King Tiger "222"

Here is King Tiger 222 and crew in relaxed poses. The KT is by DML, with metal barrel and etched brass engine deck screens etc. I added / amended:

• Karaya tow cables
• Turret sighting vanes
• Bosch headlight conduit
• Etched brass tool clamp handles
• Periscope lenses using 35mm film
• Hollowed out barrel rods

The side skirts were also thinned out at the edges - they are perfectly acceptable versus photo-etch that way, and a lot less fiddly. Note that the left hand side front mudguard is positioned "back to front" -- see the photo of the real thing. The only thing wrong that I can hold my hand up to/know about is that Kurt Sowa still has his arm! I didn't have the heart to model the TC without it. The crew are by Tristar, DML and Miniart, with a few Hornet heads.

King Tiger (Porsche Turret)

This is the first edition DML King Tiger (Porsche turret) with a few improvements and tweaks. I added   some little details from the spares box to give it a bit more finesse -- wing nuts for the track holders, some spare photo-etch here and there and Karaya cable for the main tow cables and the transport track cable. 

The zimmerit was hand-applied using my tried and trusted Squadron Green putty and Tamiya zimm rake method. Zimmerit was seldom applied neatly, and for me, the resin sheets you can get don't always hit the right spot - they can be a bit too neat. This might break with some modellers received wisdom, but look closely at wartime photos and you'll see what I mean. I've seen some wartime pics of really horrendously applied zimm that if you replicated it, your model would look hideous. So... for me, doing it yourself strikes a happy medium between the two. 

Back to the model. I had some spare DML King Tiger "Magic Tracks" so I used them instead of the first generation indy links that were in the kit.  I used a spare Aber side skirt to stick between the exhaust stacks, and the kit skirts were carefully cut apart with a jewellers saw and carefully thinned down to a realistic scale thickness around the edges. Doing it this way saves a heap of cash, and look every bit as good as photo-etch.  I'll get on my modelling soap-box again. Why use photo-etch when the styrene part is more in-scale and every bit as detailed? OK, you need it for some parts - or if you are dealing with a poor quality kit - , but modern kits from Dragon, Bronco, AFV Club etc mean that by and large, photo-etch pain is a thing of the past.

The figures were from the Dragon range with Hornet heads. Panzer pink-edged shoulder boards and epaulettes were from the peerless Archer range. Anyway, here it is:

A tale of two King Tigers - Budapest 1944

Here are some pics of two of my KT's. One built as a commissioned piece and the other as an Ebay sale. Both depict KT's of sPz Abt 503 in Budapest in October 1944. There are plenty of pictures of these panzers, so I went as far as I could within the limits of sanity to get the features and paint schemes right....

Oh and guess what? I googled images of "King Tigers in Budapest" and the 9th image to come up was my model of "233".  Fame at last!

Anneliese - sPz Abt 503

Anneliese - King Tiger (Porsche turret)

Anneliese - a fairly well known KT of the 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion - was a commissioned piece using the DML King Tiger as a base. The pics should show the hand applied zimmerit using Squadron Green putty and a Tamiya zimm rake set. Mmmm.... toluene....

Anyway, I was pretty happy with how she turned out...