Somewhere in Normandy
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Vehicle is typical Dragon kit. Full of fiddly parts, busy and often unclear instructions but overall good moulding and detail. I had to keep reference material handy to see how parts actually fit. In terms of interior it's something of a mix. Hull is partially filled but most of it is not visible anyway so I only did the biggest pieces that I assumed would be visible through the turret and not bother with the rest. Same for painting. I used white primer that is close enough to creamweiss and painted biggest pieces. I painted interior of the turret with creamweiss and weathered it because being open it's visible. I did vision ports in closed position so I didn't bother with their interior either. One unpleasant surprise was that all wheels had a significant gap once assembled which required some work to be filled.
Kit generally offers option to use PE or plastic, which is a nice touch if you don't want the hassle. Mesh roof top is PE only and I used it in couple of other places as well but used plastic otherwise.
This was my first attempt at 3 tone camouflage and in fact my first attempt at any type of multi coloured kit. I didn't use mask and so ended with soft edge pattern. Green and red areas are a bit bigger then what I planned but the beauty of this pattern is that there really is no wrong way to do it as long as you use right colours. Weathering includes wash and pigment combination on wheels, chipping and streaking grime. Overall for first attempt at all this I think it looks well enough.
Crew figures are what you can expect from MiniArt. Pretty fine, nice fits and decent details. They required a bit of repositioning of hands to fit on vehicle but nothing extraordinary. They wear combination of classic panzer and infantry uniforms, something expected at that point in war. Two figures with jackets have yellow piping on their shoulder boards, which was used by reconnaissance units who also wore panzer jackets. By this time the red piping on chest lapels was discontinued.
With building I may have used a bit too dark colours which combined with grime was creates darker overall look. Some posters were added for extra detail.
Groundwork is pretty basic. Cork pieces for road, usual stone and grass scatter and grass tufts for cracks and edge of the road.
Overall very happy with end result.
