piątek, 26 grudnia 2014

Animal Killer


Why I have built this kit? Well, the reason was quite simple – I received it from my friend! Hahaha, seriously! But after it had arrived, I launched the Internet to find some interesting bases as a painting guide. Of course “SU” is not so popular as “ISU” so I found that it is a problem. The main point was not to build next green frog with communistic slogans but create something interesting drawing from ISU subject.
So, there were two possibilities for me – green with winter white wash or 4-tonned camo which is well known from Adam’s Wilder work he did with his ISU and there are pictures from the war period that shows those beasts painting in that manner. I found two shots where they are clearly visible.
Not sophisticated enough… I mixed both ideas. Unique camo with worn white camo. Tasty!
From the beginning I knew that I need to focus on the white areas of the tank to create the different volume on each segments. I planned to use standard hairspray technique and oil paints to make it. Moreover the colorful camo base intended to be not completely, which means I would like to cover only the sides and front of crew compartment and the gun barrel. On the top only small parts of color block could appear.
The second idea was to make some damages. Lets imagine that the tank took some shots on its right front side – there are traces of those hits and the most visible is lack of two road wheels. It is a bit controversial but I like when my kits provocate to discussion. The most important is the balance – the kit is tilted to the left side!
The third idea was to bring the realism to the kit. I found nice picture of “ISU” where it is shown from the rear left and several empty shells are lying on the engine deck. It was very inspirational so I decided to use it on my kit.
The forth was to use metal tracks from Friulmodel to prepare natural sack of them. There are hundreds of war pictures where soviets heavy tanks have tracks longer that they need. I like this effects so why not to use it?

SU -152 was a Soviet self-propelled heavy howitzer used by Red Army during World War II. As a base KV-1S heavy tank chassis was used and it carried 152 mm gun-howitzer. SU was a predecessor of the famous ISU-152. The vehicles assigned to heavy artillery regiments – in the beginning they consisted of 12 tanks and later their number raised to 21. They started the service in February of 1943. For the first time they were used during the Kursk Battle where they fought with Panthers, Tigers and Ferdinands. Because of their role and capability of knocking out the Germans tanks, they were called Zveroboy which means “animal killer”.  The Soviet propaganda used this name very quickly. In the following months they were replaced by ISU-152.
Today we can find only 3 (from 700 vehicles produced) – 2 of them are in Poland and 1 in Russia

I built this model from Bronco set. It consists of typical Bronco’s plastic trees with parts (the detailed fighting compartment included) PE parts, clear parts for periscopes, individual track links (they can be movable), decals and the instruction.
I had the possibility to change some of the parts for aftermarket products, so here they are:
- Friulmodel tracks ATL-10
- RB Model gun barrel 35B63, shells 35P16 and DSHK 35B122
- Eureka XXL towing cables ER-3542, ER-3502
- Miniart ammo 35076
- Plus Model Loudspeakers 223
- Aber side fuel tanks  35A46

- Tamiya fuel barrel 35186

 


















The kit was published in Military Modelcraft International (September 2014) and Hobbyworld (164).

 





środa, 6 sierpnia 2014

SYRIAN STREET FIGHTER - BMP-1


My story of the Syrian BMP-1 started when I saw the picture of this up-armoured with old tires and sandbags vehicle. Wow! It was an awesome idea to build an interesting model. With hundreds pictures of Syrian BMPs this one presented itself as the most intriguing and was a typical eye-catcher. 


I completed the quite big box of additional parts:
  1. The tires – a few tires from my old kits and Miniart 35099 set with GAZ-AA wheels;
  2. Friulmodel tracks ATL-133;
  3. The road wheels – Panzer Art RE 35-188. They are totally detailed and well casted and I was smashed by their quality; 
  4. E.T. Model photoetched parts no. E35-170;
  5. The towing cables Eureka XXL ER-3537;
  6. The antenna mount with rod from RB Model;
  7. SKP 194 lenses – they are very nice parts and it is a pity that you cannot see it well.









The articles with full S-B-S can be found in:






czwartek, 26 czerwca 2014

Paper Panzer Production - new kits, upgrades and conversions




Couple days ago I received the new products from Paper Panzer Production. So now is a time to show them :)

1. Der Hammer - 10,5 cm recoilless rocketlauncher - the resin kit packed in hard cardbox with 21 parts, copper wire and metail foil. In result we can build the launcher with 3 ammo crates with 6 rockets. Take a look :




                                           






2. Kingtiger/Jagdtiger/E-50/E-75/E-100 exhaust and toving device set - the second resin product to upgrade the kits of late Panzerwaffe. Here you can see how does it look like:





To order those sets mail the producer:

shop@paperpanzer.com

or find them on the Facebook

www.paperpanzer.com

Thx for samples!


sobota, 10 maja 2014

LAND ROVER DEFENDER XD ”WOLF” TUM G.S.

Let me start with a simple statement:  it could be said that Land Rover is for the British Army as Jeep or Hummer for the U.S. Army – am I right?


I found a funny description of a conversation which took place during an informal Land Rover engineering meeting:
“If we’re not careful this project is going to bite us in the arse”, said the engineering director.
“Well we'd better call it Wolf then” answered the transmission manager.
So now we know how the code name was born. The soldiers adopted the name “Wolf” as a generic term, moreover some people think “Wolf” means “Wheel On Left Flank”. Funny!


The Wolf based on the Defender but it is far stronger and more reliable. There are 29 versions of this car. My kit is a winterised/waterproofed version. The snorkel in waterproof version allows the vehicle to wade through the water to windscreen level when the winterized versions are fitted with heated windscreen, heaters in the rear cabin and an engine fluids heater to pre-warm the engine.



Accurate Armour released this kit in 2002 as a LR004 set – this is a complete detailed resin with etched brass and metal parts, in which we can make the full interior and engine bay. The 12 pages of building instruction is added as well as full colour decals.



The article was published in Miliary Modelcraft International from March 2014 and in Modelar from May 2014.


The kit is for sale! 
If you are interested in just let me know via e-mail!