E-100

Produced by Dragon, this model is the biggest armoured German vehicle that I know of, even compared to the Maus which is quite imposing in 35th scale. The general quality of the kit is up to Dragon's usual standard, we are used to their quality mouldings and impeccable fineness. Made up of a few less than 300 pieces, moulded in soft light-grey plastic, Dragon has really spoilt us with the set of separate tracks links, supplied in sections made up of 5 links, and the rest as individual links. The majority of the work is centred on the six pieces, which represent the turret, in one piece, the top hull, the bottom hull, the back and the two sides. The aeration grills on the engine deck are also included, in the form of a small-etched brass set. That's all I have to say on the kit itself.

The construction will be very simple, thanks to the dimensions of this monster vehicle and the size of the parts. Assembly begins, as usual, with the hull, which is assembled in a few minutes, after careful cleaning of all the pieces, of course. I would advise you to assemble the sides first of all, then the back panel and the bottom hull before fixing the top hull. Doing things in this order will prevent gaps from appearing between the parts. The whole thing needs to be left to dry for a few hours, leaving time to prepare the wheels and the various chassis components. Assembly of this will be very simple as well, as Dragon has moulded most of the parts in one piece. Any remaining traces of moulding should very carefully be removed from the wheels. You can now fix all these elements. Only the front-drive sprocket should be left loose, in order to allow easy assembly of the tracks. As far as the tracks are concerned, the notice has the best solution in my opinion. The bottom part should be assembled first, then the front part around the front drive sprocket, followed by the back part and then finally fill in with the top part. This allows you to get a magnificent sagging effect (an expression used to describe the bending in the tracks on their wheels due to their mass). Note that you will have a few links left over, which may come in very handy if you have any problems.

Two handles should be added to the hull hatches, these handles have been forgotten by Dragon but are perfectly visible on wartime photos. The pieces on the front glacis plate are definitively positioned. This is a very quick operation. The towing shackles can then be glued as well, but this isn't compulsory. Once this stage has been finished, all that remains is to place the various parts, which make up the engine deck, those that line the turret and the assembly of the gun. Two versions are supplied: a long gun and a short one. In our case, it is the shorter version, which interests us. It is in five parts, two for the tube, two for the muzzle brake and an etched brass part representing the openings for this. Assemble the tube first of all. There is no need to replace it with an aftermarket part; you just need to take your time during assembly. Spread just a little bit of liquid glue on the joint, press hard until you get a perfect joint. After drying, delicately sand in a circular motion around the tube and not vertically up and down. You will thus create a perfect joint. For the etched brass part, spread super-glue all around the muzzle brake and apply the piece that you will previously have fashioned around a paintbrush. Personally, I would shorten this piece by 1mm, because it seems slightly too long to me. Then, after complete drying, and of course for those who are interested, I drilled the holes again, one by one, which makes it considerably more realistic. The gun is then fixed on the turret following Dragon's instructions.

Before going any further, add a piece of plastic to the front of the hull. In fact, on available archive photos of this vehicle, we can clearly see that the front of the hull has a line of holes, used to fix the armoured skirts. These pieces are cut from thin plasticard and put in place. Another important point is that the sidewalls and the welding seams are, for this scale of model, a bit too smooth for my taste. I began by reworking the welding seams with a new scalpel blade. I simply started engraving, in the same direction, all the visible welding seams on the front, the sides etc…. The other task is to rework the general surface of the kit with a dental burr mounted on a mini drill. Adjust the speed, not too quick or you will cause the plastic to melt, and let the burr wander principally over the vertical surfaces of the turret. The aim is not to reproduce a roughcast effect, but rather to show the small imperfections of these large plates, which were cast in one piece. Try to obtain a uniform effect and not one where certain areas are more marked than others. The rear and front of the turret will be subjected to the same treatment. The traces of assembly of the turret panels, which show up as hollowed roundels, are also reworked with an adequate drill bit. For more precision, I didn't use my mini drill, but I did it manually, allowing better control of the pressure on the plastic.

