I applied the winter camouflage using the hairspray technique, which produced some mixed results, especially on the hood, hopefully they will be mitigated as the weathering progresses. Here are some pics of the process.
I am also painting the machine gun shield totally rusted.
Every time I have an idea for a model that involves something new I try to build something else to practice it. Most of the time the something else ends up being pretty involved at the end, but no harm I guess. For the SdKfz. 251/1 I wanted to model some Waffen-SS figures. So I took a Dragon figure and started practicing Waffen-SS camo painting following Calvin Tan’s technique from his book. First results were pretty bad.
As I practiced I got a bit better, although one thing I couldn’t really get right was painting faces with acrylics only, so I went back to the oil paints and finished the figure. I still have the equipment to paint and fix on teh figure. I still need to give it a flat clear coat.
This is going to go with some of the Melusine PVC figures I bought a while ago, which I have repainted and I am in the process of weathering.
The interior is almost done, it needs some more weathering and I will maybe add a few more items. The equipment like the ammo boxes and the helmets are from a Tamiya figure set.
I decided to finish this kit for the Hanomania Group Build at Missing Lynx. I finished the interior assembly and started painting all the details. This is my first panzer gray vehicle so I am experimenting with some techniques for chipping, given that there is a lot less contrast available than on a dark yellow vehicle.
A local hobby shop, Galaxy Hobby, sponsors two model contests every year, one in the spring and one in the fall. The one in the spring is a general modeling contest, things like aircraft and armor but no science fiction. SciFan is held in the fall, with only science fiction related models allowed. This year I was awarded two prizes, a 1st place in Anime Spacecraft and a 2nd place in Robots (there were almost no mecha entries, so they all got lumped together). Cool thing is the award comes with in-store gift certificates, which I used right away! 
