P-VLOG: Ersatz Panther – From Parts To Painted
Welcome to this P-VLog with the Tank God John. In it we'll be taking one of Warlord Games' new Ersatz Panther kits from start to finish beginning with building the kit, then moving on to getting some painting and weathering done as we finish the model...
Feel free to comment with your thoughts, ideas, and your own work on this kind of vehicle.
Welcome To The P-VLOG
Welcome to this Project VLOG where we're joining John as he builds and paints up the Ersatz Panther. In this first video we'll be giving you a primer as to what we're going to be doing in this project.
Building The Ersatz Panther
In this video we're going to begin building the Ersatz Panther from Warlord Games. If you want to follow along you can pick up one of your own!
Come and check out this tactical and technical trends article from Lone Sentry which talks about how the Germans had disguised these Panthers. It also gives us an insight into what the US soldiers thought of the tank and what the Germans had done to the tank.
Painting Part 1 - The Plan
We begin painting with a plan of action as to how we're going to tackle the project. Of course we want this to be as accurate as possible but we'll probably have a bit of fun too.
Painting Part 2 - Primed And Ready For Some Preshading
Getting the first priming layers down on the Panther we have a look at some of the techniques we can use to give it a level of preshading.
Painting Part 3 - Base Coating In Green
Now it's time to base coat the Panther with some lovely military green. This gives us a great level to work from and a nice even surface which means we won't have to do much cleaning up as we go.
Painting Part 4 - Adding Transfers
It's time to have some fun with transfers where we make it look like a US tank just like the Germans did! This was an ingenious tactic that certainly helped them when they were searching for ways to outfox the allies.
Painting Part 5 - Washes & Metal Work Done
Following on from the work on transfers we then get to the metallic aspects of the Panther and start tweaking the overall look of the tank with washes too.
Painting Part 6 - Adding Some Chipping
Now we get very detailed and start adding a degree of chipping to the Panther. Interestingly we can use a variety of different colours to achieve this as you can see in the video below.
Painting Part 7 - Ready For Weathering
The next step is to get some dirt and grime onto the Panther! We love making things look realistic and what better than a heavy dose of weathering for these hefty tanks.
Final Details - Wet Mud, Rusty Track & An Oily Engine Deck
Lastly we get to do some super detailing as we had some slick wet mud to the tracks as well as some rust too. We also add a nice bit of oily grease to the engine deck on this tank!
Finished Miniature 360° Video
And here we have it! Check out the finished Ersatz Panther here and let us know what you think of it. You can then pick up your own and show us what you did to bring it to life.
I haven’t watched all the videos yet but the finished model looks really well done so good job 🙂
Love the 150th Panzerbrigade and their camo / ally-looking stuff. Makes for some great builts and some great story telling.
Nice P-VLOG.
I really enjoyed these videos, thanks for posting them! By the way @johnlyons did you get time to do one of the tutorials from start to finish in the Giraldez book?
Not yet. Still working up the confidence 😉
You look like you’ve the skills already! He ain’t all that 😉
I really do like this format for a building/painting guide. Everything in one place and broken down it to nice segments.
A great series for everyone on vehicles and painting. Well done and I will be taking these to heart as I do my StuG’s for Bolt Action.
Operation Grief is perhaps one of the most overlooked pieces of modern tactical genius.
Although it didn’t get very far in terms on the Physical effects, the Psychological damage it caused, in terms of doubting who was who, was massive. The Americans even arrest a bunch of high ranking Colonels and Generals because they thought they were actually Germans.
Sick Ersatz though!
Who can forget the stories of Lt. General Omar Bradley being stopped at the side of the road by a section of MPs, and made to sing “Mairzy Doats” (a popular song at the time) to prove he was an American . . . Or General D. D. Eisenhower basically being “arrested” by his own security section and locked in a house for “his own safety.” Not that the commanding general of 1st US Army or S.H.A.E.F. had anything important to do just then, you know, with 26 German divisions smashing through their front line . . . Please, take… Read more »
Great series of videos, I am going to try some of these techniques on my new m18 Hellcat
Excellent and well done.
Now on to the next of 100 builds and paints! (we can only hope)!!! O:)
3 videos down will have to watch the rest later
Love the Tank-porn
Thank you, everyone, for the amazing feedback! It’s nice to be let off the chain and get to blog on such a project. I see a few of you enjoying the techniques used, and honestly, at first I was a little unsure if it was going to be the right approach. Since most of the painting I do in the office is aimed at “army” painting. Stuff to handle a larger number of models in an effective and time-efficient manner. It’s been a lot of fun and quite humbling seeing many of your comments. If you have anything specific you’d… Read more »
@johnlyons you should be let off the chain more often
I really liked this. I like the idea of going in to a little more step by step detail and having a more noobish painter sit beside you and copy your work, asking questions on our behalf and making mistakes for us to learn from. I’d love to see more video series’ like this from john. Would be nice to have a play all button on vlogs like this too. I watch BoW while painting and I prefer to not have to down tools every couple of minutes.
Great series John. The finished model looks great and a really interesting subject.