Posts by xander janssen

Hi all,

One can build nice models out of paper, but building dioramas is not that easy in paper work. Although Johnny presented some nice ones (bombed house, closed road and the bridge diorama), I like to combine my old hobby of modelling with my new one, paper modelling.

I started a couple of weeks ago with building a diorama for my T34/76.

For the peoplo who are interested, I first show the way I builded this model.

1 started with old packing material shaped into desired surface
2 covered the surface with some layers of paper of handkerchiefs soaked in waterproof wood glue mixed 50/50 with water.
3 painted the surface with acrylic paint to enhance the depth effect
4 painted the regions where to put vegetation
5 covered the brown regions with waterproof wood glue mixed with a little amound of water (10%) and spreaded fine sand (of the beach) over it.
(Use such an amount of sand that the base is completely covered but the base paint still has to be visible through the sand otherwise the depth effect of the paint is gone)
6 glue small patched of Heki grass onto the desired regions where no sand is glued. Small patches create a more realistic appearance than one big sheet.

Between each step, it is important to leave the diorama to dry for a couple of days. Especcially after applying the glue/water mixture

If somebody wants to know more about the details, just send me an PN

One wheel, a lot of details and even more edge paints to go before the model is finished.

To get myself an impression about how the model will look like, once it is finished, I putted everything together.

I must say I'm very pleased with the result, especially when I compare it with foto's of a real one displayed in a museum close to where I live.

For people who want to build a Pak, I can recommend this model of GPM. It is quite detailed (less than the 1:16 of Draft but still oke) as all the new GPM models are. It is also quite easy to build due to the execellent fitting of the parts, although the small details take a while.

The most difficult parts are the tapered "legs" of the gun and the gun barrel, because their aspect ratio (length/diameter) is really big

Xander

Hi,

While reading some topics on this forum, I found out that a lot of people have difficulties to make cilinders from thick paper for example the paper of GPM.

While building the T34/76, I used even thicker paper than that of GPM because that was the only paper/cardboard available in the desired color.

The construction went OK until I reached the gun barrel. I was not able to roll a nice cilinder without buckling the paper. Therefor I made my own tool to roll cilinders out of thick paper.

I did not think of sharing this with all of you until I recently started building the PAK of GPM. This model has a lot of parts that have to be rolled in a cilindrical shape.

My method works as follows.

Picture 1. I glued a piece of normal 80 gr/m2 paper onto a wooden stick of 3 mm in diameter.
Picture 2. Place the paper to be rolled onto the piece of paper (Face down)
Picture 3. Gently roll the stick across a flat surface while holding the thin paper under tension. The paper is now rolled onto the stick and pulling the part of you model with it.
Picture 4. Now gently tap with the stick on the table until you part falls out.
Picture 5. The part is rolled into a cilinder but slightly to much (left), now gently unroll the cilinder and due to the tension both edges are pressed together by itself (right). Apply some glue from the inside, and your part is finished.

This method works the best if the wooden stick is just a little smaller than the desired inner diameter of the cilinder. For bigger cilinders, you only have to roll the paper around the stick until the diameter is ok and than insert you part.

For very small cilinders, the GPM paper might still be to thick. Instead of de-laminating the paper, I hold it a few seconds above a cup of hot water (coffee, thee or whatever) to get some moisture in the paper. Make sure that you don't wet the printed side.
Due to the moisture, the paper becomes a bit softer, while after drying, it has the same strength, whereas de-laminated paper does not.

Because the forum is so big, I don't know if somebody already posted this idea. So for the moderators, please feel free to delete this post if it already exist

Xander

Very nice model, especially the amount of details on the PAK.

I have seen the drawings on how to build this model, so I know that a lot of details aren't visible in the final model, because they are hidden deep inside. Like the gears to turn the barrel in the horizontal direction.

This is also true for the interior of for example tanks and other vehicles . The drawback is that it is very difficult to show in an exhibition, because you either have to choose to show the whole model, or take a part (like the turret) and show the interior.

In a way it is nice because the builder and other cardboard-modellers are aware of the fact that a model hides a master piece inside.

About the diorama, very nice work. Both the setting and the use of non-paper materials. The idea of the broken tire is really good.

It makes the diorama less static.

Although construction reports about the Pak 40 of GPM (Russian winter) and DrafModel (DAK version) have been shown in this forum, I want to show the results of the GPM (wheatered DAK version).

Due to all the small details there is a lot of edge painting nessecary to get rid of all the white lines.

For the edge paint I have been using a mixture of Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ocre and Black acryllic paint.

Instead of mixing a lot of paint and painting the whole model at once, I only mix small amounts of paint forcing myself to remix the paint often.
This gives the paint a more wheatered appearance.

After downloading a lot of pictures of the Pak 40 from the web, I got a fealing for the amount of paint damage and locations of damage due to opperating the gun. On the locations where the paint is chipped on a real gun, I mix small amounds of fine grained pigments through the paint. These grains do not dissolve completely but leave a rough surface simulating rust under the paint and chipped paint.

In the pictures this is hardly vissible, I'm still trying to find out how to make sharp pictures in the Macro mode of the camera.

