Cyber Hobby Flakpanzer Coelian

[dupes]

So after a few months off (due to the five foot high wall of snow in front of my basement door), we resumed build nights in my basement last week. When I have the guys from the IPMS chapter over, I try not to spend all of my time in the spray booth, so I had to crack into a fresh kit. Had to!

Picked this up a few weeks back at Downeastcon. It's the Cyber Hobby Orange box of the Dragon Flakpanzer Coelian, the very late war / did it really happen AA gun mounted on a Panther chassis. The Orange-ness gives it a set of figs - "Panzer Riders Lorraine 1944" - and a bag of Magic Tracks. I just so happened to find (!) a set of Aber replacement barrels all the way at the bottom of the box, had some spare track links to hang on the side from a Tamiya build, and was able to scrounge some stainless steel screens from another DML kit that had some aftermarket ones in it. Didn't feel like dealing with indy links this week, so I swapped the Magics out for some DS Tracks from another CH Panther. Don't believe I've ever actually used these, so I wanted to give them a shot. After three-ish hours at build night:



And then a few days later:



Decided to use the AK Dunkelgelb primer as the base coat for this build. Apparently I forgot to take a pic of just the straight primer (I swear I took one), but you can make out the color pretty well under the screens in pic 2.

Since this is either really late war or more "Panzer '46" I took some liberties with the paint scheme. Decided to represent a vehicle that was forced to use Luftwaffe paint stock. The two squiggly camo colors are ostensibly RLM 83 and 84. The 84 (the green/gray color) doesn't show up very well in these pics, but I also didn't want to lay down a thick camo coat as I was planning to chip it anyway.



The chipping was achieved with AK light chipping effects fluid. I'm pretty sure this is essentially just bottled hairspray - at least it felt that way when I airbrushed it on. Few coats followed immediately by the camo colors. Hit it with some water, then rub and scratch with various brushes and tools and it gives a very convincing (and controllable) effect. Will definitely be using this again. I know Rinaldi prefers his stuff straight from the can, but I have yet to achieve as smooth a layer using that method. Of course, I'm no Rinaldi, either.

Got tired of lugging roadwheels around, so I painted them up and glued them in place. With the DS tracks, no worries about having to remove them to fit indy links around. Using some trusty stencils, I managed to get the white parts layed down this morning before work - black/color bits coming this afternoon.



More soon!

[deafpanzer]

NICE!!! Dig the camo!

[reserve]

Cool brother camo looks fine

A lot of guys seem hate and disparage DS tracks. I have no idea why; I think they are great. If done properly they look every bit as good as Magic Tracks with not nearly the time invested as well as the absence of the one link too few/many struggle.

Regards,
Mark

[wbill76]

Looks like a productive session for sure Dupes! Nice work on the '46 Flak SPG.

[bbrowniii]

Mmmmmm. Well would ya look at that? Poof! A panzer!!

Looks sharp, Dupes!

[Leon]

Nice work on the Flak Panzer Dupes! Camo looks great.

[Tojo72]

Nice,not something you see every day.

[dupes]

Hey, thanks fellas! Glad you like how it's coming out. Me too, even more so now that I have the markings on (pic later).

[dupes]

May 11, 2015 13:00:50 GMT -5 reserve said:

A lot of guys seem hate and disparage DS tracks. I have no idea why; I think they are great. If done properly they look every bit as good as Magic Tracks with not nearly the time invested as well as the absence of the one link too few/many struggle.

Got to agree. These took paint wonderfully without any primer. They glued together leaving almost no seam using just Tamiya extra thin. I can understand going a different route on something that requires multiple sagged sections (Panzer IV), but the Panther's tracks just lay on top of the road wheels. These are great!

[dupes]

May 11, 2015 16:56:05 GMT -5 bbrowniii said:

Mmmmmm. Well would ya look at that? Poof! A panzer!!

Looks sharp, Dupes!

It only appears to have "poofed" into existence...lot of time in the paint booth this weekend. Hahaha.

