I have been remiss in sharing my progress with the painting of this great kit - sorry. So far I have primed, base coated, post shaded, painted the tools, spare tracks, tarp, started to add som wear and tear, "rusted" the mufflers, and been working on the road wheels. Enough words, here are the pics. As always comments, good or bad, and questions welcomed.

John,
Exceptional paint, as usual! I particularly like the contrast between individual details and base color. The model appears quite photogenic, as well as realistic ... not an easy balance to achieve.
Can you mention what brand of Panzergrau you used, por favore?
BTW, I still am having no luck contacting Pat ...

Can't wait for your next installment and thanks for sharing,
Mike Kirchoff

Thanks Mike. Try pat in the early afternoon, via phone, its the best way to catch him. The grey is XF-63.

WOW John, it is really looking good. Another of your signature paint jobs with no flaws to see. You have me wanting to do something now in early war panzer grey lol. Great work. Cheers Kevin

As usual John, it looks great.... even if it's German... :-) :-)

Hi John,

Great work as always...

Please share with us how you got that rust effect on the exhausts.... and speaking of the exhausts... there appears to be a seam (or something) running the length of the top exhaust muffler...

Rudi

I agree here John; and it'd be a pity to have it brewed up on my dio as my Sherman marches past... :-)

Hey John great start ...love your shading ...one thing I noticed is your convoy light is on upside down..

Rick

Great work so far. Could you please tell what color you used for the rusted tracks and how you finished the mufflers?

Patrick

I can't wait next step. Nice work so far.

Hi Rudi, I see what you mean in the pic, but thats not where the mold seam was! It's a mute point anyway as its covered by the smoke candle box, I just have not mounted it yet.

Richard the convoy light is correct, The kit allows the flap to be positioned in either way, and you never see it set to brake lites so I chose to do it that way.

Pat, the rust is just a combination of rust colored acrylics and oil paints built up in layers and sploches.

Cheers all!

Hey Sticky:

John: You're off to a great start, here. Beautiful photos
as well. And dude, that rusted muffler is worth the
price of admission, all by it's lonesome. . . . so many
different tones and values of color in just that one
piece. Very nice work. Eager to see more.

Excellent work, it's a real pleasure and very enlighting to watch your progress... thanks again for sharing.

Fantastic work, the muffler is incredible! Please let us in on that technique....

Frank

Sticky- That's what I'm talkin' about !! Exceptional job, can't wait to see it all done. Now I have to go and start mine!! Keep it up!

Thanks guys, much apprecicated.

Frank the rust is very easy. On a dark gray base, I added sploches of an orange rust color from poly scale. When the surface was set enough - maybe 2 minutes, I wetted the whole surface with turpenoid. Then wth oil paints that had been sitting on a cardboard card to soak up the linseed oil, I just started adding bloches of color, I blended some in more than other with more turpenoid. I used Black, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber and Raw Siena. Thats it. Nothing more than that!

Looking great John. As Drumthumper mentions, the contrast between all the details and the panzer grey is excellent. The red primer between the spare wheels is another nice touch.
Im interested in your holding device! How does that work? Is it to fixed screw inside the tank? It appears to be very handy! And last but not least ... great photos! Im going to look into getting some card-sheets and fix my photo area as per your photo in the photography forum.

Thanks Frank!

The holder is nothing more than a styrene rod glued to the hull bottom with CA. This is held in my mini X-acto vise. This holds lots of weight as I painted my Panzerfahre with it, and that kit weighed a ton! :-)

Beautiful, simply Beautiful!. I hope your going to teach one of the paint classes John.

Thanks John! I've seen your work in several magazines and I am very impressed! The Panzer IV looks great -keep it up! Thanks again for the explanation.

Told you this was going to be somthing special

Excellent work John , love the rusting effect on the exhuast



Ian

Cheers David. I will certainly take it under consideration - time permitting!

Thanks Richard!

Ian - It is a special kit, well worth the efforts!

Cheers All.