Meng Panther A late WIP

Hi all,

Thought I’d share a couple of photos of my current wip, Meng’s Panther A late. I picked up this kit when it was first released but have only just got around to painting it.

It’s a nice kit, goes together really well. I replaced the kit wheels with some spare Dragon wheels as I had some already cleaned up and ready to go. Didn’t touch the kit tracks and have a set of fruils already build. The zim was made with milliput and trumpeter zim tools, the rest is oob.

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Wow. really nice work on the zim. :+1: :+1:

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Cheers Armorsmith, I’m really pleased with how the zim turned out. Think it’s the first home made zim I have done that actually turned out how I wanted it to :slightly_smiling_face:

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Great work! I agree with Armorsmith, the Zimmerit is top notch!

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Looks excellent with,nice Zimmerit!

Inspires me to take a new look at the Meng Panther kit.

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My first try at Zimm also turned out well. I think the homemade zimm is like riding a roller coaster the first time. Can be scary at the start but it turns out well.

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Welcome to the new forums @guern !
Really nice looking zimmerit. You’ve done a bang up job on the camo painting also. It’ll be great to see the finished photos. Can never have enough Panther pictures.
Cheers,
C.

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Excellent work. I think these home made zimmerit s are the way to go. Look awesome and natural. I agree with @TopSmith the first time is a roller coaster. I removed mine and restarted like 5 times. Really happy with the end result though.

What I like about the home made ones is they are perfectly imperfect with thicker areas, thinner areas, worn areas, wavy, etc.

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Thanks everyone for the welcome and kind comments. Agree that homemade zim is the way to go. I had a few attempts that were either a bit meh or pretty rough so changed my approach. I think the key for me was getting the milliput nice and thin and applying it really early in the build. Once I started doing that I started seeing much better results :slightly_smiling_face:

I’ll keep the updates coming. I’ve moved on to the basic detail painting, starting with the tyres so it might take a little while!

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How did you get the milliput thin enough? I used latex paint and wall spackle for this one on my stug but think I may need milliput for my Elefant build.

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Well done on the zim and that camo scheme looks great. Thanks for posting.

c

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@Guern
Excellent zimmerit and love the paint job! I really like the soft colors
sort of a slight dusty effect.
Cheers,

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@Mead93
For the milliput, first i rolled a small amount together and thinned it out with my fingers as much as possible. Next I placed it in the center of the area that is to be coated and used my thumb to spread it out to the edges. I also used to back of a blade or small chisel in some areas. The trick was to keep the milliput very wet and apply a bit of pressure when spreading it out.

I did this early on in the build before adding any many fragile parts. I also masked off weld seams and recessed details before applying. It was a messy job and it’s very easy to accidentally fill in details when spreading it out. Finally I cleared up the edges and stamped the pattern. For larger areas like the hull sides I worked in sections. As long is the milliput is kept wet it will take a fair amount of time to harden which allows for each section to be blended in as you go.

Hope that is of help! Also, I think you have done a great job on your stug, looks really good to me :+1::+1:

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Wow, thats homemade? It looked like the model was molded like that! Super!
Ken.

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Thanks! I like the stug too but I think the elefant zimmerit pattern will be closer to your panther than my stug based on photos I’ve seen and I think the technique you used will do a little better on the elefant I plan to build. It looks superb on that panther

I also found zimmerit a messy job, like you I did it early one of the first things I did and also had to mask off a ton of detail to stop the zimmerit from getting in it and consume it

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Just a small update, basic detailing of the running gear is done, moving on to the upper hull next.

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:+1:t2:

Cheers,
C.

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It won’t be very visible if you are fitting Schuerzen but there should be Zimmerit on the lower hull sides too. There are factory photos (e.g. in Panzer Tracts 5-2) which show the areas covered.

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Painting and detailing are at a premium here on this one. I’ve never built an armor kit before (outside of throwing them together as a young kid) so I’m taking notes whenever I see some good work being done.

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I agree about the need for zimmerit on the lower hull. Though like mentioned look at photos. On my StuG I put it in places it probably shouldn’t have gone

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