud wash
Helmet:
some Hobby Color green mixed with a little part of white
Equipment:
different brown tones of Citadel, Vallejo and Hobby color
Boots:
Citadel Chaos Black
Heavy weapons:
Tamiya XF 5 Flat Green
Other colors:
Citadel Burnished Gold, Citadel Blood Red, a selfmixed dark silver/steel tone, and some more colors I can't remember.

Now I'm almost finished, only 120 figures more to paint, and in the last days I had not much desire for painting figures.
And then there are some tanks, I think there are 6 T34/85, 4 JS-2 and some support vehicles waiting for glue, paint and decals. There is still a lotta work waiting for me.
But there are some old projects finished, tomorrow I will post some pics of my Pegasus German trucks and my scratchbuilt Bergepanzer III.