Hi. I'm QDC.
What we will build today is
Dragon's
Ersatz M10. This is gonna be
the third and final part of my entire diorama series
called
Battle of the Bulge: Operation Griffin. To recap,
of my model project...back in World War Two
during the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler had an audacious plan.
He want to gain key positions in the Ardenes area
and he wanted to have his own soldiers dressed up
allied soldiers wearing their uniforms and also using allied
equipment such as tanks to gain key positions.
But Hitler had a problem. He didn't have all the allied equipment he needed
to pull off his plan
so he had to compromise. What he'd done was to use his own tanks,
Panther tanks and make it took like an allied tank.
This is Hitler's
scheme to make a Panther tank to look like a M10 tank destroyer
so let's go ahead and start building this kit right now.
Let's take a look inside this box.
We have
the instruction. Parts for the turret.
Magic tracks.
The turret
itself. Parts for the rear hull.
More parts for
the turret. Upper hull.
Lower hull.
Air intake grille.
And the wheels.
I want to talk to you about Photo Etched parts. Photo Etched parts
is not really that much more harder than using
sprues so what you see right here is
a photo etced fret and to remove the part you want
all you have to do, just like using a sprue, is
to remove the notches with a tool
I'm using a knife and
just take it out.
It's time for me to build the Magic Tracks. What you see right here
are the Magic Tracks and they're made up individual links.
Here are one set of tracks I'm working on right now.
In order for you to build Magic Tracks you need a straight edge like I have right
here.
You don't have to use it but I'm using one and
what you do is you carefully put
each individual link together which
are about 160 of them. And after you
assemble each link together, you glue
each indivual link. Let it set and then
wrap around the wheels.
I want to talk to you about important part of this model kit. What I'm pointing at
is the facade that makes this tank
into a Ersatz tank. This facade
is really nice
and highly detailed. Of course is very plain
but what I like about it the best and I'm not sure you can see it is that it's
razor thin.
Which is historically accurate because this was
only act as a facade to disguise this Panther tank
to make it look like an American tank.
What I'm going to do is to remove the sprue
and then put it on top of this turret
and it's a good representation at the real thing.
The tracks a dry
so I'm going to remove them from the from the model
and the reason why I'm doing that is because it makes it easier for
me to paint both the tracks and also
inside the wheel well.
Alright so we built the model kit and now it's time to show you
what I think about this kit so far. Take a look.
This is the completed model kit before painting
and Dragon has made very good product.
This model really does look like the Ersatz tank
from World War Two with great photo etched parts.
A great facade for
the turret. Nice side skirts
and Magic tracks and
the front hull looks really realistic
to the actual tank itself. There are a lot of small parts
in this model kit that makes this tank look outstanding.
I highly recommend this model kit. That being said,
I do not recommend this model kit for the beginner because
there are a lot of small parts. For those of you who are beginners
who really want to build this model kit then I will recommend
that you should have a lot of patience. It's time for me to
paint the model. It's time for me to paint
the model.
I already gave my entire model a coat of black primer and now
I'm going to use my airbrush to
give the entire model a coat the base color but I'm going to leave the edges
black to give it more visual interest.
Now I'm going to give highlights by spraying the entire model with a lighter color
of the base color.
I'm going to protect my model by giving the entire
tank a coat a Future Floor Wax.
I'm going to do some pin washes.
I'm going to add some chipped effects.
I'm going to give my entire model some dust effects.
I'm going to give my entire model a tint of Buff color.
I'm going to add
mud and snow effects. What you see right here is
watered tile grout and right over here
is joint compound in a powdered form.
I'm going add the mud
onto tracks and onto the wheels and then right after that
I'm going to sprinkle the joint compound on
to the wheels and tracks to simulate
snow.
Okay, so we built the model kit. We painted it.
We weathered it and we even made a diorama out of it
so now it's time for me to show you the entire
model diorma. Take a look.
This is the completed model diorama
and I've done a very good job doing this diorama.
It really does tell the story about the Battle of the Bulge:
Operation Griffin and the best part of course
is the tank itself. The tank is very well made by Dragon.
Highly detailed with great Magic Tracks and all the small parts
that make up this model kit really does standout.
I also like my own paint job and weathering.
I like the way I've done the
painting of the
olive drab paint and the snow effects. It really does look nice.
The figures I painted really give
the story about Hitler's idea about
infiltrating key positions in the Ardenes
by disguising his own soldiers to look with Allied soldiers.
If you're interested in knowing more about how I built
the base and also the figures I
made two videos of it part 1 and part 2
here on YouTube and you're more than welcome to see it if you want.
That completes this project. What you are about to see next is a video slideshow
the entire model project but before you go, as always,
just because I put this video here on YouTube it doesn't hit the model kit expert.
I am NOT an expert. I'm just
a regular guy just like you. I hope
video encourages you to build a model kit of your own. Either it's a
tank, model plane, a model train,
or even an automobile. It doesn't matter.
In the end, it's all about having fun.
I'm QDC. Thanks for watching
and always, please, have a great day!