21st Panzer Stuff

Because I have the attention span of a mayfly, I've started a new project: some of the conversions of French AFVs used by the 21st Panzer in Normandy. I haven't seen anything much of these things available digitally — I'm sure there are some models out there, I just haven't found them.

I'm beginning with the 105mm Geschützwagen 39H(f), because almost all of it can be re-used for the PaK40 version as well.

I'm starting from Marco Bergman's 1:100 scale Hotchkiss H39 hull, chopping it up and adding new detail to the running gear. The superstructure comes next, and then the two guns.

Later....

Got the basic shell of the superstructure pretty much done, though with quite a bit more work than I expected. Blender's "solidify" modifier seldom creates a shell of consistent thickness, unfortunately, but I haven't found a better way to do this sort of thing. I just have to resign myself to doing a whole lot of manual tweaking afterwards.

Later still....

Very nearly finished now. There are still some bits and pieces to attend to, like the muffler and tools and what-not, but this is just about done. Which is good, because I'm a bit bored with it now.