Evening all!
Tonight, I gave myself the enjoyment of completing a kit I started (I still have 5 of those laying around, and am now starting a Dragon 6287 88mm FLAK 37 or Tamiya Panzer II F/G (the 1971 kit)).
The kit is a tank which also happens to be the first one I built two of in 1:56 for the Bolt Action wwii miniature wargame - the British Valentine, this one with the very characteristic light blue paint scheme, which I also did for this one, with the patient application of masking tape. I am rather satisfied, bordering on proud, with the result of that paint job, and also did the white and red flag with masking tape and a drybrush, rather than using the decals.
Actually, the decal for putting on the turret was not dimensioned to fit around the raised surface details, so apart from suffering from discolouration (the kit is an original from 1996, and the decals are Dragon's own, not Cartograph), they would not have done me any good up there! Lousy quality for a kit.
This brings me to the colour of the box of this kit, which is that warning light red. The red kits (Imperial series) Dragon has released are viewed in the Dragon modeller community as generally subpar in quality to their regular '39-'45 series, Premium edition, Zimmerit, and Smart Kit series. Based on my experience so far (two kits, this one and the Stug III C, prod.no. 9035), they are subpar, but the Stug III was no worse than non-Dragon kits, for me. Just had more mold lines, which Dragon models usually do not have, except for on barrels. This is the Dragon kits' forté: They really are tooled for modelling enjoyment, but with more details than Tamiya kits on average, and often has independent track links.
Kit link: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/1856...lentine-mk-iii
As you can see from the kit lineage on Scalemates, the sprues were actually made by a company called VM, not Dragon themselves. So this is not a "true" Dragon kit, as I understand red box kits are not (most of them were bought from Gunze Sangyo).
There were a fair share of fit issues, and the tracks are either going to be very fiddly, or have to be cleaned on about every surface in order to sit just perfectly. You will probably be able to see what I chose on the photos ;-) But that's the difference between modelling enjoyment and modelling work in my eyes. Another fit issue was between the lower and upper hull, which may be a result of having to paint it ahead of putting them together, but that has to do with the way the side plates cover the tracks and upper wheels, so you have to do it like that, I think. The wheels and bogies for the wheels had severe fit issues in some cases, and I did not realise this until the glue had hardened. Fortunately, this does not show because of the skirts!
I may varnish and weather this at some point, but for now I am very happy leaving it as it is, looking almost new. I have two more of these, from which I can build the two other variants. I doubt I will do another one with the light blue pattern, but I am very happy I finally did one at least!
Thank you for reading this far, and happy modelling! Questions and constructive criticism is always welcome.
Christian
[ATTACH]297574[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297575[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297576[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297577[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297578[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297579[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297580[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297581[/ATTACH]
Tonight, I gave myself the enjoyment of completing a kit I started (I still have 5 of those laying around, and am now starting a Dragon 6287 88mm FLAK 37 or Tamiya Panzer II F/G (the 1971 kit)).
The kit is a tank which also happens to be the first one I built two of in 1:56 for the Bolt Action wwii miniature wargame - the British Valentine, this one with the very characteristic light blue paint scheme, which I also did for this one, with the patient application of masking tape. I am rather satisfied, bordering on proud, with the result of that paint job, and also did the white and red flag with masking tape and a drybrush, rather than using the decals.
Actually, the decal for putting on the turret was not dimensioned to fit around the raised surface details, so apart from suffering from discolouration (the kit is an original from 1996, and the decals are Dragon's own, not Cartograph), they would not have done me any good up there! Lousy quality for a kit.
This brings me to the colour of the box of this kit, which is that warning light red. The red kits (Imperial series) Dragon has released are viewed in the Dragon modeller community as generally subpar in quality to their regular '39-'45 series, Premium edition, Zimmerit, and Smart Kit series. Based on my experience so far (two kits, this one and the Stug III C, prod.no. 9035), they are subpar, but the Stug III was no worse than non-Dragon kits, for me. Just had more mold lines, which Dragon models usually do not have, except for on barrels. This is the Dragon kits' forté: They really are tooled for modelling enjoyment, but with more details than Tamiya kits on average, and often has independent track links.
Kit link: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/1856...lentine-mk-iii
As you can see from the kit lineage on Scalemates, the sprues were actually made by a company called VM, not Dragon themselves. So this is not a "true" Dragon kit, as I understand red box kits are not (most of them were bought from Gunze Sangyo).
There were a fair share of fit issues, and the tracks are either going to be very fiddly, or have to be cleaned on about every surface in order to sit just perfectly. You will probably be able to see what I chose on the photos ;-) But that's the difference between modelling enjoyment and modelling work in my eyes. Another fit issue was between the lower and upper hull, which may be a result of having to paint it ahead of putting them together, but that has to do with the way the side plates cover the tracks and upper wheels, so you have to do it like that, I think. The wheels and bogies for the wheels had severe fit issues in some cases, and I did not realise this until the glue had hardened. Fortunately, this does not show because of the skirts!
I may varnish and weather this at some point, but for now I am very happy leaving it as it is, looking almost new. I have two more of these, from which I can build the two other variants. I doubt I will do another one with the light blue pattern, but I am very happy I finally did one at least!
Thank you for reading this far, and happy modelling! Questions and constructive criticism is always welcome.
Christian
[ATTACH]297574[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297575[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297576[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297577[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297578[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297579[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297580[/ATTACH][ATTACH]297581[/ATTACH]
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