Panzer IVd Diorama

[Greif8]

The Mark IV is finished and ready to be placed in position when the time comes.  I spent a fair amount of time weathering the tank, and I tried to get the same look that the tanks I served on had after a few days operating in a dry dusty environment.  Onr of the things that jumped out at me while looking through photos of German tanks during Case Yellow/Red was the lack of externally stowed stuff.  Many of them had almost nothing extra stowed on the outside with the exception of sections of tracks in various locations.  I chose to only add two track sections in places on some tanks that I saw while looking through photos.  I also only used one of the tow cables, as the great majority of photo from 1940 showed that tanks only had one.  That is often the case today as well, the logic being that if your tank needs recovery and/or towing the other vehicle will also have a tow cable.  

 

 

The spare track section locations and the way the tow cable is stowed were ideas taken from photos of three different Mark IV's that I combined.

  

 

Dirt and dust tends to build up along the lower edges of the hull and turret.

 

Some of the dust gets rubbed away from areas that see crew movement.  

 

The rear of tanks are dust, dirt and mud magnets.  I added a heavier coat of dust/dirt to simulate that.

 

This close up of the left rear of the turret shows how dust/dirt tends to accumulate along the lower edges, and how areas that get rubbed by the crew tend to be slightly cleaner.

 

The gunner's hatch opening also shows areas of dust worn away by crew movement.

 

I am pretty satisfied with my efforts to get the Mark IV weathered as it would have looked sometime during the first week of Case Yellow.  Below are some photos of my tank taken during at different times during the summer of 2004 in Iraq for comparison.

 

The following 3 shots were taken by my "wingman" of my tank as we were departing for a mission.  The "road" has been sprayed with water to keep the dust down on our combat outpost due to vehicle movement.  Of note is the right rear dust/mud guard, a replacement for a damaged one; you can see how quickly dirt and mud get throw up in the rear of the tank, we have only moved about 35 meters from the first shot to the third shot.

 

 

 

Ernest

[Gazzas]

Great dusty effects, Ernest!  Very nice looking model.

[Madmax]

The model is looking fantastic, and I must say that your own tank looked pretty cool too! 👍

[Greif8]

10 hours ago, Gazzas said:

Great dusty effects, Ernest!  Very nice looking model.

 

1 hour ago, Madmax said:

The model is looking fantastic, and I must say that your own tank looked pretty cool too! 👍

 

Thank you Gary and Max!

 

Gary - the tank turned out pretty well.  I put a lot of thought into how I wanted the weathering to look and tried to capture a realistic look with the dust and dirt, using both photos of German tanks taken during Case Yellow and my own tank taken during operations in the same weather conditions as my examples.

 

Max - as I told Gary, the Mark IV turned out well, I am satisfied with how it looks after weathering.  I plan to post a few more shots of the tanks I served on durng my career to add some contrast to the thread and to motivate me to keep doing me best on the build.  With that said, below is a photo of the first tank I commanded many years ago, taken during a platoon level live fire exercise by a U.S. Army photographer at the moment we fired our main gun.  Pretty HOOAH!!! as was/is often said in the U.S. Army of such things.  My wife thinks I still get a "chubby" looking at old photos and videos of my days on the steel beasts - (and she is sometimes right I admit).😅

 

Ernest 

 

 

[Greif8]

I finished the detail painting on the building section and it is now ready to be weathered.  I have also started work on the figures.

 

I painted the brick work with two additional shades of brown to break up the uniform look of the base color.  The grey stonework was also painted with two different shades of grey and the slate roof, shingles on the side of the building and gutter/piping each got their own shade of grey, so five different shades in all - hmmmm, wonder if I can get the wife to try out a 6th shade of grey? 😄

 

I realized that I needed flooring for the ground floor and cut a piece of balsa wood cut to sizw, then topped it with an old wooded floor decal I had.  While at it, I also did some wallpapering.

 

Below is the current cast of characters for the diorama.  I am probably going to add a fifth if I can find one that fits with what I have in mind.  These guys will be positioned to "tell a story", and if I get that right if should let the viewer know what happened and is going on with very many words on my part.

