Okay! Some more progress squeezed in among having Covid week before last and having to run a review and quiz my students before interim exams next week. I also have several meetings upcoming to discuss education plans for kids on my caseload (I am a Special Education teacher) but I hope to at least start painting my gray IIIs. It helps having three batches of base coats (gray, DAK, dunkelgelb) so I can focus on a few at a time. Plus I don’t have enough open space in my paint area to hold all at once.
I applied a primer of flat (until I ran out and switched to satin, and then gloss) black to each to attempt a speed run on them. Bear in mind my display is basically set up as a museum of German armor so I build them to be about as accurate physically and visually as the best museums might possess, but I am not taking these to a show so expect no wizardry here! In order to complete a 3D version of Chamberlain and Doyle’s Encyclopedia of German Tanks of WWII before I die or the world implodes–and bear in mind I conceivably have another 24-34 years–I have to work quickly to get these things out on the floor. I have tried the ‘paint it black’ technique a couple of times before and it worked out pretty good. And I’ve gotten much better with my airbrush since then, so I’m hoping for good things.
Anyway, some pics:
And here I am with the Bergepanzer:
I have not primed the Tauchpanzer yet as I am still working on the stupid DS hose.
Also, the DS tracks on the Befehlswagen decided to contract and split while sitting on the shelf; hadn’t even been painted yet. So I need a replacement set of late 40cm Pz II/IV tracks, I’m pretty sure. So that one will be delayed until I get those replaced. Always something.
Oh, and here’s a shot of the detour I took from the IIIs:
Little Falcon thrown in for scale.
Oh, and in memory of the occasion, here is a picture of where I used to work 20 years ago;
My store was the first two floors, with Merrill Lynch holding offices in the remaining five. They were gutted by fires started when the debris came punching through the ceiling, but the suppressors stopped it before it got to my place of work. Our café was used as a base of operations by the emergency crews as it was an open area with lots of large tables, and our exit to the underground mall was used to locate people trapped in the mall when the collapse began. In the lower left-hand corner of the building on the first floor was a Krispy Kreme donut shop (I still have one of their t-shirts) that somehow managed to avoid any dust penetration because they had recently had their windows replaced and all the seals were brand new. The donuts were given to the emergency workers, since they were now day-olds and the store was a bit closed anyway. Our children’s department was located right overhead of the donut shop. I used to buy 3 jelly-filled there and then a large soda in our café every morning for three years (I was there for five but KK came later) but not that Tuesday. Didn’t have any donuts that day. Went on a couple of runs, waited in some lines to use a pay phone, avoided a wall of debris, went on a pleasant stroll from Church and Vesey all the way up the east side to 74th Street with a coworker who arrived just in time to turn around and run back the way she came, while the skyline rewrote itself behind me. Anyway. Remember this day for those who didn’t get the chance I got. My wife was nine days from delivering our first child that day, and she went from almost being a widow with a fatherless child to a mother of two extraordinary girls and I got to be a father. I have a lot to be thankful for. Don’t mean to bum anyone out; just wanted to make sure today got noted somewhere and since I was already in this thread…
Anyway. That’s the Federal Post Office behind my building (#5 in the WTC complex btw) in the managerial light gray stone. I once spent 15 minutes in line talking to Lee Renaldo, guitarist for the New York band Sonic Youth at that post office. We talked about death metal and what it was like touring back in the 80s in a crappy van stuffed with gear. Sonic Youth broke up a few years ago. I outlasted another NYC icon.
