Tiger 1 Ausf.E - Rubicon Models - 28mm

During an unplanned trip to Dark Sphere models in Waterloo I couldn't resist the urge to get something new. So after kidding myself for about 15 minutes by saying I'd only buy paint and some brushes I ended up at the till with this box...

This will be the first WW2 model I've done since I was about 9 and I screwed up a few airfix tank boxes. WW2 never really appealed to me as much as the Napoleonic era as it's all pretty dull. What I mean by this is that the uniforms etc are mainly green/grey or brown mixes and the old style tank kits didn't seem to have enough detail.

This kit on the other hand seems pretty exciting, you don't have to fiddle with rubber tank tracks - they're solid moulds. The fiddly bit is the MG mounted on the turret, but as long as you're patient and allow the glue to dry it's not bad.

The thing I like about this model is the extra track parts you can glue to the hull and turret, they're going to break up the camo a bit so it doesn't just look like a turd with leaves one!

Here are a few shots of the assembled beast prior to undercoating.

Still got to choose what kind of paint scheme to go for, whether it be North Africa, Russia or Europe. The Rubicon Models page has an interesting paint scheme but I think I'll pick something along these lines.














Update:

So I've started painting this Tiger, I managed to finish the cavalry I was working on so this was next in the queue.

I undercoated it with uniform grey from the Army Painter range - this is a nice neutral undercoat which seemed to work really well by itself. I could quite easily have just highlighted this coat and gone for a grey paint scheme.

 


I followed this with a coat of dark brown mixed with a little chain mail in the areas that won't be touched by the dry brushing - it didn't seem that this worked once the initial dark brown coat went on. Following this I've dry brushed it twice with a mix of bronzed flesh and bone white from Vallejo, to me it looks too bright - almost like an Essex girl after a spray tan! So I'm going to try tone it down a bit with an earth tone. I'm aiming for a colour a bit like this but it's pretty hard to hit!