Christmas 1942 with Tiger

[Sande]

This picture is couple of years old and was originally meant to be only a preview rendering. Since I haven't done anything to that scene in past two years I guess it's finally finished then. :)

King Tiger (with Henschel turret) near Stalingrad in 1942.

[geothefaust]

That is very nice. I like the image. Lots of snow... Mmm, snow...


That Tiger is looking pretty good.

[Sande]

geothefaust: Thank you. We have finally gotten rid of almost all the snow here in Southern Finland and I sure won't miss it... :)

I found my wireframe-renderings from the tank also - about 140 000 polygons, most of them in the threads. If I remember correctly the whole scene had about 300 000 polygons and almost half of them was used in the barbed wire (that was fun to do and I got a bit carried away) :D

[Edbittner]

Sande,
I see you have the Canon XL1 as your avatar. I just picked up the XL2. How do you like your camera?
E.

[Sande]

Edbittner: My avatar is another of my old and unfinished models, same year as the tank actually. :)

I used it a bit at a local production company then and I think it was (and is) a very good camera. Especially the image quality and ergonomics are excellent in my opinion. We had some technical problems couple of times (some DV-tapes were not compatible, I recall that TDK had a bad batch of tapes then or something) and couple of months back it had some malfunction which had to be repaired, but I guess heavy use takes it's toll on any camera...

I guess I can show the model, though it looks much better in a very, very, small size. Image is a bit dark, but I've lost the original model so this is all I have left... And if I continue this I will eventually have all my old and unfinished preview renderings on a same thread - which maybe just shows that it is quite rare for me to actually finish a picture... :D

[Litebright]

Sande,

Nice job on the construction of the Tiger II model. It is a well built tank model, but unfortunately, it is misproportioned for a Tiger II. Mostly the Henschel turret is too wide. If you take a good look at photographs of a real one or examine a good scale model, like a Tamiya or Dragon Tiger II, you'll see what I am talking about.

Again, you did a very good job at building a the tank, it just is lacking in accuracy, especially the width of the turret.

The reason I boldly state this criticism is that I built a Tiger II model over ten years ago in 3D, so I spent a lot of time studying what the real ones look like. And even so, mine is not a perfect depiction either and ended up being more of a cross between a real Tiger II and the older 1:35 Tamiya Tiger II model kit. My tow hooks are too thin and it has some other problems, but in general it nails the shape of a real Tiger II.

Here is a link to some older renders of the one I made:
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47491

Oh and finally one historical correction....Tiger IIs didn't exist yet during the Battle for Stalingrad. The request for a replacement for the Tiger I did not occur until January 1943. The first Tiger IIs were issued to training units in February and May of 1944. Tiger IIs did not see combat until June of 1944. They were strictly a late war tank, most frequently associated with the Battle of the Bulge or Ardennes Offensive as it is was also referred to in December 1944 (which would be a more appropriate battle/time setting for your snowy rendering).

If the Germans had actually had the King Tiger in larger numbers during the Battle for Stalingrad, they might have actually won it! They needed more bf109 and/or fw190 fighters too (with 30mm cannons), as most of their available aircraft on the eastern front at the time were bombers. These could have cut down more of the IL2 Sturmovik tank busters (a flying tank itself, most heavily armored plane of the war) which knocked out a lot of German tanks during the battle.

Steve

[Sande]

Litebright, Thanks for the crits. :) When I modelled that tank I had about 40 different photographs of the tank (and I believe some of them were from that Tamiya model) but unfortunately I did not had any blueprints or a good overall shot from above. So the model did end up a bit sketchy - shapes and measurements are only estimations based on several different photos...

Now that you mentioned it, the turret does seem a bit too wide. And more and more I look at it, the wider it seems... :D Funny how one becomes so blind to the model while working on it.

I knew that there were actually no Tiger IIs in Stalingrad (well, to be honest, I did had to check it) but I finally ended up wanting it to be there anyway. Kind of an artistic freedom. A bit like that movie U-571. :D

If someone knows where to find blueprints for Tiger II (especially with that Henschel turret, I didn't like the Porsche's design) I would appreciate it. I had already thought that the model was finished (I kind of ran out of inspiration with it), but now that turret started to irritate me and while fixing it, I could also add the many smaller details I originally left out... :)