Hello guys!
I want to show you my progress of my APC Kätzchen!
A german armored troop trasporter made by Auto Union.

Only mockup was made and the end of the war stoped the work on it.

So i think we can call it a What If vehicle.

This model is scratch build by my friend Fabian Hohenberger. He made 2 of it and was so kind to give me the second one.

ok, i wont write about the build, because i wasnt involded. But i want to talk and show you the paintjob updates.

lets start with the primer. like trup would say "Primer first!"

i think on german vehicles the primer is a very important step. my way is to follow the original process, so i always use a Red Oxid primer. in this case i use Mr. Hobby, because u will get a very realitic color.

without for the nude look


and primed

Mr. Hobby primers are very sharp and tocix. in the past i had some problmes in combination with acrylic paints, so i decided to add a varnish after the primer is dry.
i also used Mr.Hobby here for a better match


next is chipping fluid! this is a very important point. later i want to cret scratches and chipping through diffrent paintlayers down to the red primer.


ok, after all ny basics were done i started to plan the paintsheme.. yeh, what to do first? right! just use all of them!

i decided to creat 2 camos in one. a combination of Oktopus camo and nightfighter camo. remember, what if? NIGHTFIGHT!

but first i added the basecolor. after some discussion on Facebook i took some DG and mixed a bright late war DG color.

AK Real colors are my statndert colors atm. mostly because of the very fast drying! very usefull for working with masks.
some white for the bright ans some yellow for the deepness




call me the MASKMAN! the fun begun..

i took a set of solidscales random wave set and begun to add the film onto the model. i had to test arround a bit, but i found the right waves for the right positions very fast.


Airbrushing slowly, not to much paint, better a view thin layers. 3 rules i had to learn.
its important to remove the film cafefully! again, slowly


and here it is, the first stage of masking done!



next steps soon! stay on it, alex.

Hello Alexander,

Your friend Fabian did a great job on his Kätchen. I have been intrigued by the vehicle since I heard about the project years ago. I even think that Lutz Fellmuth did a resin project a long time ago?
I don't have the Panzer-Tracts issue at heand which had the scale drawings in it, but I suspect that Fabian used those for his build?
Great work, I look forward to seeing your weathering.

Theo

It looks great. I would like to see pictures of the build.

I don't think anybody cares who post them as long as your not claiming your friends works as yours...

hi theo, dont know about a resin kit! and yes, he used panzer tracts drawings and pictures to creat the kätzchen. very intresting topic here.

[quote]


hi, i need to ask fabian for some pics then! yes, u are right, shoulndt be a problem. give me some days to get the pics!

great start-i wish that we would see this in plastic one day.
Dan

Hi Alexander,

Yes, the Kätchen is a very interesting subject. Partly because several test vehicles were built by several firms.

As you know, one was based on Hetzer components, and there were at least two other Kätchen vehicles, perhaps even more.

One did use Panther road wheels, others road wheels similar to the E-series. Different sprockets and idlers are also known.

I now remember, Lutz sent me a few photos of his master model, many years ago. I don't know where they are right now, but I shall have a look.

The Tech Intel book has one picture of the vehicle that was found. It's blurry though. I wish I still had the book. I thought the sprocket and running gear was smaller than what you have depicted. Your model does look great.

George Bradford did a set of scale line drawings based on the Hetzer in his Late WW2 German Vehicles paperback.

Thank you! maybe we will be happy one day

THEO!

there were some prototypes, made by diffrent comapnies. the choosen one was the K1 by Auto Union!

ok guys!

i talked about oktopus right? this time i used a set called "Symbole 46" which comes with diffrent camo add ons. for example split rings.


in this pic u can see the size of the mask. actually very small and i had to be carefull not to spray over the edges.


so i made me a little helper, who was very usefull!


agian i used AK REAL colors for the paintjob. tha fast drying is superb for working with mask. i was able to paint all the split rings over the whole model in a few minutes!