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Stug III Ausf A Build

Painting

I started the painting with an undercoat of Tamiya surface primer from a rattle can as I like the result this product gives me. The recesses I filled in the left mudguard are the only area where I would have liked a better finish, but I can hide this defect easily enough with some added stores or a tarpaulin. All of the finishing options provided for this Stug III A are grey; accurate for the vehicle, but not an easy finish to get a good result with; yes I know some get great results, I struggle though.

To paint the model I used one of the Vallejo AFV Painting Systems, The Dunkelgrau German Dark Grey. This set consists of six 8ml or 0.27 fluid ounces which break down as follows:
601 Grey Primer
054 Dark Grey
053 Dark Sea Grey
052 German Grey
050 Light Grey
522 Satin Varnish
The paint used is the air colour from Vallejo and each and every paint colour and the varnish sprayed perfectly straight from the bottle; I sprayed at 15psi which looking at the photographs should have been an even lower psi setting of around 10. With that said the paint looks good to the naked eye and so I am happy in that respect. I did find the three dark greys to similar for my eye to really detect any differences and the light grey was too stark when sprayed on the model and so a change was called for in my opinion.

I applied the 054 Dark Grey to areas that would be in shade and so the darkest areas. I did not use the 053 Dark Sea Grey and instead I went with the 052 German Grey spraying around the sides of the model, I did keep the paint light where the dark grey had been applied. I then added a 30% 050 Light Grey to 70% 052 German Grey, I sprayed this on the top of the model and found I was much happier with the colour achieved. I have included images showing both attempts as your opinion may differ to mine.