Tiger I by David Blankenship

 This is Tamiya's original boxing of a 1/35th Tiger 1 I purchased in 1975 for $3.74 as a close-out at KMart (yes, they used to carry the latest models.)  Shortly after I bought it,  I assembled and painted the kit with Tamiya (?)  dunkelgelb and weathered it with a bit of dry brushing.  The model sat on the shelf where it somehow managed to survive for the past 49 years.  Modeling techniques, and my skill level, have improved a lot in the intervening 5 decades so I decided to pull it off the shelf, clean the 1/32nd of an inch of dust off it and see what I could do to bring it closer to today's standards.

I started by removing a section of side shirts, denting the rest, and adding some battle damage to the exhaust covers.  This was followed by airbrushing a red-brown and dark green camo scheme and covering that with the "ambush scheme" of dots.   Finally, a cable from the spares box was added to the left side of the hull to replace the molded cable that was sanded off. That was about it for the modifications to the kit. 

                                       

It then received the standard treatment of airbrushed enamel filters, oil pin washes, pigments for mud build-up, and diluted Tamiya Buff for weathering.

The vinyl tracks were glued to the tops of the road wheels to give them a little sag and were weathered with pigments.

All-in-all, it was a relaxing bit of modeling and a welcome break from the, what seems like , one-thousand-piece Takom Panther A with full interior kit I started months ago.