The photos in this series represent my first work with my collection since my family and I moved back in February. I had been working on a handful of Tiger projects in order to showcase them in conjunction with a book review (which I invite you to read here). The tanks were finished before we moved, but I have only just now finished the review and am finally finding the time and the mental space to share.

My oldest Tiger tanks date from the 1970s, when my friends and I were still having our little wars outside in the garden. You can tell which ones they are because I painted them different shades of elephant gray. Why? Because the movie The Battle of the Bulge showed all German tanks in gray!

The gray panzers of The Battle of the Bulge (1965).

Robert Shaw as a German tank commander in the Ardennes.

Even after over 40 years of building models and learning about various tanks, I still make mistakes, of course. The book I reviewed, Images of War Special: Tiger I and Tiger II, showed me the differences between early, mid and late production models of the Tiger I, which I had never quite grasped before. I realized that some of the dioramas I had photographed just in the last few years featured improbable situations, such as an early production Tiger, identifiable as such by its headlights, cupola and bulky air filters, in the hedgerows of Normandy. Might have happened — would have been rare at best.

The models you see here (the most recent builds are shown with their box art) are set mostly in a place that because of the buildings looks like Russian farmland. There are a few more that try to be more forest-y, perhaps like the Ardennes. You’ll notice a smoky or misty effect in one of those; it is actual smoke from a smoke bomb. My main regret about these models is that my airbrushing of the camouflage left the colors looking a bit thick. That’s why I have a few more Tiger kits waiting for another go!

1/72 Mid-Production Tiger I by Trumpeter, with figures borrowed from the Dragon “Tiger Aces”:

1/72 Late Production Tiger I with Zimmerit and ‘Tiger Aces’ by Dragon:

1/72 Tiger II by Italeri, 1/72 Jagdtiger by Trumpeter and 1/72 Sturmtiger by Dragon.

And the older models: