Some early WIP-pictures of the project. I already added some flame-cut marks and surface texture on the mantlet. additional textures will definetly be added to thicker armoured panels
Construction is as good as complete... Tracks and side-skirts are installed and textured... I plan to do a little vignette for the vehicle which I roughly sketched out using some sytyrofoam-pieces. The commander is 3D-printed an will be joined by other crew-members
The current state of affairs: I placed a second crew-member on the tank and made some of the walls for the building from AK´s Carving Foam... the stuff isn´t bad, but comes with it´s own challenges. Window frames and the door will be printed and the space behind them covered in black paint. The sytrofoam block will remain behind the building and be cut to shape with the whole diorama using my hot-wire cutter... maybe I can get a nice cut and get away with just some putty on the sides instead of tedious framing. And I might do a name-plate to go on the front
Back on track with a new layout: After hgaving various cutting and fit issues, I decided to buy a Black Dog resin diorama set, that I found quite fitting for what I intended to do. It is nicely detailed, but a little too small for the big E-100, so I cut a block of styrofoam to which I glued the base. The extra space in the front was raised using a styrofoam offcut to roughly match the height of the base-plate.
The StuG E-100 is test-fitted to the new layout. Next step will be to integrate the baseplate with the rest of the vignette using acrylic textures and air drying clay
The final layout of the base minus a few wooden planks that I will add later on: I also still need to sand down some of the filler used on the sides. The two building sections are left seperate for easier painting
A detail shot to show some of the added details: Boxes and barrels are from the Black Dog base, gas bottles are 3D printed as are the Jerry cans. The ground texture has been modified using acrylic textures and plaster-rubble pieces. This also served to tie in the extended base with the original diorama base
First paint layer is done... Initially I though about painting it in a comparable fashion to the Maus II, but I have now decided to go for a "Splinter" type camo, grey gunbarrel and maybe a section of fender in primer red
The main base colours are laid down: Red for the bricks, off-white for the wall-covers and grey for the concrete-parts. The window frames will be painted in a dark green and the roof also remains to be basecoated. Following onto that will be detail painting of individual bricks etc.
Basic paintjob and the mortar lines are done on the building/wall. Now, the base will recieve it´s light base colour (Tamiya Buff and maybe some grey), which will also be applied on the vehicle and building a little. Then, further detail-painting will be started (including the bits on the base). The roof tiles also still need thir basecolour
Following @John Hughes advice, I changed the direction of the vehicle to show more of the building. Additionally, this allowed me to experiment with an alternative orientation of the figures with both of them now being on top of the vehicle´s superstructure
Some oils and a pinwash on the vehicle... I also painted the windows black and put on a gloss coat to simulate the glass. I will likely put some dirt on them to integrate te look with the rest of the base
Some weathering + spare tracks attached. I tried to refine the windows a bit and also added some planks from plastic card, to integrate the vehicle into the scene more. However, some steps still have to be taken before fixing everything in place, as such as a dark wash on the spare tracks and the main track as well as some metal polishing
Building Modelcolects rendition of the illusive StuG E-100 often dubbed "Jagdpanzer E-100". I will upgrade the kit with OKB tracks and an Aber metal barrel. Different surface-textures will als be applied to give the "heavy metal"-look necessesary to express the size of this armoured behemoth.
Notes on the build so far:
- Where the hell should the exhaust go? The MC-kit seems to be based off the WoT model which also has no dedicated exhaust. However, in my mind at least, venting the hot exhaust up below the barrel would create heat-problems, so I added a side-facing exhaust made from Revell spare-parts from my spares-box.
- The ABER-barrel is designed for the a Trumpeter kit, thus I had to do some cutting and add a lot of superglue to have everything hopefully stay in place...
- I replaced the "blocks" representing the periscopes + cover with 3D-printed parts.
- The front-plate of the hull received some interlocking welds as they were missing in the kit.
- I took a Black-Dog base for the vignette, which I had to extend to fit the vehicle. Therefore, I cut out a correctly-sized block of sytrofoam and glued the resin base onto it, then built up the ground using different acrylic textures and plaster rocks
- Several 3D-printed items have been scattered around the base for additional detailing
