Added April 2009
Winner, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy special award
Kickoff Classic 2009
April 18, 2009
Completed Model (select a picture to view at full size):
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Construction (select a picture to view at full size):
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Construction diagram | |||
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Step 0: Kit Box Art | |||
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Step 0-1: Full Kit Display | |||
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Step 0-2: Cover of the instruction manual | |||
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Step 1: Assemble the Vulcan Cannon | |||
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Step 1-1: This is the completed cannon. I used Model Master Gun Metal Metalizers to paint the gun. These paints are the best that I have found to simulate metals. | |||
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Step 2: Directions for assembly of another turret part. | |||
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Step 2-1: Completed by not painted part. I had to fill in a hollow back on this part with some sheet plastic. | |||
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Step 3: Assembly of the search light. I will not be using the LED in the light. | |||
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Step 3-1: Here I have assembled the light and painted inside the housing again with Model Masters Metalizers Aluminum. The light filiment was made from fine wire wrapped around the shank of a micro drill bit. The base of the filament was made from bits of plastic. | |||
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Step 3-2: In this photo you see the clear lens after it has been dipped Future Floor Polish. By dipping the lens in Future I have made the lens much clearer. This process also repairs any small imperfections and scratches in the plastic. Highly Recommended! | |||
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Step 4: Assembly directions | |||
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Step 4-1: Completed part, assembly straight forward with no problems. | |||
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Step 5 This is the assembly of the major parts of the turret. | |||
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Step 5-1: This photo is of the top and the bottom pieces of the turret. The white pieces of plastic are wings that were made out of plastic Evergreen styrene. This had to be done so that after the model is complete you wonŐt be able to see down the inside sides all the way to the back. The painted part is step 2 painted and glued into place. I painted it now so that I could insure complete coverage where I didn't I could if I waited to paint it later with the airbrush. | |||
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Step 5-2: In this photo you can see the plastic styrene wings that were built to wall off the gun bay so there is no see thru. | |||
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Step 5-3: This photo again shows a close up of the wall of area. | |||
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Step 5-4: Here we see the side panels glued together with liquid cement. I generally use the Tamiya Extra Thin cement. The white strips are strips of very thin Evergreen strip plastic. This again was glued on using liquid cement. After if was good and dry I scrapped down the strips until I was satisfied with the thickness and then they were sanded smooth. At this point I have taken my hobby knife with a #11 blade installed and I turn it over so I am using the back side of the blade the one that is not designed to cut. I will use the edge of the blade to make impressions on the tops of the strips to simulate welding marks. I will do this to the entire four strips top and bottom. I have applied these strips over the nasty looking seams that were created when all four halves of the turret came together. In order to correct this I could have filled and sanded these seams all out which would have been time consuming or I could cover them with strip styrene and then texture these to look like weld seams as would appear on a piece of armor, which the Krote really is. On the back you can see a piece of strip with rivets on it. This is where the back seam came together, so I covered it with strip and made it to look like a bolted on piece of steel. | |||
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Step 5-5: In this shot you see the assembled turret with Vulcan cannon installed. The cannon is not glued in yet that will be done at the very end. | |||
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Step 5-6: Another shot of the turret. | |||
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Step 5-7: A photo of the bottom. There were four weld seams to do two on the top and two on the bottom. | |||
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Step 6: Assembly instructions include the placement of the search light, parts of the power plant, and a photo etch dish. You will see that the search light is completely assembled. | |||
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Step 6-1: The face of the light is already painted. I did this painting on the light cover prior to gluing it on the main light housing. I did this because I did not want to have to spray around the opening in the light with my nice Futured glass right behind it and chance getting paint on the glass and not being able to get it off without busting the whole light apart. So I paint it now and put a piece of tape on it to protect the glass behind it while the rest of the build takes place. | |||
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Step 6-2: The left side view show the partial power plant installed with the search light and dish silhouette shown. | |||
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Step 6-3: Top View | |||
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Step 7: More turret parts are added. After all of these parts are added I will putty around all of them to get rid of any gaps or holes. I exclusively use a water base putty for this. | |||
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Step 7-1: In this photo you see a casting technique using water base putty. The turret has a coating with a water base putty stippled on to the steel areas that would have been casted. | |||
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Step 7-2: Here we see the left side view with a metal grab handle added and rivets added to certain areas. | |||
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Step 7-3: This is a rear view showing the casting to good effect with more strip and rivets added. | |||
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Step 7-4: In this photo of the right side we see two metal grab handles added to these compartments one on top of the turret where the hatch would be. | |||
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Step 7-5 to 7-10: The photos are photos of the turret with the basic green paint on it. I used Polly Scale paints for the NATO camouflage. The green is NATO Tri color green. All of these photos show to good effect the casting appearance using the water based putty after painting. |
