Panzer IV D, 1/35 Dragon kit

My latest built:

3.Kompanie, Panzer-Regiment 11, 6.Panzer Division, France 1940

That is impressive! In my opinion, very realistic and superbly done.
Just curious, how did you obtain the "chipping paint" effect on the jack and on the edges of the upper tracks? Did you use silver paint or did you chip the paint?

Much, much nicer than any pre-made diecast models - even the expensive brands - and believe me, I own quite a few.

To Dragon's credit, too, I had no idea their kits were so well made.

Keep it up, Dragos - a huge improvement over the KV-1.

Anyway, this must have taken you a lot of hours to complete, but it's definitely worth it.

i find that FoV does a better paint job than Dragon, but none come close to Dragos' paint job here.

I agree - Forces of Valor has good paint jobs for their pre-assembled die-casts - better than Dragon. King & Country probably has the best die-casts IMO (both armor and metal figurines - soldiers/officers, etc), but they are prohibitively expensive.

For instance, Rommel's Horch with 4 figurines costs $160.
As opposed to a FoV PzIV (metal and plastic combo), with accessories, tank repair tools, figurines, panzerfausts, sideskirts, and opening hatches, which is overall of good quality and has great weathering paint schemes, but only costs about $40-$50.

I especially recommend their 88mm Pak - mostly metal, with functional pedestal and towing gear. You can actually use the hand wheel-cranks and raise or lower the barrell, or move it horizontally.

I wish there was more diecast artillery pieces available, though. Besides the 88mm from FoV and a 105mm US howitzer (also from FoV), I can't find any diecast artillery pieces at 1:32 or even 1:72.

If you know of a manufacturer, please let me know.

Thanks.

Thank you for your comments.

Just light dry brushing with steel.

The kit had it's flaws, some parts do not easily fit and too many small parts and photo-etched components make the build extremely tedious. Not a very fun build.

i do have the 105mm howitzer from FoV. i got it from ebay at a quite reasonable price. same goes for a Tiger I, Tiger II and StuG IIIG, all from FoV and all well below 50€.
160$ is a sum i'd fork over only for a wooden ship kit, preferably from artesania latina. unfortunately, 160 there is still entry-level.

beyond plastic, the only 1:72 artillery kits i know, need to be build from white metal or resin. matador has some (british 8in ww1), and a guy in germany, from finescalefactory has a german 15cm sFH 1913 which is quite good but requires 2 component glue.

diecast like the FoV stuff i saw none. they're probably expensive to manufacture and don't sell as well as the more glamorous "Tiger".
generally, beyond 2 emhar and a few revell kits, it's even hard to find plastic artillery kits, which explains the existence of small niche producers like reviresco, matador or finescalefactory, which do really nice jobs usually.

generally, what i like about diecast products vs. plastic builds is that you can touch them without fear of breaking something off (unless you really want to). the weight alone gives the model a more "solid" feel. even for diecast aircraft.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on July 01, 2008 08:58 pm