Well, I think by now that most people who ordered a Panzer II probably have them. Pictures are starting to turn up on various sites and those who didn't order one, are probably kicking themselves. Dragon certainly outdid themselves on this baby. I haven't done much more than put mine together and put it in the middle of the floor, but I am sure glad that I got it.

The detailing and finishing on the Panzer II are extremely well done. The only thing I wish is that all the hatches had been functional. I see that there is a real opportunity for the first person that creates an engine for this thing. It really doesn't look like it would be too hard to make the engine hatches functional (though I believe that I will let someone else show us how it is done first).

Here you are seeing my Panzer II with my Early War Germans. I am afraid that I don't have all that many. I have two Pak 37s with crews and non com. I have a 5 man infantry unit and an officer and I have my tank commander. Hardly a huge force, but I am pretty pleased with them. When added to what Panzercommander and Hammer Six have put together, we have a fairly sizable force. Hopefully everyone will get to see all three tanks at the meeting Wednesday night.

I have been working on pictures taken when PC and HS were here last weekend. It is sort of slow going because the backgrounds have to be completely removed. Once that is done. I am going to shoot an additional couple of scenes, add some new backgrounds and have a nice little teaser for a larger photo shoot that we want to do in the spring - working title, Battle of France.

The photo on top has had the background removed by adding what is called a "Clipping Path". The background is actually still there, but I can now choose not to show it, adding another background instead. The original background was this dark mottled green color that you see in the lower photo. This, by the way, is one of my favorite figures that PC put together for the shoot. What a great sculpt!

I am also working on my next VIETNAM STORY Episode. All of the pictures are completed and I am currently laying the story out in comic book form. I have two segments completed so far. I think it is going to be a good one because you will get to see the base for the first time. The Rat Patrol will show up for the first time and there will be a lot of new characters added into the storyline. I stopped to put together a handy reference sheet for myself and there are now 30 characters that are part of the story.

I needed a sheet like this just so I could keep all the names straight without having to constantly look them up in my background files.  I am pretty pleased with the images that I have put together for this story and I think folks will like it. I am pretty anxious to shoot the next one, once I have this one done.

But, I don't want to give too much away, so that is all I will say about it for now. I will let everyone know when it is online though.

Looking forward to seeing everyone Wednesday night at the meeting. Hope the weather will be okay and that everyone can make it (including me). Until then, have a good one!

Well...here it is, the first post of the new year. I meant to post last night, but didn't have the energy to get it done. Hammer Six and Panzercommander came up to Columbus yesterday and we all spent the day shooting the breeze, eating and taking a few pictures. Great day, lot of fun! Anyway, I was too pooped to post last night, so I am doing it this morning. My group had the day off today, but I worked a few hours this morning to get caught up and now I am going to play the rest of the day. Haven't really had time to work on the pictures that we took yesterday, but here are a few raw images so that you can see what we were up to. Hammer Six has this great looking vignette piece that we wanted to use for a prop - a European style telephone pole. First of all we decided to do a scene with a command group, stopped in front of the pole, checking their map and considering their next move. The Kuble, Motorcycle and sidecar and troops are all Panzercommander's. I particularly liked that sculpt on the Motorcyclist as you can tell from the one closeup. Lot of personality in that sculpt.

That Panzer officer on the righthand side of the shot is part of Panzercommander's Panzer II crew. He is all ready for his Dragon tank to arrive and he has got a great looking crew outfitted for it. Look forward to more pictures soon.

Next were a couple of figures brought to feature his great looking telephone pole vignette. That wire reel setup from Dragon is a beautiful piece and it looks really sharp in a setting like this.

Hammer Six bought the vignette from Bobbie at the Ft. Thomas show, one of many great items that Bobbie had for sale. I think I took about 50 pictures total of the two setups and I am looking forward to taking a portion of them and working some Photoshop magic on them this next week as I have time. Panzercommander's scene will be used as part of a teaser for a 1940 Invasion of France dio that we are planning. Can't wait until spring. We were hoping for at least one Panzer II to be here by the weekend so that it could be included, but it didn't happen. Oh well, hopefully we will have a trio of them to share with everyone at the meeting on the 12th of January.