One thing I don't like on the models op GPM is the fact that the tabs for glueing part together are attached to the parts (left part of last picture). I prefer to remove these tabs and glue them under the joint, as shown in the right part of the last picture.

This reduces the amount of edge painting nessecary and results in smoother cilinders.

It took a long time, but finally I finished the trackwheels and the tracks on the left side.

On the next models, I will start with the dull work (the wheels and track), because leaving them to the end reduces the drive to finish the model.

Now it is completely finished, I'm building a diorama the classic way, it is going to be a non-paper diorame.

Just to combine the best of 2 world, nice paper models together with realistic scenery.

The results of this work I will show you in the "Diorama" part of this forum in a couple of weeks.

Xander

Hi,

I downloaded this figure from:

http://www.paperwarbirds.net

The one on the base of the Flak is modified to fit into the model

With a program like photoshop you can edit the colors of the clothing and change details.

Xander

I'm sorry about the link.

Is there a list of things that are not allowed on the forum?

I already found out that some signs from WW2 are not allowed. But I was not aware of the fact that linking to some sites is not allowed.

I downloaded the 4-cm-FLAK Bofors from

Admin: Link entfernt. Wir dürfen diese Adresse weder erwähnen noch verlinken.

It is in scale 1:250 so in order to match my 1:33 models, I upscaled it.

The gunner is the downloaded from http://www.paperwarbirds.net/c….do?page=page.2_download1
and modified to fit the Flak

The helmet comes from GPM (STUG III ausf. A).

I still have to build a second gunner and a figure loading the gun and add gasmask, machine guns, drinkbottle, ammunition clips to the figures
(All from GPM).

I'm still looking for boxes used to store the Flak ammunition.

I finished the right track of my T34/76, added the head-lamps and machine gun barrels.

I still have to build the antenna and the wheels and track on the other side.

The spare parts of the track on the back of the model are the left-overs of the main track because the provided one is a bit to long (A few centimeters to long is less of a problem than a few millimeters to short)

Here you can find a tutorial on how to build your own figures out of paper.

The scale is completely up to you, because you build from scratch

http://www.piterpanzerwwii.com.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=79

Hi Shurik,

I bought it at Pipoos, it is a dutch company with shops in different major cities in the Netherlands. They sell a allmost everything regarding "creative" hobbies like paperwork, painting, sculpturing etc.

They have a website: http://www.pipoos.nl/ but that is completely in dutch. There is no Englisch translation, so I looked for you at the product they sell in their Webshop. The paper is unfortunately not for sale on the webshop.

Just to get you an idea look at: http://www.hobbyhandboek.nl/ca…asp?cat=D1&subcat=D01

If you go through the pages 1,2,3 etc you will find all the paper they have. The green I used is on the second page and is called: Olijfgroen (olive green).

The brand of the paper is Papicolor: http://www.papicolor.nl/

This is a Dutch company with an Englisch website, maybe they sell through the internet.

The figure is from: http://www.paperwarbirds.net

Actually it is a WW1 pilot, but I use it to give people an impression about the actual size of the rockets.

In a program like CorelDraw it is quite easy to "re-dress" this figure with different clothes.

The paper I bought at a specialezed shop. They have a lot of different colors.

Of eacht color they have sizes A5, A4 and A3 and of all these sizes they have 3 thicknesses (80 gr/m2, 160 gr/m2 and 250 gr/m2).

Regarding the fitting, For the wheels it is quite difficult to fit al the 12 parts/wheel together, but this is not due to a misfitting of the model.

The only part that did not fit was the top of the tank (This part is wrapped around and builds the top, the front and back (both the upper and lower part of the sloping part). This part was 2 mm to short as you can see on the left side of the the picture of the bottom.

I had to add a small strip of paper to get the gap closed.

The part is the biggest of all (about 25 cm long) so I'm not sure if this is a problem of the model or due to the fact that the printer not exactly prints a ratio of 1:1 in the long versus the short direction of the paper.

2 mm on 250 mm is an error of 0.8% which is a typical error for a normal deskjet printer when printing on this thick paper.

I downloaded this model from: http://www.pluto.dti.ne.jp/~naka/ and scaled it from 1:50 to 1:32 to fit with the V1 and V2 rocket.

After downloading and resizing, I removed all the green colors from the drawings.

The model is then printed on green 160 gr/m2 paper. The paper is green throughout the whole sheet. So painting the edges after cutting is not nessecary.

When this model is finished, I'm going to build a diorama (not a paper diorame but a classic diorama out of styrofoam, wood and plaster).

In the mean time, I ordered scale 1:25 of GPM the:

Sd.Kfz 250/3 "GREIF"
Sd.Kfz 251/1
PzKpfw III Ausf. G
Pak 40

With these models (when finished in a few months/year) I'm going to build a Deutsches Afrika Corps diorama.

Two models I builded a while ago.

Both rockets are designed by the Germans during WW2.

The models can be downloaded on: http://www.currell.net/models/mod_free.htm

The V2 needs still needs some edge-painting around the exaust system.