Half-track for a noobie?

[medved]

@KCStephens I was looking at that in my search for making holes - good call.

Somehow I got dragged away from actually continuing the Papertiger 251 & ended up wrestling with the Exclusive model in Paintshop (in which I am no expert).

Bear in mind I am currently constructing my 4th paper model ever (& that is obvious from my wonky Nieuport in the gallery here yep my very 1st try!!!) & this is my very 1st try at colouring a model.



Also I haven't actually built this model so I don't know if the right pieces are the right colour! It's not even cut yet...
Of note being part #5d whose position I am unable to exactly determine at the moment.

I did find the borders got screwed on part 3, but it is workable I think. A bit of pen work etc 'should' clear it up.
There are probably coloured areas that do not need colour (& vice versa) but I'll share it & you all can let me know.

I started with the premise that the base colour would be sand tones & then put my 'artists' impression of the '44 camo on.

As I'm sure there are purists here who will see that the implied yellow spots have become a duck-egg blue variant, I found it worked better from my aesthetic perspective. (Hell I'll just pass it off as the work of drunken POWs & paint shortages...) :p :D

If anyone who has built this sees any glaring mis-colouring errors let me know & I'll schedule a repaint.

I will add that in trying to colour this model I have gained a greater perspective on the work of the designer - this is a really nice piece of work, hopefully I will be able to do it justice. If you read this - Thanks for sharing it!

(If the forum or author have any issues with this file I'll take it down of course)

Download

[Golden Bear]

Nice perserverence. I consider Phil to be our expert is PSP but I have some experience. It is the very devil of a program but can do most of what you need if you don't mind the feeling of wanting to rip out the brain of the programmer and stomping on it!



Carl

[CharlieC]

Unfortunately the drawing you used to base your recolour was quite a long way from the colours used by the Wehrmacht vehicles in 1944. You've attempted to emulate the "ambush" scheme - this was factory applied and the official order described it as:

RAL7028 Dunkelgelb base coat
RAL6003 (Olive green) and RAL8017 (Red/Brown) "clouds".

The RAL6003 and RAL8017 areas had small splotches of contrasting colour. So the RAL6003 areas had splotches of dunkelbelb and red/brown. The RAL8017 had splotches of olive green and dunkelgelb.

Unfortunately the original RAL colour charts didn't survive WW2 so all we have is an approximation of the colours. Possibly one of the more credible takes on these are the colours at www.jpsmodelle.de. The colours on this site are full strength colours so you have to lighten them considerably to account for the scale effect.

Regards,

Charlie

[medved]

@Golden Bear Software that tries to emulate a 'real' skill always makes me crazy too but for me that is ameliorated by the questions it raises about how the code has been structured (having done a bit of code hacking - C++, php, html, Basic, regex - I know how incredibly tough it can be to get anything to work) I guess I find it fascinating but not enuf to spend my life typing it out... Bridging the gap between real & virtual creates some folically challenging moments to be sure.
So my frustration is answered in binary terms - there are 10 sides to every argument :p

@CharlieC Ok I so guess I'll have to scratch the vanity plates I was working on...
This is what happens when the aesthetic impulse of artistic temperament gets the better of discipline & I knew it was dunkel-gelb dammit! :o

I wish I still had my old camo colour charts, but I thought Osprey was a reliable source & that was the source of the image I sampled.
So much WW2 is monochrome it was difficult to find what I wanted based on distant memory.
But I can see that the papertiger rendition is closer to my proposed scheme.

So whilst you have fuelled the "if you want to paint something there is always the house..." argument, I shall try again at some point.
[tho it might be quite fun to build this one anyway...]

I also need to figure out how #5d is fitted - I assume they lie flat...

[KCStephens]

Originally Posted by medved

I also need to figure out how #5d is fitted - I assume they lie flat...

Looks like it is to be glued flat to the floor between the two front seats just below the shifting levers. See illustration (a-a) Don't worry about it now, once you start building it's exact position may become more obvious.

[medved]

Bearing in mind the luminosity issues with paper, I decided to rush off a more Dunkel version, there have been a few interesting hi-lite warping effects where colours are switching about. I did find my Afrika Korps dunkel gelb looked too much like Olive Drab to be usable without lightening but it may be better in print...

I can see I will have to build a fleet of these b4 I get it to look right....:p


This is only sheet 2 of the original file above
Dunkel sheet 2

[medved]

Originally Posted by KCStephens

Looks like it is to be glued flat to the floor between the two front seats just below the shifting levers. See illustration (a-a) Don't worry about it now, once you start building it's exact position may become more obvious.

You are right I think, just trying to cover the variant tones of colour I'm using on the interior...

[ct ertz]

I like the color, it's real animal like, almost...can't believe I am going to write this, it is almost pretty!