 

Ernest 

[Gazzas]

Hi Ernest,

 

The building looks great!  Love the wallpaper.   

 

I hate to be the bearer of unwanted news.  But the figures in the billed caps are wearing the M43 cap.

 

 

Which wasn't available until much later in the war.

Aside from the beret, you have a choice of M40 overseas cap...   I dunno why they are called overseas caps.

 

 

 

 

There might be other issues like later pattern panzerwraps and stuff.  I suppose you could get away with changing heads...  I'm hardly an expert.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 2 by Gazzas

[Jim Barry]

Really fine work Ernest and wow those M1's.  What a weapon! I imagine you've built a model of one ?? I've never finished modern armor in scale, but have come close with a Bradley. Let me know if you have some custom needs with the figures. I'm learning to mix files so I can add very realistic badges now and not just go with whatever ai wants (or doesn't in the case of Nazi symbols) . I pulled this off tonight for fun. (had to strip his badges off to get the ai machinery to turn. It will happily remove them from photos. 

 

[Greif8]

On 6/2/2026 at 6:37 AM, Gazzas said:

Hi Ernest,

 

The building looks great!  Love the wallpaper.   

 

I hate to be the bearer of unwanted news.  But the figures in the billed caps are wearing the M43 cap.

 

 

Which wasn't available until much later in the war.

Aside from the beret, you have a choice of M40 overseas cap...   I dunno why they are called overseas caps.

 

 

 

 

There might be other issues like later pattern panzerwraps and stuff.  I suppose you could get away with changing heads...  I'm hardly an expert.

 

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Jim Barry said:

Really fine work Ernest and wow those M1's.  What a weapon! I imagine you've built a model of one ?? I've never finished modern armor in scale, but have come close with a Bradley. Let me know if you have some custom needs with the figures. I'm learning to mix files so I can add very realistic badges now and not just go with whatever ai wants (or doesn't in the case of Nazi symbols) . I pulled this off tonight for fun. (had to strip his badges off to get the ai machinery to turn. It will happily remove them from photos. 

 

 

Thank you Gary and Jim! 

 

Gary - thank you for the heads up (grin).  Fortunately the two figures in question come with a capless head as well as the one wearing the M43 overseas cap, so I am out of the woods there.

 

Jim- thank you very much for the kind offer concerning printing special order figures.  I am sure I will take you up on the offer in the future; perhaps the very near future if I can't find a 5th figure in the pose/correct uniform that I want.  Your 3D design skill have really taken off, that figure looks the biz man!

 

The M1 series of tanks are beasts to be sure, and I enjoyed almost every minute I served on them.  Believe it or not, to date I have never built a model of one, which my wife finds strange considering how much I loved them - she refered to my various tanks as "the other woman"!  That said, my interest in modeling one of the tanks I served on in Iraq is growing and I can see one on my bench in the future.

 

Ernest

Edited June 3 by Greif8

[Greif8]

I spent a few hours weathering the building section.  I wanted to get a shabby worn look and used a combination of washes, filters, dry brushing and pastels to weather the surface.  

 

 

 

A grey wash simulated the grouting.  Afterwards I drybrushed some "dust" and general grim into/onto the brickwork and finished with a light application of a dusty pastel chalk mix that I made.

 

The slate roof also got that treatment to simulated streaking caused by rain on a dusty suface.  The "moss" at the lower edge of the rook is a little out of control length wise, but I liked how it gave some color to the very somber overall look so I left it a little longer then it really should be.

 

I heavily streaked the shingle siding using the same media that I used on the rest of the building.

 

The wooden areas got a combination of the laying technique using acrylic paints and some dry brushing to give them some depth.

 

Ernest

[Gazzas]

The search for ice cream bars?  Sorry...   just putting two and two together (maybe the wrong two) and wondering about the name.  All looks great, Ernest.

[Chippyminton]

That’s great, Ernest - a really lovely model. So you think the moss is overdone? You should have seen what I dug out of my guttering from up the ladder yesterday morning …… another few weeks and it would have looked like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon 😳