Note: Above pic for article illustration purposes only. I didn't paint this!
Distractions are dangerous. However, enlightenment is good.
For some reason unknown to me or science, I picked yesterday afternoon to grab a 1/48th scale Jagdpanther from Tamiya off my shelf, and started putting it together. I bought it on a whim years ago, when I first moved to Malaysia and visited Tamiya Underground at 1 Utama. After I got it home that day, I promptly stuck it on the hobby shelf to gather dust until now. I know I have Fallschirmjager to finish, and I know I need to get my Flesh Tearers done. However, this Tamiya kit is AWESOME!
All of my experience with plastic vehicle kits as an adult modeller has been with GW stuff. Until recently I never had much of an interest in anything else. Having only built and painted things like Leman Russ tanks and Rhinos, I considered the detail and quality of these kits to be the standard. That could not be further from the truth. The detail, crispness, and fitting tolerances of this Jagdpanther are WAY better than anything I've built before. It's awesome! For instance, I finished assembling one of the track sections, and there wasn't so much as a fraction of a millimeter gap in the plastic track links. I can't say the same with Chimera tracks- always a gap!
For those of you who are experienced with these kits, I'm sure you're shaking your head right now and chuckling. "This guy didn't already know that? HAH!". Fair enough- I'll take my e-licks on the chin with all humility and respect to the hobby. For those of you who DIDN'T already know this, and enjoy building and painting vehicles, I strongly recommend you grab yourself a 1/48th or 1/35th scale kit of whatever you think is cool and have a whack at it. I think you'll be surprised at just how cool it is, even though you will never play a single game with it.
I'll post pics when I get this thing built, and more pics as I progress in painting. I'm telling myself that this is "training", and that my StuGs will be better because of it. Pre-shading, filters, oils, weathering, etc. will all get tried on this model. I'll make my mistakes on it, and then use what I learn to make my StuGs PERFECT!
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