What's more, when looking at wartime photos, several questions spring to mind, such as: " what would this vehicle have looked like if it had been produced ?" Or, " How would it have been painted if it had been used in combat ?"Now that the kit is finished, this is the next point to be addressed

Much has been written about the colours used by the German forces at the end of the conflict. By consulting the numerous references available, anything, or nearly anything, was possible, as long as certain rules were observed. At the end of 1945, faced with a flagrant shortage of raw materials, certain rumours report a return to panzer grey, this being partly due to the large stock of grey available caused by colour changes in 1943. But this hypothesis is not confirmed. What's more, some vehicles were used with the red anti-rust primer directly applied in the factory. Some vehicles even had camouflage over this primer. Others were seen with more or less strange camouflage schemes, such as those that can be seen in certain publications, showing new up-to-date archives. It seems that Jagdpanthers or even Panzer lV's were seen with flamboyant purple shades. Therefore, we can imagine all sorts of things. I decided to paint my E100 with washed green camouflage, sporting some large yellow stripes, on which some green dots were applied. These camouflage schemes were spotted on Tiger II of the s. SS.pz.abt.511, in May 1945. From this information, we can easily imagine that this E 100 could have been painted in a similar fashion.

The base coat for this camouflage is the humbrol green H159 kaki drab, heavily mixed with white paint in a 3 to 1 ratio. When fully dry, the yellow is applied on top. The yellow is the usual reference use, the H 93 or H94. It 's just a matter of choice, as the filters and washes will change the final result. Then came the highlights. Using the base coats, I started to highlight all the flat surfaces on the model, which means nearly everywhere except on the engine deck. The green dots are painted using a template cut into a piece of masking tape with a hole punch. The yellow spot in the centre is hand painted.

The model is left aside for another 48 hours. This is what I usually say, but it all depends on the conditions of drying. If you use acrylic paints, you will encounter drying time, and work sessions will be more frequent.
Following Miguel Jimenez technique, I applied a series of filters on the model. Filters on the contrary of washes are intended to bring chromatic shades to the base coat. Washes are used to give an impression of depth and contrast. Filters require heavy thinned paint, 10 % paint, 90% white spirit. The filters is applied with large flat brush and set aside to dry. Many filters can be applied depending the effect you wish to give to your model. For this one, I used some dark green paint and another with dark brown. It only at this stage that the work carried out on the surfaces is revealed as we can see the marks left by the dental burr. I used the H29 dark brown reference for the substructure.

The wheels are then repainted using a fine nozzle in the airbrush, but just in the middle using the same green as for the base coat. Later when the paint will be dry, a heavy dark brown wash will be applied in all the nooks and crannies. For this I used oil paints, ranging from burnt sienna to black. These washes are applied using a 000 paint brush.
The weld seams are reworked with dark brown pastels, which were thinned with white spirit and applied with a fine pointed brush. I find this way of working far more attractive and also in my opinion, it gives better results. The various traces around the turret and on the front glacis plate are made using this method. The mud on the hull side is first of all painted with dark brown, using several shades, in order to give more depth. Then it is reworked with dark, light brown, orange and sand colour pastels. All these colours were mixed in a plastic food container, ask your wife for this!!!
Pastels are fixed to the model like normal paint. The front part will be more orange as to simulate rust, which is mixed with the accumulated mud. Dry mud is hand painted using Humbrol H121. Some drybrushes were applied here and there, but remained light.
The engine deck is darkened with dark pastels chalks. The same goes on the machine gun portholes as well as the rear turret door. It is a nice way to enhance them on the green background.
Tracks were previously with a brown mixture, which was followed by an application of rust colour pastels. This operation was repeated until the desired effect was achieved. In some places the mix of pastels was lighter as to simulate the different shades of colours rust can have. The inside of the tracks were also treated this way, but with lighter shades. Only the wheel-rolling band remained darker.

All the recessed areas on the wheels received a dark wash of brown pastels thinned with spirits. Drying time takes between 15 to 20 minutes, and you can see the thinners evaporating, leaving only the pastel powders. It is only at this moment, that the pastel gets its dusty appearance. Tracks are then drybrush with some oil black paint.

The only things left to paint were the markings and the Balkan crosses. I did not use any divisional symbols, as German panzers did not carry any at this stage of the war. I used the Stencillit products. The white colour is mixed with a bit of yellow to tone it down. I did not wanted them to be too flashy on the camouflage. The exhaust stacks were also treated with wet pastels, using colours ranging from orange to black. The vision blocks were then painted with gloss black and the model was finished.

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