Tamiya 1/35 Tiger II (Henschel Turret)
Konigstiger!
The Last Of The Royals...
The Tiger II...
What a beast of a heavy tank! 150-185mm of steel protecting the front and a powerful long 88mm to delete anything unlucky enough to be caught in its sights. This thing is nearly 70 tons of unforgiving German steel!
Tamiya's Molding of it does it certain justice. Its simply Imposing!
To Kick off this model I'll talk about the build quality. The 90s sprues are great, and everything comes together easily. One thing i would warn about is to apply the zimmerit(if you want) before you add any extra parts to the flat surfaces.
Following the assembly, I laid on a coat of light camel as the base. I then masked the build and painted on a layer of brown, which was then followed up by a coat of ivy green. Unfortunately, I don't have an airbrush, so I had to do a lot of touch up work after masking. Even Still, it all came together to make a pretty convincing paint job.
I next attached all of the tools and smaller parts. These were painted individually, and then added to the build. After this, I did all of the decals, thankfully not too many of them!
For weathering the model, I applied a light brushing of mud onto the tracks and lower hull, before following it up with a lighter tan, and then a blackwash. I then further applied a light brushing of an extremely whitened tan all over the model to give it a "washed out" look, better mixing the camo colors. I then applied the finishing details, namely silver on the high contact surfaces like the handles and corners, and also blackened the end of the barrel.
To finish it off, I used a bit of 3d printing ingenuity to make the black radio antenna on the rear of the vehicle. Following this, the build was complete!
Overall, This hulking brute was an incredible piece to make. It's details are simply amazing, and its simply made for complex camouflages. Since I bought Tamiya zimmerit sheets, this kit costed me $45 total- not super pricy, but not a cheap kit either. I think that Tamiya's Konigstiger is a great kit, and can add a bit of impressive presence to any shelf it's on!