Starting this week, I am planning to do just one blog update each week. Normally, I will plan to do that Sunday night, though if there are conflicts it could happen on Monday evening. I am just finding it too hard to come up with material for three days a week (much less five). It was CK2's suggestion to go to once a week and I think it is a great one. It will allow me to work on some other things besides just the website. I will try to make the once a week update cover 2 or 3 subjects so that there is plenty to talk about the rest of week in comments. I would really like to see more of you participate in the blog. It's real easy to do. All you have to do is use your screen name, make a comment and hit submit. Would love to see more of you participate. So...until next time, have a good one!

Tonight we've got something special. Panzercommander did a tribute to the Battle of the Bulge with a great looking vignette of a German soldier from the 352nd Volksgrenadier Division. It really looks sharp, so enjoy!

Well, I had a busy weekend, but what hobby time I had this weekend was spent working on a unit of early war Germans. I still have some stuff to do to these guys to complete them, but here is how it is shaping up.

When it is all said and done, I will have completed two pak 37's with crews and a small half squad of infantry. I have a two gun battery commanded by a non-commissioned officer (7 men total) There is also an ad-hoc squad of infantry composed of three riflemen, one machine gunner and a non commissioned officer with a machine pistol. Not a big unit, but I guess the guns make it seem a little bigger than it actually is. Of course once the panzer gets here, my unit will seem a little more impressive.

There is still quite a bit to do. There are some straps to replace, some detail painting here and there, but  the unit is basically complete. I am only planning the one figure for the tank (the tank commander). Since it only has one operating hatch, it seems sort of pointless to have a full crew. That tank commander is the early war figure from DID. It is a great figure right out of the box and should be the perfect finishing touch to my vehicle. Well, that is all for tonight, just thought I would share what I have been working on. Until next time, have a good one!

Found this latest picture of the Dragon Panzer II online yesterday (think it was OSW) and I have to say that I am now in an absolute frenzy for this thing to come. I have spent this week so far working on early war Germans. Leave it to Dragon to find me a reason to collect something else. I have four guys put together so far and I think (once my War-Toys order gets here) that I will be able to put together another five or six. The biggest problem was coming up with those stone-gray early war pants. Fortunately, a supply of 21st German general uniforms came to the rescue. Remove the red ribbons on the seams and you have the perfect color of gray trousers. Perhaps I can even come up with one or two more pair with a little digging through the spare parts box. One never knows.


I had ordered another PAK 3.6/3.7 because I wanted to use the gun with a sd.kfz 250 that I got at Ft. Thomas, but after seeing how good the gun I already have looks with a full crew, I got to thinking well how good would two gun crews look. I am definitely in an early war mode right now.  Thanks Dragon, thanks a lot. Here's another shot of that tank before we go.

And that's all for this evening, have a good one!

Each time I see new pictures of the new Dragon Panzer II, I am really glad that I ordered one. These are the latest pictures to show up online and I am really pleased at the level of detail.

Of course I am not surprised. Dragon has a history of taking 1/35th subjects and turning them into 1/6th products. They actually did this model of the Panzer II a number of years ago. The detail in these pictures looks just as good.  I think the picture above shows how good that detail is going to be. It's a very sharp looking model.

The earlier pictures that were online didn't show a lot of detail. I am pleased to see that there are going to be a lot of tools included, that were not shown in the earlier photos.

This is the first time I have really seen a view of the back like this. I really like how they have finished the muffler. That looks sharp. I was telling Hammer Six last week that I sure hoped that hitch was going to be functional. That would add a lot of possibilities. It really does look good. Can't wait for it to get here. I am pretty excited about it. Hammer, Panzercommander and I have already got a shoot planned - Battle of France.