[dupes]

Got the rest of the markings in place. I LOVE using stencils instead of decals. So much more realistic in the application. The one issue I ran into here is that trying to do the inset numbers is nigh impossible when your stencils are opaque! For the crosses it's simple enough - if you can see any green sticking out on any side you need to reposition. With the number overlap you have no idea where you are in relation to the edges of the white number you've already laid down, and are going sheerly by estimation. That make sense?

Anyway, after a bunch of messing around, I guessed pretty well. The numbers aren't perfect, but I think that actually makes it look a bit better (knowing how stencils turned out for me in 1/1 scale in the military). The result:



On to the tools. I HATE tools on german armor. I need to start farming this stuff out. Bill, want to do my tools? You do good tool work. Heh.

[Deano]

Great work on this Dupes , the camo and markings look great !

[Leon]

Nice work on the markings Dupes! They look good.

[wbill76]

Sharp work on those stencils Dupes, looks good from here!

[dupes]

Thanks guys!

Question for those of you who have used hair spray or the chipping products. Do I need to seal my paint layer at any point? In just wondering what's going to happen once I start putting washes on here. Same effect as putting water on top?

[Wes]

Great start to this one dupes. Im loving your progress so far bud.

[dierk]

May 12, 2015 21:28:17 GMT -5 dupes said:

Thanks guys!

Question for those of you who have used hair spray or the chipping products. Do I need to seal my paint layer at any point? In just wondering what's going to happen once I start putting washes on here. Same effect as putting water on top?

I always err on the side of caution and put on a layer of gloss or satin before starting on washes, weathering, etc. Especially so if there is a layer of Hs/cf involved. Better safe than sorry.

[Deano]

Im with Dierk , always seal before hairspray .

[dupes]

Thanks again fellas! For your input with the hairspray as well.

Deano - you're saying you put a sealer on BEFORE you start in with the hairspray?

[Deano]

Yes mate , I always protect the paintjob first . Also assists in the chipping and worn look .

[dupes]

Wow, six months? I've been working on this bit by bit ever since May, so I had no idea it had been so long! Took a couple of trips to the shelf of doom in the interim. Heh.

So from the last pic to here we've got washes, chipping, streaking, washes, fading, washes, some more streaking, and a bit of pigment work. Not looking in the pics how I see it to my eye so I'm going to keep going until she looks "right". Needs some horizontal scratches and a bit of damage to the numbers and crosses. Anything else that's blatantly lacking?

[dierk]

Looking splendid! Maybe add a few rusty streaks on the hull below the spare links - I'd imagine you get some rusty water run-off after a shower?

[dupes]

Ahhh, good point Dierk! I actually wanted to make the spare tracks look a bit more rusty as well - not quite so monotone brown.

[deafpanzer]

Six months? That's nothing... LOL You know me! I am with Dierk... it is only missing some rust which is missing. If there are streaks everywhere then we should see some rust too.

[wbill76]

I'd recommend hitting the tools again and darkening those metal surfaces. On my screen at least they have almost an aluminum shine/look to them vs. a darkened steel appearance. Otherwise it's in good shape!

[Leon]

I'm with the guys on darkening up the tools and adding some rust streaks Dupes!

[dupes]

Agreed. I'm always trying out new metallics trying to find one that I really like for tools - this one (I think) was "aircraft exhaust" or something like that. Hit them with a few brown washes but it didn't really knock the shine down quite as much as I wanted.

[wbill76]

Nov 3, 2015 19:47:00 GMT -5 dupes said:

Agreed. I'm always trying out new metallics trying to find one that I really like for tools - this one (I think) was "aircraft exhaust" or something like that. Hit them with a few brown washes but it didn't really knock the shine down quite as much as I wanted.

Only other option, in that case, is likely to repaint them with something darker and then add some lighter metal highlights to them, a process-in-reverse type of approach.

[wouter]

Great stuff there bud. Really like the camoscheme and weathering, cool lookin' lady. Agree with the gents on the tools, if you are able to adress that she'll be even more cool!

Cheers

[armorguy]

I like what I see, the pale grey camo stripes look pretty cool and add caracter to the beast.

Looking forward to what you'll do with it next update Dupes !