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The Workhorse

PAINTING & WEATHERING

The whole model was primed with black enamel paint which was followed by a base coat of Tamiya XF-60 Dark Yellow mixed with some XF-57 Buff. I decided to use the hairspray method for the winter camouflage. In order to protect the yellow basecoat a layer of Tamiya Clear was evenly airbrushed all over the model. Next I picked up my wife's hairspray and sprayed the the whole model in two parts: hull and turret. Than, step by step and by picking up a small area to work on I sprayed Tamiya white paint thinned with Tamiya’s own thinner. I have heard that for ease of removal of the paint it is better to use water but it was a personal choice and it turned out ok for me. After no more than few minutes, with the help of a stiff brush, a toothpick, and warm water with few drops of liquid soap, I started taking the paint off. I wanted a well worn white camouflage so I applied a lot of pressure when it came to scrapping off the paint. Once satisfied with the result I started applying the Echelon decals. They were really great and they were applied directly on the paint without any clear cote. The big 3 digits tactical numbers are pre-cut so the silvering problem was not a problem any more.

After spraying the model with Kleer, and a very thin mix of umber oil paint and white spirit was applied all over the model. Then a brown wash from MIG was added in places where dirt would accumulate. To continue the weathering with oils more brown and earth colour washes were applied. After all washes dried I sprayed a cote of MM Dullcote which was well diluted with few drops of gloss. The next step was adding some mud splashes on the lower hull. Afterwards the vehicle equipment was painted with Vallejo acrylics. Metal tools and MG were dry brushed with a Model Master metalizer. At the end I applied the tracks. Prior to putting them on I painted them black, with the inside of the tracks having track brown and Russian Earth pigments from MIG applied. The outside of the tracks received a muddy mix of acrylic resin, plaster and dark earth colour pigments. The next day I added some more pigments fixed with white spirit.

Before installing, all those tracks have been painted black and than given whole bunch of washes and earth and rusty pigments, I then added some black pigment over them to tone things down. Finally I could add all the additional spare tracks. It really changed the look of the Panzer. To finish the build I dusted the tank with the MIG's Russian earth pigment. I used only this pigment as I found its colour perfect for what I wanted to achieve. The treatment was pretty simple. I brushed the pigment on with a large brush and used white spirit to fix it or to get it off if I found there were too much of it after all. The process was repeated few times till I was fully satisfied.