Tamiya 1/35 German WW2 Panzer Kampfwaagen II Ausf. F/G

A couple of months ago when I was off work for a week I popped into my new local Hobbycraft store to see if it had anything worth keeping an eye on for a hobbyist like me.  Most of the store is full of stuff that was no good, but tucked at the back they did have a model kit section.  It was dominated by Airfix, but had a few kits from other brands as well and I came away with this kit of an early WW2 German tank made by Tamiya. 

This was my first kit from Tamiya and was at a much larger scale than my normal 1/72 or 1/76 vehicles, so I didn't know exactly what I'd be getting until I opened up the box when I got home.  The kit was your standard hard plastic, but very well produced with sharp hard details, it was pretty easy to put together, with mostly large parts with detail already moulded on, rather than the adding of fiddly details as separate parts, like on most Airfix kits.  I'm not sure which approach I prefer.  This is also the first kit that I've ever managed to make where the tracks can actually rotate after construction.  Weather that says more about my abilities or various kits I'm not sure.

It also came with five figures which surprised me (although if I'd have read the box properly it shouldn't have!) a tank commander and a few Germans in desert gear.  These are the first 1/35 scale figures I've ever had and they're huge.  I've only stuck one together so far and have yet to paint him, not sure that I ever will.

The main reason I'm not fussed about painting these figs is that I decided to paint up my tank not in the desert scheme, but in one more suitable for northern Europe.  It was a bit odd painting a tank in this scale as well and I tried a slightly different approach, with more shaded areas, you can see the results below.