Just noticed the direct sunshine on the Tiger this morning, so thought I'd just post this to show the beast off in it's natural environment.

As an airplane guy, if any tankers have comments or criticisms please share them now as the weekend will be about finessing and fixing. I'd appreciate input, however much work it means.

The Tiger looks great David !

You're about to unleash the Beast ! I have added a link to a web site by a man you may have met during one of your recent visits at the IWM. His name is David Byrden and he specializes in Tiger tanks.

http://tiger1.info/unit-page/501-Afrika

The only little thing that catches my eye is the side fender skirts. The way they are molded isn't how they were if you were to look at one from the end. These were simply flat pieces of metal and they didn't have a vertical edge on the ends. Here's a few photos showing what I'm trying to describe,... sort of like the "florists wire" thing a while ago...as a degaussing wire for the Big E.

Please don't take this the wrong way, as this is a masterpiece by itself, and is very impressive. It's just meant to be a little input as you requested.

If you really wanted to go full on "Tiger OCD", you could check out the little things that set the 501st Tigers apart from the others. If not, then only 1 person in about 152 million would possibly know the difference, and that person's opinion doesn't matter.

Either way it looks great. I like how the colors look outside in a natural environment.

Well done my friend. 🙂

These early Tigers from S.Pz.Abt.501 had some odd little things about them that were not found on your typical early production Tiger. These were things like how the head lights were mounted, the front and rear fenders may have been a little different, and possibly the tow cables could have been mounted in a different manner. It's also possible the rear muffler shields / guards could have had a different venting pattern in the metal. I'm not 100 % certain about these things, but David's web sight should be able to point you in the right direction if you so desire to go down that dark and lonesome road...

Experience in the field eventually led to changes on the assembly line. One such example is on the very first Tigers, the headlights were mounted on top of the hull. They were very prone to breakage there, so they moved them to where they were located ahead of the front slope. Some tanks had two headlights, while others had a single light mounted in the middle of the front slope.

Please check out his web site, and in particular the bit on the 501st, as he even has tank numbers listed that were present in Tunisia.

I sincerely hope this helps...

The 'Panzer Elves' have already been to work today, on loan from Louis's esteemed Ironworks.

Appreciate the comment, there's been a lot of help and advice go into making this; standing on the shoulders of giants, Tom!

And there is one of those giants. Thanks, Michel, appreciate the encouragement.

I agree with Louis. The Tiger is looking great, and it proves that modeling skills are modeling skills, and learning curves are relative things. David, this is truly fine work.

Of course, the biggest learning curve is the one we wake up to every day. Until we don't.

Im really enjoying the work on the Tiger and in terms of sharing work, I'm reminded of two things I keep telling students when they say they are afraid of not being 'good enough'. The first is never compare your insides with some else's outsides (especially important in these days of social media) - the second is that the only person you need to be better than is the person you were yesterday. As applicable to life as much as modeling. Or modeling as much as life.

Every day is an opportunity to 'reboot' - live with courage and faith.