Going mad with greenstuff, Zimmerit on Big Cats

So I had a couple of Late war big cats, namely a resin Panther and a Porsche King Tiger sat about waiting to be built for battling in Normandy, but they both lacked a very distinct feature....Zimmerit.

Now Warlord Games recently put up some articles on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/warlordgames/) regarding Zimmerit using the www.tanks-encyclopedia.com page (http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/articles/tech/zimmerit-in-german-use/) but the short version of what zimmerit is, it's a anti-magnetic mine paste applied to German armour from late 1943 to late 1944 and gave the tanks an unusual appearance, see below.

So the models in question were a resin Panther Ausf A and a resin King Tiger with Porsche Turret, both without zimmerit 'out of the box'.  The new Plastic Warlord Games Panther Ausf A is the main reason I started this madness, I have 2 of the plastic kits.  Now as this was going to be a Zug based in Normandy 1944 (9th SS Pz Div) they all would have to have zimmerit applied, including the resin one.  so after a full day of messing about with green stuff here are the results.

So after completing this task I then turned to the Königstiger, at first I wasn't going to apply zimmerit as the Bovington tank museum exhibit has none, picture below.

Unfortunately after a little research the Bovington King Tiger with Porsche Turret was captured after the war from Sennelager where it was used as a training tank and thus did not have the zimmerit applied, and all combat King Tiger in Normandy had the paste applied so my OCD forced me to zimmerit a second time.

So this time I took some stage by stage pictures of how I apply zimmerit.

1. prepare surface

For the side of the turret I removed the track hooks, I found many of the zimmerit Porsche turrets did not have them. Then scored the surface that the putty will be applied with my craft knife. This to to allow the Greenstuff putty to adhere to the surface easier.

2.Apply Greenstuff putty

Smear a thin layer over the entire surface to have zimmerit. 

 3. Apply horizontal marks

Using a small jewelers flat head screwdriver, mark the putty with lines of horizontal 'dashes' in vertical rows (see below)

 Continue this until the entire surface is covered in these rows

4. Apply vertical row marks

Score the putty with a craft knife both sides of the horizontal marks forming rows.

Use this method until all surfaces to have zimmerit applied are covered, or you go insane. Here are some picture of the completed King Tiger.

The turret sides and front armour plate are the easiest to apply using the above method. The hull sides and rear and the front and rear of the turret were a little more tricky as the putty need to be applied in and around the details such as ropes, hatches and equipment and surfaces that are not flat. I have managed to get the zimmerit applied to all surfaces that it would have been on the real Panzer(s) and pretty happy with the results.  Now to paint the buggers..........

If you want to embark on a similar insane project the Panther kit is the Warlord Games resin Panther Ausf A (https://store.warlordgames.com/products/panther-ausf-a) and the King Tiger is the JTFM Enterprises DE051 King Tiger II with PorscheTurret  (http://www.diewaffenkammer.com/_germany_page_no5.html)