This will have been asked a 1,000 times I'm sure, but I'm after the best method to apply a very worn, mostly-washed-away white camo job to my 1/35 Panther. Any methods you favour would be appreciated.

P.S. my base colours are Vallejo acrylics.

Thanks

Alex;

Panther A... bet you have some zimm on that bad kitty... Zimm is,of course, both cool and accurate for the A - and offers one a challenge if you want to create a well-worn whitewash coat!

I am completely not the expert in any way on anything, let alone making worn coats of WW on a zimmed Panther... but here's what I think I might do: I'd first think through what I imagine "worn" might be on a zimm coat, as versus on flat painted steel (done that and been happy with)... look at some photos of spring-time zimmed tanks which still have some whitewash on them. This will establish what I want my coat to actually look like in relation to the zimm surface - where does the white still persist after being worn away? How does the season's dirt and wear apply to the zimm troughs and hills? Once I have a mental pic, I'd then tackle the paint!

Now - I DYI zimm... which makes a fragile surface compared to, say, a pre-zimmed Dragon kit. I don't know what you have, and the type of zimm does affect what you may be able to do, as does what you paint your base coats with... So:

A) IF you painted the base camo in acryls - weather these as desired, and then seal it - maybe "hair-spray", or a coat of "matted" Future. When this sealing coat is dry, I would apply a dark wash to "pick out" the zimm valleys. I would then paint on some acryl whites - I'd go thin and patchy, but plan on scraping or scrubbing some off, so apply enough to allow this. I'd use a soft brush and brush it on - more like the real thing. This will leave some of those zimm valleys dark - again like the real thing.Let the white dry some - but not long time nor "cured". Use a wet plastic dish scrubber and scrub off some of your white. Doing this GENTLY will fade and feather the top parts of the white on the currogated zimm surface. Once you have scrubbed away as much as you want, let it dry, and start in with follow-up dirt and grime weathering over the white (over whole thing, of course.).

B) IF you used enamels for the base camo coats - you don't have to seal it. Go right to washing and weathering the camo/zimm, follow with the thin acryl white, and gently scrub away! The enamel bases will provide the same tough layer that the above sealant will.

From where I sit (and I have one of those Panther A kits in the stash, and I'm sort of thinking of a 4th Pz. Div tank in spring 1944 with faded white-over-camo'd zimm, myself), the keys will be to first create a good looking camo'd (or maybe dunkelgelb mono-color) base surface on that zimm, and to get some "hi-liting" going to pick the zimm out a bit, followed by trying to put the white on as much like the real approach as possible. Keeping it thin and sparsely-applied going on will better enable one to get a well-worn end coat, I think!

Hope this helps!

Good Luck, and I most surely do want to see the outcomes - post pics!

Bob

Thanks for the reply, Bob.

This is my first armour model so I've maybe bitten off more than I can chew. It's the old dog of Tamiya 1/35 Panther Ausf A. I was a tank virgin when I bought the kit and only read how old and inaccurate it was afterwards........

However, I wanted to create a KOed Panther, so this particular model serves as a good basis. I was in two minds about Zimmerit and spent literally months deciding what to do; one night I took out my Tamiya putty, watered it down and went for it. I made a Zimm tool out of two minature screwdrivers and using an Osprey Panther book as a ref for the measurements (my home-made tool moved out of place while I worked with it, meaning my Zimm square patterns are smaller than they shoud be.....live and learn ).

I'll see if I can add some photos at some point.

Regards, Alex

Here's a quick WIP image. The white-wash is an afterthought as I think it will provide a nice contrast to the burnt out engine deck.

Alex;

Hey! That looks pretty cool, to me!

I think you have accomplished a huge first leap in the DYI zimm world... from what I can see, you have indeed managed to get a pretty "in-scale" thickness (considering that real zimm coats were probably under 1.0 inch thick to highest relief, and maybe much less than that, based on looking closely at many pics... a 1/35th scale zimm coat should not be more than maybe 3/100 inch, and maybe only 10 - 15 thou - so as thick as maybe 2 pieces of ordinary copier paper!), and the carving and patterning look pretty nice, too. (Albeit you may well have the pattern "off" and maybe wrong-sized - no expert at all on this, remember!).

