Bowcat's 1/35 Tamiya Stug III Ausf G "Finnish Army"

[Mr Bowcat]

Morning all.

I've been a bit under the weather recently so not much Stug building has occurred, although I did manage to get the figures painted.

My plan for 2020 is to get better at figures, it's an area I struggle with, particularly the eyes. In retrospect I wish I hadn't tried to paint the pupils in, I know many people don't at this scale.

[Steve Jones]

Nice to see you up and about Bob. If your looking to improve your figures next year it shouldn't take too long as these are wonderful. Great stuff

[Mr Bowcat]

Cheers Steve.

I just want to get better at faces, I have certainly improved since by early attempts but know I can do better with some practice.

So for the last few days I have been getting the camo down. If this was German tri camo I would have just freehanded it with the Airbrush, but the Finnish army had hard edge camo which meant masking, never easy on an AFV with all the lumps and bumps.

To try and accurately mimic the box art I scanned the painting instructions then after a quick calculation printed them out at 147.7% so they were 1:1 with the model. After spraying the lightest colour I cut out the shapes from my print, transferred them to masking tape and applied them. Not a quick process.



The 2nd colour was applied then it was just rinse and repeat with the masking and 3rd colour.




After unmasking she looks like this.



I'm quite happy with the result. There was a little bit of paint lift from the PE grilles which I have touched up with a brush but otherwise the lines are quite clear and distinct.

Unfortunately that is now how it is going to stay for a few days. I'm a dining room table modeller, and the missus apparently wants the table clear for Christmas. Bloody cheek!

Cheers,

B

[Guest]

Lovely masking job and a great result!

[Mr Bowcat]

Cheers Andy.

[Jim R]

Hi Bob
Great start. I find the whole story of the Finns in WW2 fascinating. It certainly is rather smaller than I thought it would be.

I noticed that not only are the underside of the sponsons littered with ejection pin marks, but also there is a big hole each side into the interior.

A slap on the wrist for Tamiya - I doubt they could have fitted more ejection pin marks in if they'd tried!! :sad:
Masking has worked well and the wire in the track is a new one on me. Figures look fine and easily pass for Finnish. You gotta love the little dog :tongue-out3:
Jim

[stillp]

That came out very well Bob.
Pete

[spanner570]

Excellent result, Bob. A really nice outcome...... :thumb2:

[Mr Bowcat]

Cheer gents.

[Guest]

Lovely work Bob. The figures have turned out particularly well - they have loads of character, which is a difficult thing to achieve.

[Mr Bowcat]

Thanks Peter, kind of you to say. I still think they look a bit bland, I want to learn how to blend the different skin tones together (which is next years project).

[scottie3158]

Bob,
Love the paint job very nicely done.

[Mr Bowcat]

Cheers Paul.

[Guest]

Very nice masking — it seems to have worked better than I would have thought

[Mr Bowcat]

You and me both Jakko, I was quite happy when I peeled it off.