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King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 6:47 am
by Marc780
I tried several times to avoid the ambush" pattern and just use the same style as on the Tiger 1's-standard dunkel gelb base with olive drab/red brown stripes. On my Tiger 1 it came out perfectly the first try-on my King tiger though, I was never able to do a pattern i considered satisfactory. Although the obvious conclusion from looking at photos of the wartime king tigers is, there obviously was no "correct" pattern and each and every one of the 450 KT's (most of which never even made it to the battlefield) had a different paint scheme.

This is what the tank looked like almost two months ago.

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then some more minor touch ups that did nothing to achieve the result i wanted.

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This is what the tank looked like a month ago. Almost, but not quite...

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This is what the tank looked like last week after half measure attempts to "correct" it. UGH!

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After deciding on a refurb because of this issue, and even getting a new airbrush to do it with (Master g23) I found myself in the same situation of having done what i considered another shoddy camo job. After re-examining my saved photos of the dozens of scale and real KT's I decided to do a little more painting and go all the way with the "ambush" scheme. So there is what it looks like now. And I like this one, i think i can stop painting now...!

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Re: King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 7:02 am
by Marky Voodoo
Fantastic Job Marc780. Looks great! Did you do the Ambush pattern with Air brush or by brush?

Cheers.

Mark.

Re: King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 8:41 am
by ruben2005
:wave: hi Marc, very nice paint job fella :thumbup: :thumbup:

Re: King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 11:00 am
by Marc780
Thanks Voodoo and Reuben! I don't think I'll ever make it to master-class with this or my TIger, try as i might- but one needs to keep the bar set high, an incentive to try hard for the best results I can achieve, after all.

It didn't occur to me do the spots with the airbrush...i think the tendency for me at least, would be one slip of the airbrush trigger and accidentally make way to big a spot-then start the whole exercise over again...wasn't willing to take that chance. I did the small spots using a red plastic straw, the small kind that comes with spray cans of WD40 and such. Dip it in the paint bottle, dip once on scrap, then a quick dab on the tank. Will probably get two at most three decent dots from one daub of paint, then repeat. There is a tendency in painting a lot of us including me have, and that is knowing when one is finished or almost finished, and when one is overdoing it. I always try to stop well before it seems "finished" with things like these dots, as it's so easy to add more later but if you put on too many...well no one wants a polka dot tank.

Like every time before I painted the KT and my tiger, I always examine my collection of tank photos, both models and the real item-i must have several hundred images by now. The idea being to develop the "painters eye" to what looks right BEFORE the airbrush is squirting out the paint! Somehow though with this KT a lot got lost in translation between brain and hand, at least up to now-my way of doing things i care about that are delicate, artistic tasks that require manual dexterity seems to be "never time to do it right ALWAYS time to do it over". Did I mention i took 4 years of drafting in high school (in the old days when they used t-squares and 2h pencils instead of a mouse?) and liked it-especially the airbrushing course where my first subject was, you guessed it, a side view of a King tiger tank!

When daubing the spots, please don't forget, always turn the part of the hull you're working so it is horizontal first, before daubing it with paint! Sideways daubing seldom achieves the desired results, its better done horizontally. (I could insert a naughty joke in there but i shall forego that since it wouldnt fit and this is a family site.) Hold hull horizontal or else there is a real risk of runs and not getting a good looking dot of paint. I should have used more practice and been a bit more careful, the results would have been more uniform. I was just so thrilled with the results and finally making her start to look like a real war tank i couldn't stop and had to start daubing the dots right away like a kid on Christmas!

Re: King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 5:37 pm
by Scottie
I think you nailed it perfectly nice job!

Re: King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 8:25 am
by Markocaster
Yea it looks good :)

Re: King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 4:45 pm
by Marc780
Here it is a year later...what i was going for -

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And what i wound up with

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http://i61.tinypic.com/jl1kpj.jpg

The sharp eye will spot much missing detail! Unlike many people here i just don't have the keen eye nor the coordination and skill anymore, to fix all the tiny parts that need to be added. I'll get to all that eventually even if it takes a year or more (which it actually might).

Re: King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:18 am
by tiger tiger
Good job there, i really like the finished paint job on your king kitty. i like the king tiger its an imposing model as was the real thing, its a beast. i think you have really nailed it on the paint this time. Nice one.

regards

stuart

Re: King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:42 pm
by jackalope
Marc that's really a good job you've done, you should be quite proud.

BTW a little trick I came up with for the dots that keeps them a very close uniform size and they're not perfect circles, Qtips! Just dip in paint and dot the tank! Is very easy to do looks great and is cheap enough for anyone to be able to do.

Re: King Tiger Refurbished-Ambush Pattern

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:35 pm
by Marc780
thanks jack, i will have to keep that in mind!