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Step 8: More assembly of the engine | |||
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Step 8-1 to 8-5: In these photos I have assembled the plastic kit parts and then I found a nasty seam that was going to be really hard to get at to do a good job of. So again I used strip styrene to cover these seams and I also added more rivets. |
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Step 9: Assembly directions | |||
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Step 9-1: More rivets are placed | |||
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Step 9-2: Here you can see a small piece of white plastic styrene to cover a small void that will be seen of the finished model. | |||
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Step 10: Assembly of the body. | |||
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Step 10-1 to 10-4: These photos show the body of the kit assembled with the casting texture, weld strips completed. After the putty has dried completely I take 1500 grit sand paper and gently knock off the high sides of the putty in order to slightly smooth the surface but still retain the casting effect. The real beauty of using this putty is if you ruin it or donŐt like what it looks like you can remove it with no problem using water. | |||
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Step 11: This step assembles two more parts for the engine area. | |||
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| Step 11-1 to 11-3: The completed parts with strip and rivets added. |
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Step 12: This step adds the engine to the body. | |||
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Step 12-1 to 12-6: In these pictures we see the engine installed to the body with more rivets added. The long straight things are springs that have been glued on one end. These will eventually be trimmed to length and glued after the legs have been installed. |
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Step 13: The figure will not be used in this project. I would like to have had a scale figure next to the finished model to scale the model. But this figure was so bad it was not even a possibility. | |||
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Step 14: This step assembles the major parts of the legs. | |||
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Step 14-1 to 14-3: Here we see the plastic legs assembled with strip styrene and rivets added. The strip styrene was added to cover some bad sink marks on the legs. Of course these could have been filled and sanded but I chose again to cover them. |
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Step 15: Assembly directions for the legs and feet | |||
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Step 15-1: In these photos we seen the completed and painted leg. The wire you see is the kit wire that was supplied for the LED lighting. The kit has a wiring route molded into the leg. Since I was not going to be using the LEDŐs I still wanted to use the wire some how on the kit. So I decide to install in along the leg and end it and curl it into the knuckle joint at the knee. My intent here is to simulate a hydraulic line. To make it look nice I had to make attachment points on the inside of the leg to route the wire back under the leg and back to the engine. | |||
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Step 15-2: This is a close up of the foot that has the putty casting on it. | |||
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Step 15-3: The completed legs. | |||
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Step 16: Here it all comes together. This step assembles the turret, body and legs together. | |||
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Step 16-1 to 16-9: The three major body parts assembled and painted with the first coat of paint. The green color was airbrushed. |
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Step 16-10 to 16-14: Here you see the other two camouflage colors have been applied to the model. Here I used Polly Scale NATO Tri color brown and NATO Tri color black. Both of these colors were hand painted onto the model. Since I was not painting the model in the suggested color scheme and was doing a hypothetical paint job I did not have a pattern for the camouflage so I did it off the top of my head. In photo 16-10 you can see a shinny spot on the turret under the brush, this is where I have painted on Future Floor Polish getting ready for the decaling process. I have attached the model to a foam board by using metal pins super glued into the bottom of the feet and pushed into the foam board. These are very fragile but the model had to be attached to a base to stand properly. I have applied washes of Windsor and Newton oils paints using the Burnt Umber and some Black. I have dry brushed the whole model with Model Master #2103 Afrika Dunkelgrau '42 enamel. I also punched out a gun sight lens from confetti. This was punched out the same size as the round gun sight and then I glued a punched out round piece of plastic and glued it to the back of the confetti. To the back of the plastic I glued a short piece of plastic rod to the back of the round piece of punched out plastic. I did this so that when I slid in the whole piece into the gun sight hole the confetti would be perfectly sitting in the hole and would not fall over or not be square in the hole. |
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Step 17: This shows the base that I made. It consists of a pine wood base with Sculptamold mixed up for the ground cover. | |||
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Step 17-1: This shows a bag of the mixture Sculptamold used for the ground cover. You just add water with this stuff and form it into what ever you want. It will dry very hard in about 30 minutes and then you can paint it with acrylic and oil paints. The Sculptamold paints very well and looks very realistic. I will be using this product again. Very good stuff give it a try. |
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Step 18 to 18-4: These last photos show the completed model standing on its stand. I used one set of the kits decals which came with four different schemes. I chose to use the red worm decals, of course these are all hypothetical markings. I added one of my German armor decal to the front body just for good measure. Since the whole Machinen Krieger series of Science Fiction kits are based on Germany having won WWII and these vehicles would be what the Germans would now be using. This particular vehicle is supposed to be an unmanned recon type unit. This was a really fun kit to build although it took me several months to complete because I could not spend the time to get it complete. You can still find one of these fine kits on eBay once and a while, they are well worth the time spent looking. Highly Recommended!! |
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All text and photographs copyright by John Admire. All rights reserved. All text and photographs used with permission.
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