I built this Stug III ausf B as my first armor model and was decently pleased with the results. I made a few mistakes that i corrected on the last couple I have built such as not gluing the roadwheels on so the tracks can be removed, making sure that the suspension arms are level, not using a lighter to heat the arms to make the roadwheels line up, and not catching it on fire in the process.

So after seeing this poor tank near in ruins in my display case, I decided it was time to resurrect it and thrown on some paint. Using my trusty Aztec A320 airbrush, I laid down a base of Tamiya flat black, followed by a coat of german gray. I sprayed the center of the panels with XF-24 dark gray and gave it some blue highlight with XF-18 medium
blue. I believe the brown for the camo was XF-64 red brown.

I brushed future on where the decals would go, decaled it, then gave it two coats of future over the entire vehicle.

Ive been using Ak interactive washes, but had bought some earth tone chalk pastels and decided to grind them up and use them as pigment. I used odorless mineral spirits to apply them as a wash and was semi-pleased with the results. This morning i decided to try to tone down some of the oranginess with a more neutral tone and decided instead of using the mineral spirits to use rubbing alcohol which i was pretty sure I had read somewhere that it would work to fix the pigments. I quickly realized that the alcohol was too strong as I started to see the black base show through on some of the hinges and panel edges, but the effect was favorable as it appeared as wear. I coated the kit and left the room only to come back to inspect my work and find that the alcohol had attacked either the paint or the future and turned a good portion of the kit white!

Ive made a couple attempts to correct it using mineral spirits hopping that it would come off and tried brushing a coat of future on a panel or two and it still shows through.





Any suggestion on the best way to save this poor little kit would be greatly appreciated. I know i could respray the upper half at the least, but would have to strip and redo the decals in the process.

Ouch. A winter whitewash covering would probably work and let you spare the decals. Put some streaking and maybe a filter or two over the finish before whitewash (which you can age as you wish) and it would probably even out the color changes fairly well. The other cover-up style alternatives would be a heavy dust coat which risks bleaching out the decals (but looks really nice when pulled off well) using airbrushed heavily thinned Tamiya deck tan or something similar. The other possibility would be do a mud camouflage similar to the whitewash. Its something not often modeled but I have to be honest, it looks great when done well but its a bit tough to pull off without making it look like just weird stripes of paint.

Matt

Why not use this as a test bed for a whitewash.

In the future, remember not never use iso alcohol on tamiya paints after they've dried. You need to switch to oil/enamel based stuff on top of Tamiya, unless you're doing it on purpose.

You can use ipa on Tamiya paint, if you first give it a clear coat enamel or laquer.

Thanks for the replies. I think I will go the whitewash route. The original plan was to go solid gray then a whitewash using the hairspray technique, but i liked the way it was turning out until alcohol got involved. If i had used a different type of acrylic clear coat, would the alcohol have effected it? Would an enamel clear coat held up? I'm pretty sure that the initial washes i had done using the mineral spirit base were removing the future.

I'll mess with it some more here in the next couple days and Ill post some progress pics.

I vote whitewash. There are just to many abrupt transitions. The faded paint sections don't look bad, they just don't blend well.

Seeing as you would have to do the decals if you repainted, why not whitewash as other suggested.

Could be really cool...

Which is what I said Matt.

My solution lately has been to start thinning Tamiya with Mr. Thinner, which is a mild lacquer thinner. I'm using that as a base for winter white washes to good effect.

Its a go for the white wash.

I've toned down the transitions best as possible using some AK washes and streaking grime. I've read several articles on whitewash techniques and believe I'm more lost now than before.

I'm going to let the paint and weathering dry til tomorrow and spray it with a coat of Future. I figure cover the decals with some blue tack that way the edges wont be too sharp. Follow that with a couple coats of the wife's hairspray then a couple light coats of either Tamiya or Vallejo white. I figure the vallejo would be a little easier to remove. I've seen the salt technique used along with the hairspray, but I figure 1 new technique at a time.