Well, that's all for tonight. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, until next time, have a good one!

      This is going to be kind of a quick blog this evening. It was a busy weekend. Saturday I attended the Militaria Show at Robert's Center with Hammer Six. He had a table and was able to sell some figures as well as talk to some folks and pass out some card for the Ft. Thomas show. Me...well, I mostly walked around and spent money. There was a lot of interesting stuff for sale there and I picked up a couple of pieces. It was a really great time. Special thanks to Hammer Six for inviting me.


     The rest of the weekend was spent getting ready for the show at Ft. Thomas. I finished off the items for my display and got everything packed up. Firebase Cooper is already in one of the cars. We are going to have to bring two cars to carry everything, there is just way too much stuff for one. I also got all my sales merchandise priced and packed up. What a pain that was, I am glad to have it done. With everything done I will not be spending the next two evenings trying to get stuff finished and that is a huge relief. I had imagined that I would still be trying to get stuff together Tuesday night, but all I have left to do is packing it into the other car. Can't wait till Wednesday evening. It is going to be great to get everything set up, knowing that I don't have to touch it again until Sunday afternoon.


    I know that Hammer six has got a big German setup planned for the show, so I thought we would focus on one of his vehicles tonight. I don't really know much about this particular vehicle, so maybe he can Illuminate us with a little information about the vehicle. I will just take the easy way out and show some pictures of it.
HORCH

Above is the real thing, pulling what appears to be a Pak 37 in 1941. Below are several shots of Hammer Six's vehicle, finished in early war Panzer Gray with a nice selection of details. I will let the pictures speak for themselves and then maybe Hammer Six can fill us in on the details.

What a great looking vehicle, I'll take two, thank you. Really sharp looking my friend. I can envision that Horch in all sorts of dioramas. Well, that is all for tonight campers, until next time, have a good one!

As I continue to think about that Dragon Panzer, I decided to reflect for a few moments on what my current German motor pool looks like. It is neither particularly great modeling, nor is there a whole lot of it and it is definitely "late war".

First up is my Kubelwagen. It started out as a 21st Century Toys vehicle. I raised the body  about a half inch so that it looked a little more correct with my schwimmwagen (probably should have lowered the schwimmer actually). I added quite few details, but it is still not in the same league as the  Dragon version.

This is my schwimmwagen. It is your basic 21st Century vehicle. I made a few basic modifications to it, but nothing radical. I didn't cut it apart and radically change it, it was just small stuff; extra details, a scratchbuilt radio. I based it on a vehicle that was featured in modeling magazine. Certainly not up to the quality of a Dragon schwimmer, but it is a good basic vehicle and it works well with my 6th SS troops.

This is my Hetzer. CK2 is always giving me a hard time about not finishing it (standing joke we have). Actually, it is "finished", about as finished as any vehicle ever is. There are quite a lot of mods I would like to do to this one. I just need some solid time to put in on it. This is an old Mardon Callenta vehicle, so it's pretty well crafted, but it is fairly basic and it could use some serious detailing to become a really great looking vehicle.

This is of course my pride and joy; my sd.kfz 250/3, finished as an SS vehicle. This baby has been heavily modified and it is all done with what I had on hand. There are no after-market parts on this half-track. I probably have about two hundred hours in this model and of course when I look at it, I see a lot of flaws, but I am still fairly proud of it.


My motor pool, as you can see, is all late war and of course the Panzer II is an early war vehicle. I really don't have a whole lot of early war stuff. It is going to be a lot fun to put together a small early war unit. I am having a lot of fun thinking about it and planning it.


Well, hope you enjoyed seeing some of my favorite vehicles, until next time, have a good one!

I personally cannot get enough of this. I am pretty excited about the DX'10 exclusive - The Panzer II. As far as I know this is the only picture so far of the way the production vehicle is going to be finished and I think it looks really sharp. As a result, I am already thinking about how I might detail it. I began looking for images online and sort of divided my investigation into two categories; actual vehicle photos and models. Thought I would share with you some of the stuff I found.

