Building it up.

The hull and the breech. It's all nicely moulded, and the gun is quite detailed as for something that will sit enclosed and not visible at all... 

The superstructure. Some details glued on, hatches are so far left out - I don't know where I'd like to have a figure or two. It all comes together nicely, without unnecessary divisions, fits well. Nice welding and steel cut textures. 

The backside. Handles were quite crude so the plastic ones looks good. All in all - the design itself shows that it was a vehicle did in a hurry and to save the existing prototype hulls. 

I replaced the barrel. Metal one is much better in terms of length and shape and the plastic one, while generally good, have very weird muzzle brake division, that adds some extra work if you want to use it. Not bad, but metal replacement saves time. 

And a full Pak 43 assembly. Looks quite intimidating, but again - most of this will be hidden, so I didn't bother with any extra touching or cleaning up.  

All ready for priming. Although the PE set was designed for Dragon kit, with a bit of more work it compliments the Zvezda one nicely. 

I decided to do the travel lock in travelling position, although instead of gluing it, I decided to make it workable. The PE rain guards are quite prominent there.  

I probably spent one evening pondering, should I replace the fenders with PE ones. However it turned out, that swapping them would not really benefit the model as those have nice texture but they'll sure add a ton of work. 

The toolbox. I seem to come a long way in terms of doing the PE parts because I didn't have to correct this one at all. It'll be filled with tools and left open - surely it'll liven this side a bit. 

Frankly - I could've omitted quite a lot of PE parts, because the kit is detailed well enough. I tried to liven it all a bit by adding the cutting marks on the steel plates edges. Again - sources sometimes show them as more prominent or almost invisible. 

Even less happening on the rear side. Only convoy lamp was added and some railing.  

The 20t jack and typical wooden jack stand. I had to make some teture, because oddly enough Zvezda forgot to texture this part. The Jack was added only a wire handle - it's a very well made part and quite accurate too! 

All the miscellaneous stuff ready to be primed. Tools are from the Tamiya Panzer IV set, towing cables are from Eureka XXL 

Some clamps and tool holders, I also added lamp wires, although I couldn't really find any references as to how they looked. 

Superstructure backside is also "thrilling" with just one mount replaced with PE parts.  

The camo applied. It was quite hard to find one consistent pattern, so I went on with this one as the thin lines were not my thing to spray on 🙂 

There are no numerals so far, as they will be decals - somehow the Eduard masks that were included in their PE set didn't come with numbers.  

Toolbox is open as it will be in the finished model. So far there are usual tweaks and corrections in the paintjob to be made. 

Scratches & stuff - I planned to make it neat and clean, but... you see - it was fun... I also changed the numerals according to the sources. Further weathering when I'll have the base ready. 

The other side - it's more or less ready, minus the dust & dirt, but I have to blend it with the base, so it'll have to wait a bit. 

Reading through the sources, I found some interesting field modifications - like this one with tracks arranged like that. I moved the jack and the block to the rear - surely this'll add some flavour.  

This was the basic layout of the scene - with minor changes it went through 😉 

Some bottles to liven up the scene. Painted with Mig Crystal colours. Labels are quickly done with some spare decals and masking tape. 

Crew mid-work. Mostly Tamiya set with some heads changed to resin ones. 

 

No good pose to be found in figures I had, so I decided to get this one from Alpine Miniatures. A good sculpt is a pleasure to paint!