Another year..

Merry Chrismas everyone!

Another year has past, time for some thoughts, sharing and have a nice time with your family. However each year my mind goes back to Christmas 1999, Kosovo, Prizren city were i served as a soldier in the remains of the Kosovo war 1999. There are many people without home and shelter and i am proud that i was a part of the Dutch content of KFOR 1 to help out many people with food kits and building materials for new homes and shelters.

The many story's of the little children who have to live without there father or family are still in my mind together with much more war story's and images of thousends of refugees.

I think it is a good thing to stop sometimes and give some things a thought, in this hobby of armor modeling we must not forget the historical context. In every conflict it are the civilians who take the losses, just think about it for a minute..

This year brought me my wonderful baby daughter and my marriage with my beautifully wife and i am grateful for that.

At last i would like to show some pictures from my private collection of my tour in Kosovo 1999/2000.

Be safe and have a great Christmas!

O.P. Alpha Prizren 1999

Thankfull children, Me (Nato, Nato) under the umbrella, 1999

Serb Roadkill,  1999

The Ride with me in front, 1999

Delivering building materials, me in the middle smiling with barret,  1999

Shooting Range, me in front,  1999

Delivering wood for the roofs with the Russians,  1999

What's cooking?

What's cooking, what's cooking..., soon some exiting news and new update's on various projects. Stay put and keep on checking The ArmorModeling blog!

Cheers,

Elco :)

Konrad 1, Panther G Wedgie

Hi,

I finished this one for SMC 2012, it is a Darius Panther G Wedgie with Hornet & Wolf figure.

The wedgie was bought on SCM 2011 and i tought it would be nice to bring it painted back in 2012.
These little pieces of art are highly recommended and are a lot of fun to do. There a lots of detail in this little pieces and if you like you can bring out the little details.

After the Battle

I think the most know this image after your project is finished  :o

Clean up your mess!  ;p

And start your new project  :)

And keep your "between projects" project close  ;)

And find your stuff again and teek a peek at your old work..they deserve it  :))

Thnx for watching, thank you and goodnight ;))

SMC 2012

SMF did it again, another great SMC loaded with great models, shops and modeling clubs and great demo's by Adam Wilder. The standard is high at the competition and the medals are well deserved, congrats to all winners!

Here some pics of the contest tables at SMC, till next year!

Meanwhile at the Narwa front..

The Stug dio is almost ready, i had to wait a long time for the last Evolution figure. Today i finished it and placed it by the rest. Still need to do some touch ups before i called this one done.. 

The title will be "The Storm Breaks Loose" after a chapter from book "Tragedy of the Faithful". 

I hope you like it!

Panzer IV Detailing

Yes i am taking my time for this Panzer.. the little spare time i have these days i use to weather this model part by part. The advantage of this is that every part is different so you have a very interesting model at the end.

I use oil paint and AK Interactive products exclusively for weathering for this project. I combine the oilpaint technique from Michael Rinaldi ( RinaldiStudio ) together with the AK Interactive products.

As you can see there is still a lot to do but i thought i would be nice to show some pics of the progress i made. 

When you work with oils you have to be patience but you can achieve some cool effects. As you can see the shiny brown spot does not look like leather at all, what you can see is the structure that can be simply made when your working with oils.

In real live you shall notice the orange and yellow i used in the brown color. When things are dry i gently drybrush it with buff and there you have your worn leather piece! 

The weathering stage on top of the hull is almost ready, next to the different colors i used for the spots i also add wet effects in some corners to make it more realistic, after al the Panzer IV is knocked out in a cold wet environment and is abandoned by its crew.

The worn whitewash on the turret is oil paint, i didn't want to use the hairspray technique so it looks more interesting with the hull were i did use the hairspray technique. The effects on the storage bin is made with oils and with AK wet effects.

Next thing to do is the comander cupola, im a not happy how the chipping is done, i think it looks a lot better with some heave chipping with light colors so it stand out more when ready..

I hope you like the update, till next time..!