I have a 1:35 AFV Club T34/76 and three of the four schemes involve overall white.

This isn't whitewash over russian green but a proper overall white paint finish.

The instructions call out flat white.

This is new terroritory for me but I can't imagine that using pure brilliant white will look good. Clearly there will be weathering, but again this is something that I find daunting. I'm not that experience with weathering but on a green tank it is easy to cover up mistakes whereas on pure white they would stick out like a sore thumb.

So would appreciate some advice. Do I really start out with a base of pure white or do I use something else. And then what would be the next step - an overall wash of something.

Cheers,

Nigel

Nigel,
I'm no expert at this but I think you may find your starting point is to paint the tank in its normal colour scheme. The white camo paint scheme is then applied over the top of this. This allows you the opportunity to have wear points revealing the base colur scheme.

Cheers
Flash

i also agree when it comes to painting a white tank.

Paint it however you feel comfortable with. Hairspray technique works well for those shy with weathering - or not in my case!

Nigel,
By "proper overall white paint finish" I'm guessing you mean something like a UN peacekeeping vehicle, right?

I'm not a pro, but I think if I were trying to do what you described this is the approach I would take:

Start with a light grey (or maybe even white) primer coat and then pre-shade with dark grey or black. After spraying the overall white color (perhaps with some light tan mixed in to tone it down some) washes and filters should do the rest of the job of taking the glare off.

Nigel, a fairly simple technique is to paint the vehicle its basic Russian green, paint the white over it, then dry-brush the white camouflaged areas with the green base color, essentially "erasing" the white on edges, corners, and areas of crew ingress/egress. This makes the white looked "scrubbed & rubbed" particularly if the winter camo on the original was whitewash/lime rather than paint.
Regards, Rob

I think several respondents missed Nigel's original statement that this is NOT whitewash over a standard paint job.

Correct, I mean painted white out of the factory rather than a winter whitewash in the field.

Like this

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/mrigby/Dcp_0020.jpg

Clearly this is a display example so it may not be entirely accurate. And obviously it wouldn't have stayed that clean for very long.

I'm just wondering whether they did come out of the factory painted like that, like UN Peacekeeper vehicles as mentioned by Mark)

Here is an actual wartime picture - again this looks like a full white paint job rather than a whitewash.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d2/3c/71/d23c71bbb6c160d5837d952cb8e40f7f.jpg

Cheers,

Nigel

Try Washable White from Ammo =)

Nigel,
I'm not sure if the Russians specifically painted their tanks white straight off the production line, hence my suggestion that they had their usual bases paint scheme with a white for the winter offensives applied later? Then again anything is possible???

That to me looks like a winter cam job done after leaving the factory

On that second linked picture you can see plenty of color Where the whitwash or paint wasn't applied. Especially around the number 16 and in front of the driver's visor where much of the crew would have climbed up. That tank either has cheap after-production white paint, or whitewash.

That's true. First photo is clearly a restoration and I'm guessing someone was going for a clean winter look. Second photo obviously period, and yes, that's probably whitewash camo.

I always use pure white as the base coat. Then depending on the wear you want to depict, it's up to you to heavily weather it or not.

Here are some samples of white vehicles I made.







Enjoy the white side of Russian 4BO

he second pic does look like whitewash , look at the front of the hull, looks worn off. I can never recall seeing a all white factory paint job. also if you do use white , put a drop or two of buff in , it cuts the white down a bit.