Panther Ausf. A

by Danumurthi Mahendra
 

Italeri's 1/35 scale Panther A is available online from Squadron

This is Italeri’s notorious 1/35 scale Panther V Ausf.A. As most of armor modelers know, this particular kit has been heavily criticised on the Internet because of its poor fit and dreaded Zimmerit coat

For all the money I’d spent and the dream of building up a Panther—since childhood—I just couldn’t throw this kit through my garden window. My aim was only to make a simple Panther, nothing accurate, no aftermarket parts, just testing some theories and styles from experts.

The Zimmerit was the first thing I had to tackle. I used Tamiya’s gray putty, cutters and screwdrivers to do the works. It was messy and time consuming too. It made an irregular pattern, so I decided to build a Zimmerit coated Panther applied in the fields.

Next came the assembling of parts: some parts did not fit well (avoiding using the term “many”) so the putty was again called to finish the job. One other peculiar job before assembling the whole kit is that some parts need to be sanded down or, in a more progressive word, cut-down. Other than these “few” misfits, everything went as planned. Nothing is added in the interior so I plainly painted flat white—just for the sake of it. A piece of pantyhose were used as the engine mesh. Helmets and the water bucket were leftovers from another set.

Apart from the interior, all surfaces were coated with primer and then Tamiya’s Dark Yellow. I followed Miguel Jimenez’s and Glenn Bartolotti’s tips on paint splinters and on oil washes, respectfully. I had to re-do some since this is a pretty new technique for me. A gloss coat was added before applying decals. Chalk pastel was given before a final spray of Testor’s Dullcoat finished the works.

All in all, it was a job that needed a lot of work and effort. I owe the photo techniques to authors of HyperScale's "Photographing Your Models" series.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2001 by Danumurthi Mahendra
Page Created 29 December, 2001
Last Updated 30 December, 2001

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