Rubicon Tiger Review, PT1

Morning everyone (It is now anyway...)So, here's part one of my Rubicon 1/56 scale (28mm) Tiger review! In this part I'll describe how the kit goes together, how I sculpted the Zimmerit and talk a little on the kits accuracy. In Part 2 I'll talk about the painting and weathering of the model, and compare it in size with Warlords and Die Waffenkammer's Tigers. Onwards!

 For me, the most impressive thing about the kit is the option to build any production variant, with optional road wheels, gun mantlets, turret roofs, hatches, smoke launchers spare tracks and head light configurations. The instructions are also clear about which parts go with which variant too I'm pleased to add. This kit also comes with a fairly extensive transfer sheet with crosses and numbers.

Rubicon's Tiger comes packed in a box the size of small castle, and it's crammed with parts too, with each sprue packed in it's own individual bag. Parts are very well moulded, and detail is very crisp. The design of the suspension and running gear is superb with each set of tracks being made up of three layers of wheels to give a far better level of detail than can be achieved in resin or one piece tracks.





Detail is very crisp, tools are moulded with good depth and relief, and the Engine decking is handled well.  It would be utterly be fantastic if one of the aftermarket companies such as Eduard brought out a photo etched upgrade set with engine grills, but I suspect that's wishful thinking!




After much pondering I've decided on building a late production vehicle with steel road wheels, late style turret with square loaders hatch and sliding Cupola, as well as Zimmerit anti magnetic mine paste. This was applied to all mid and late production Tigers. One hurdle in this though is the kit doesn't come with Zimmerit! I think Rubicon was wise to do this, as plastic Zimmerit doesn't tend to look that good in my opinion, and is relatively simple to apply, just time consuming to apply.


To make the Zimmerit I use pretty much the same techniques as was done on the real vehicles. I apply white Miliput applied evenly approximately 1mm deep along the the entire length of the surface to textured, leave it approximately 20 minutes for the Miliput to harden, then use a razor saw to add texture, dragging the teeth of the blade along for around 2mm. I then change the position of the saw slightly to add some variety to the texture pattern. It's very tedious, however does look good. The whole model too around 2 hours to Zimmerit, but I think it was worth the effort. 

That concludes part one, and so far I'm thoroughly impressed.Come back soon for part 2, with extra coatings of Dunkelgelb and Michael Wittmans!

More info on Rubicon models can be found on their website, here http://www.rubiconmodels.com/
And as always any comments or to see more of my work check out https://www.facebook.com/VolleyFirepainting