Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger

This is the first project I want to show on my page. It is a model of the Tank "Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger" from the German Wehrmacht, which gained a reputation as one of the strongest tanks in World War 2. I am modeling it for practice and I think this is a good exercise to get better at hardsurface modeling, as it is not only one mesh, but it is made of many small parts which have to be modeled seperately. In this way I can gather experience without having to model many small objects, but can focus on one big item. And what would be better, as this iconic german Tank? This project is about realism and a good capture of all the details, I want to make it as authentic as I can.

The project started with modeling the tanks chains and the rough form of the rest of the tank. The chains themselves also were one of the most challenging parts of the whole model, as they consist of many small details, extrude work and need much attention.

The next step was to finish the complete chain drive of the Tiger tank. The whole gearing mechanism had to be build, luckily it was possible to do some copy & paste with the roadwheels and also mirror the finished chain drive. The most exicting thing here was to model the drive sprocket, but it was no big deal.

The next part I concetrated on was the main canon. It wasn't as tricky as I thought. I also started to form the tanks front, adding parts of the chain and some other details.

I kept focusing on the front, adding more details like the shovel, the gun and the flaps. In this step i finished the flaps and modeled them out. The front is nearly ready.

In the next step I modeled the turret and added many details. It is nearly ready, there are some things missing on the top, like the hatch, which I added in the next step. After this, I started to focus on the back, adding pipes, flaps and parts of the exhaust.

This is the current progress, more to come soon. You can click on the image, to see it in a higher resolution.