As discussed in a previous post, production was stopped on the Panzer II in 1943 because it had become obsolete in the face of more heavily armed tanks. However, the tank continued to be used throughout the war and as a result was seen in many different paint schemes, such as the winter white application over panzer gray in the photo above. I need to do a lot more research on it, but the photo suggests that we are not just restricted to panzer gray or mustard yellow for painting this baby.

I am probably wrong about this, maybe Panzercommander or Hammer Six could set me straight, but I am thinking that these next two pictures are showing a Finnish Panzer II, at least I think that is what the large white cross is indicating. Any answers on that?

Can't read the location on this one above, but the date is 1941. This could be a number of locations. Interesting the crewman riding on the back deck of the vehicle. The tank in the back actually looks to be a Panzer I. It looking like there might be a little bit of stowage on that back deck of the lead vehicle as well, but it difficult to tell.

Here we get a couple of shots of vehicles in North Africa, I think this could be an interesting way to finish the tank and it is obvious from these shots that there were plenty of them present in that theater.

I really like this shot below because there is a lot going on in the pictures. Looks like two Mark IIs and a Mark III, which would indicate that early in the war, they probably even operated in units together. Those of you who know a little more about Panzer units can probably shine a little bit of light on to this. The motorcycles would seem to indicate maybe a recon unit, I don't know. It is a cool scene and one that would be fun to duplicate in 1:6th. Notice that there is some stowage on the Mark II's and the lead one has a flag tied down on the back for identification from the air.

A rare color shot, which may be staged for our friends at SIGNAL. Notice that these two Mark II's have a clean rear deck.

Below is a Mark II in the "parking lot" at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. I have photographed this particular tank my self and have seen it up close and personal painted like this with that black stripe on the turret. Oddly enough, I have never seen a picture in a book with a similar marking.

I thought this was an interesting shot below, not only because there looks to be a little bit of stowage on the vehicle, but the vehicle is also carrying some infantry soldiers.

Another interesting shot, check out the cupola on the lead tank. A very interesting variation, I have never seen this one before. Anyone have an idea what that is for? Command tank?

Sometimes pictures of other models can be a nice source of information. Who can ever forget this classic for Tamaya back in the 70's. An Afrika Korps version of the Panzer II complete with four infantry soldier figures. I think I build about three of these when I was a teenager.

This model below doesn't have any stowage to speak of, but I do like the winter camo job that has been done on it. Looks like it is ready to take on some Russians.

I thought this shot was real interesting because it definitely has some after-market pieces added for a cluttered looks. Look at all the stuff on that back deck. I would love to pile that much stuff on this tank. It just has the look of a vehicle on the move. Possibly a little over done, but cool all the same. So here's the challenge, I am looking for detailing ideas, if you see any great pictures out there off Panzer II's send them in. Several of us are getting one of the new Dragon Panzer II's and I know I could sure use some ideas.

That's all for this time, until next UPDATE, have a good one!

Okay, we all know we want to talk about it...

Is it for real? Will it get produced? Will they find their way to the United States? How much will it cost? Will I be able to get one (or more)? Will they make it into a kit?


Let me just say up front that I don't have the answer to any of those questions. What I do have is a couple more questions... Is this a production sample? Is this a hand built model? Those are two really important questions when trying to determine what Dragon might or might not do. And no, I don't have the answer to either one of those questions either.


What I do have is some pictures (and I swiped all of those)...

Suffice to say, I think we all want one, the question is how much will we have to pay and what will it really take to obtain one? I can't say...I am admitting that I am pretty skeptical about the whole thing as we have been down this road before. I remember a Panzer III that 21st was going to do and more recently a Humvee that Dragon was going to do. I just hope that I am dead wrong this time because this is one cool looking little tank. I truly hope the project doesn't end up like this real Pz. II Ausf. B...

Ouch... That's all for tonight, until next time...have a good one!