So, your zimm coat is, IMHO, pretty good-looking. I have seen (and, yeah, done) much much worse! Now - about the painting... I would point to your lower hull sides and note that you indeed have nicely picked the zimm out by darker grooving. This would do equally well for a start up on the turret (which appears to have some reversals! darker raised points and lighter grooves!). Where you did your white wash - I think it actually looks not half-bad! Again, the grooves would likely be darker.. (your biggest problem - looks like you pooled white down into those grooves... which would have both likely missed getting brushed-on ww, and would have collected dirt....). and if you did this, you may find that the overall worn ww effect would come thru nicely. It's a guess, but I think it likely...

IF you had a rear-deck / engine fire... probably there would be some sooting up the adjacent turret side(s)- this blackening (soot, from smoke, as versus suggesting a roaring sheet of fire) would fuzz over that zimm and its paint layers. So, first doctor up the zimm to get it looking the way you want it to for a faded ww coat over your camo (keeping in mind that notion of darkened grooves and dirt / grime collecting down in them) - AND THEN do the sooting over that.

You can certainly mist it on as a thin soot-grey wash with an airbrush... or...

It might be worth a little experiment (maybe do this on a piece of wood with some zimm applied and painted in all the layers - a sort of crash-test dummy before you try it on the styrene kitty...): take the soot target out into the outside air, create a smudgy smoke-bomb type "fire" (a candle, a few pieces of sprue propped into the flame to smoke nicely), and coast your soot target thru the higher smudge cloud. Do NOT get too close to the fire, and do NOT hold the target in the smoke trail a long time - no heat build-up is desired!. A few passes could well create the sooted look you may want. IF I were trying to soot my turret in your scenario - I would strive to get the turret bottom edge into the lead in the smoke, and let the smoke crawl up the turret side - sooting the zimm as you go. NOTHING looks as much like soot as does soot!

IF you wanted a major roaster fire look - you would need to really rust up those plates which had become incandesent hot - burned off all the paint (and the zimm) and creates lots of brighter rust. The gradient edges around those hottest areas would be blackened, as where the paint and zimm partially burned off.

All in all, it looks like you are off to a running start on all this!

I don't have any links or citations to give to you - but I would maybe cruise around this site and over on FineScale Galleries and / or Track-link galleries and look for some "burn-out" builds and see how folks have done their camo-to-ash and rust gradients. This look - see could give you lots more effective guidance and inspiration than verbose ol' p-bob can give! (Not that I mind blathering! )

Cheers!

Bob

Thanks for the quick reply, Bob.

I'll favourite your idead so I can digest them later this evening when the house is quieter.

As for the white-wash camo, I haven't done it yet. The white on the blackened area was part of my soot look - maybe I need to revise this...lol

Yes, you're right about the gaps inbetween the Zimm being light on the turret. I knew there was something strange, but couldn't put my finger on it! Thanks for pointing it out to me. A wash should push it back and make it look more in keeping with the lower hull as you mentioned.

Cheers, Alex

Alex:

Sure LOOKED like some vague and faded WHITE WASH, to me... supposed to be SOOT and not WW, eh. Could have (did!) fooled me! My wife keeps telling me to get my eyes checked!

OK, so your camera faked me out! I can take it, I really can - thick skin and all that! (sniffle) .

Still, as seen in your pic, the semblance to faded white may be what you are looking for - streaky, faded, feathered - out at the edges. The distribution and coverage seem to be what you describe seeking. Only use white next time!

I'll be watching for your "show"!

Meanwhile - just as a counterpoint... I did do a zimm - with - whitewash job last winter - old Tamiya Wirbelwind kit, spackle for zimm, whitewash of alternating thinned applications of Tamiya flat white acryl and ModelMaster hite enamel. The goal here was to create a recently - broomed-on WW coat on an early winter 44/45 tank. (So, faded tri-color camo, "fresh" streaky and drippy WW).

Cheers!

Bob

Thanks, Bob! I really appreciate you answering this thread.

I like what you've done with the Wirbelwind kit! Is that wire around the turret for holding foliage and other camo? Great detailing : )

Alex

Hi Alex
A really great project, and the burned out look seems fine to me. A trick when it comes to whitewash is to give the vehicle an uneven layer of white, and then drybrush and chip the whole thing with the basecolor. That way it'll look like a worned and batered whitewash. Like this:


Good luck
Jacob

Thank you, Jacob. Models look great.