I'm planning to make a small dio with abandoned Panther ausf. A from Kursk area. Tank itself is ready for heavy weathering. I want to apply some rusting to show it's been sitting there for quite some time. My question is where to apply rust, to all chipped paint spots or not? Maybe somewhere else?

Thanks for your time, bye

heres a nice picture of a knocked out panther that you may find useful


and another


and some rusty wrecks






hope those are of help to you. as far as im concerned, weathering pigments are the best way of replicating rusted metal, try some out on an old modeluntil you get the tchnique your after

cheers

joe

Any even slighly exposed metal will be rusty. This wil also leave rust streaks down the side where water would flow from the metal. Rivets are likely to develop rust streaks. The tracks will be very rusty. Any metal on the wheels that were once polished by contact with the tracks will be rusty. Edges of open hatches will be rusty. Exhausts, naturally. Any tools left on the vehicle will corrode. The inside of the barrel will be rusty and likely the tip as well. If it's been out there a really long time, the rust will spead away from the exposed metal and make the paint bubble. As this breaks away from the surface of the vehicle, you will have larger areas of rust. Thin metal, such as head lights and horns and the exhaust will develop holes, too, from the oxydation.
Remember what Neil Young said, "Rust never sleeps!"

Armor plates do not rust very quickly the same as welds between them. Most rusted should be all details like fenders, storage bins etc. everything made from non hardened plates and especially on burnt out places.

Piotr

As an extention to what Piotr just said, it depends on how your tank got destroyed.
It is my understanding that burned out armor plating will rust very quickly. If it went up like a fireball, the heat changes the properties of the tank making the armor useless and vulnerable.
If the tank is just knocked out without fire (track got knocked off, etc.) then the armor plating will not rust quickly because the armor properties are still intact.

Rust is not a uniform "color". I used 4 colors of "rust" when I built a burned out Iraqi BMP. First I painted the BMP a dark burnt umber rust color, this was followed by lighter shades of rust and even orange. For the lighter shades I mixed the acrylic paint with alcohol and created a thick wash or thin paint. I laid these colors over the vehicle until I got the look I wanted. Also, I added real rust (rust from a steel wool pad left in water until it rusted away. This was then ground up and while the wash was wet sprinkled over some of the surfaces) The result was a burned out/followed by rust appearance.

Finally I added a burnt umber wash followed by a dry brushing with a light orangry rust color. I think it looks pretty good.

I really hate to nitpick, but you might need to rethink your setting a little bit. The panther A didn't arrive until September 1943, 2 months after the battle of Kursk. By then the Germans had been pushed or fell back to the west some distance. I know this isn't a huge issue and should only affect your stated setting, not the build, but I still thought I should throw this out here. Sorry again for picking at a nit such as this.

Thanks guys. Here are some quick pics of my panther (you can see made AT impact holes like they are in the second pic which dragonslain posted, except of the bih "crater"). i cant see from the photos, should I apply rust to the holes or not?
By the way, its Italeri 1:35 model I built some time ago and trashed it, now I decided to fix it and use it on small dio.