[medved]

Originally Posted by ct ertz

I like the color, it's real animal like, almost...can't believe I am going to write this, it is almost pretty!

Well it's fair to say animals colours & camo are aesthetically pleasing, & I think of models as art-forms, so why not :D

I am however gonna build one of each (what did I just let myself in for...) I have printed both variations off & in daylight on paper, reflected tones are a lot different.
Then I am gonna try taking some photos in vegetation & see if the tones could hold up to passing scrutiny, it won't be Wehrmacht perfect but it'll be interesting.

I also have to work on making a 'stencil' for insignia to use in photoshop, but I am tending to run before I can walk with all this.


As to the Papertiger 251 - I hope to finish that soon.
It's surprised me insofar as whilst the methods for making any paper model are essentially the same, the different forms require a lot of style change in the way one works. Hence people have preferred subjects I guess.

I like the designers work & if I survive this marathon of 251s I think I'll be getting more papertiger kits. I think, like Fiddlers Green, there is a lot of scope to really pimp them out


I will post some pics when something is finished for those interested.

[medved]

AAR
This is the result of my fight with the PaperTiger 251... :p

Very different experience from aircraft. I liked the challenge but I need more practice. Seeing so many outstanding models here makes me want to achieve similar levels of perfection.

After building this basic version I thought of a couple of things I would do next time round -
Road wheels - extra spacers for 'outer' set to increase stacked spacing effect.
Heavier scoring of body shell area for track mounting to reduce the 'bandy leg' angling of tracks




I can attribute a high percentage of my 'wonky' problems to those areas commonly discussed here: - tools, glue type, paper weight/type etc. (as well as experience/skill honing.)
Nevertheless I did discover a few useful things along the way (which everyone else already knows I expect ) :-

Hardware -
Dolls Clothes Pin/Peg - as a regular wooden pin/peg with spring but under 1" in size & 1/8th inch 'arms'. I've also seen these supplied for hanging Xmas cards etc.

White Board Marker (Dry Marler) - unlike normal markers this dries evenly flatter (far less 'banding' from overlapping strokes) & more matt, & black tends to fade to a dark slate if not too heavily applied.

Liquid paper Correction Fluid - (this URL being a similar product to what I tried.) Useful for filling cracks & 'resurfacing' damaged parts & can be coloured. Obviously brush strokes/bumps in heavier application can be smoothed with an abrasive. Use of thinners to make a milky solution for thinner layer applications also possible.

Technique -
Using cheapo felt tip pens to mark edges & then a watery white glue to bond parts gives a colour bleed thru the join - which with some tweaking could be a very useful 'weathering' etc effect.



I placed a 25mm figure next to the vehicle in the pix as I suspect I somehow scaled down the print from the correct size - I don't think I'd get 12 1/72nd scale figures in there ('How many elephants can you get in a Mini?' comes to mind.) [US translation - A Mini is a compact car model ]

I used 190gsm matt photo paper & 3 glue types - UHU - clear & stringy like polystyrene cement, watery white paper glue (good for making drooping tracks) & a PVA white wood glue for this build.

& For those who don't already have the weight conversion data: -

Paper Weight Conversion Chart
Source URL
The European measurement of describing paper weight measures a single paper with a two dimensional height and width of one square meter. This measurement is noted as g/m2 (gm/m2, gsm, g/m2). The measurement may be measuring a hypothetical square meter, but is a good "apples to apples" reference because it compares the weights of different size papers.

The English method of paper weight may be more familiar to people, but it has its drawbacks when comparing weights of different size paper. The English method of measurement gives the weight of the paper as if weighing 500 sheets (or a ream). Differences in the dimensions of paper are not taken into account. Therefore, the English weight of a letter size paper that is thick and dense may be the same as a poster size paper that is light and tissue thin because 500 sheets of each weight the same. It's the "which weights more, a ton of lead or a ton of feathers" quandary.English paper grade to grammage conversion
Grammage Paper Grade (LBS.)
44 gsm 30 lb. text

59 gsm 16 lb. bond, 40 lb. text
67 gsm 45 lb. text
89 gsm 24 lb. bond, 60 lb. text
104 gsm 70 lb. text
118 gsm 80 lb. text
148 gsm 67 lb. bristol, 100 lb. text
162 gsm 60 lb. cover
163 gsm 90 lb. index
176 gsm 65 lb. cover
178 gsm 80 lb. bristol
199 gsm 110 lb. index
216 gsm 80 lb. cover
219 gsm 100 lb. bristol
253 gsm 140 lb. index
263 gsm 120 lb. bristol
270 gsm 100 lb. cover
307 gsm 140 lb. bristol
308 gsm 170 lb. index
325 gsm 120 lb. cover