So on with the paint...
OK. So, as my first full-on paint job since the 1980s, this was always going to be a slightly fraught experience...
I will spare you most of the grizzly details before I arrived at the relative success of the above image (which is still only the base coat). Let's just say I made a few schoolboy errors along the way.
I began by giving the model an overall coat of
Mr Surfacer primer red from a spray can. Usually a highly reliable method, I unfortunately chose to do so out of doors on a damp (albeit pretty sunny) spring afternoon in London. Result: slow drying time and pooling of paint. Fortunately, it did dry in the end and the pooling practically disappeared. So I was lucky. Especially as I have a spray booth (with built in fan and light) that I should have used indoors.
Because, as I had on the interior, I intended to add scratches, I then gave the model a coat of ordinary cosmetic hairspray from a can.
Next, I had a bit of 'fun' trying to mix
Ammo of Mig paints with
AK Interactive thinner. Tip: DON'T.
Then I decided to turn to what I knew best:
Tamiya acrylics mixed with
Tamiya X-20A thinner. Now I know everyone has their favourites, but generally it's best to stick with what you know - especially if you are painting your first (and highly-prized) model in 30 years or so (I'm not going to count all the models I helped my boys to paint over the years because, ultimately, these were their efforts).
I have done quite a lot of research into paint consistency and compressor settings recently and I feel that I am finally mastering that tricky combination of factors that makes for a good coat with the
airbrush. There's still a lot of trial and error involved and I cannot emphasis how important it is to have an old model to hand to spray onto first. I have a trusty old
Tamiya Panzer II that has seen more exotic paint jobs than a graffiti hot spot and there's nothing quite like the grim fascination of looking at it just after I have hit it with a particularly unsuccessful mix of paint that my real model has narrowly escaped..!
Also, the absolute golden rule is NEVER to start spraying whilst pointing the
airbrush straight at the model. That way, if it's going to 'spatter', then it's going to spatter something that doesn't count.
What you see here is the outcome of successive coats of
Tamiya Dark Yellow, followed by a 50/50 mix with Buff and then a third coat with a little white added.
Now I will be the first to admit that it's looking a bit too light and a little too grey. Having said that, 'in the flesh' the yellow shows through a lot more, so I suspect that it's something to do with the lighting (to my eyes it even looks a little more yellow in the image at the top of this post). Also, as we all know, once you start to add washes, the base colour always starts to change - so it's best to start lighter than you mean to end up.
It's also worth adding that, compared to the colour chips supplied with the excellent
AK Interactive book '
Real Colours of World War II' (a great Christmas present), the
Tamiya Dark Yellow is a very good match. However, once you scale the tones down (smaller things look darker in the same colour) and take into account the effects of the Italian sun, I believe that this looks OK. At least as a starting point.
Then I got busy with the chipping. In fact, I had left this for at least a week before I started - not ideal and potentially a disaster had this been a whitewash finish. But after some energetic work with water, cotton buds, cocktail sticks, wire wool and even a scalpel blade I had something which looked OK. The slightly yellower patches are actually the original
dunkelgelb shade showing through - not intentional, but it adds contrast and so I kinda like it...
You will notice that the barrel is a contrasting shade of grey (a mix of the last highlight shade and a little black). I have seen many black and white pictures where the gun looks to be a slightly different colour from the main vehicle. This is sometimes said to be the result of heat (from firing) affecting the paint, or else because the barrels, which were made elsewhere than the vehicle assembly plants, were primed or painted in different shades.
Whatever the reason, it adds visual interest - and also gives me an excuse to explain away why the muzzle brake of my Stug is the later war model which had only come into use shortly before the time scale of my diorama. Er, it's a very recent replacement..
The wheels (apart from return rollers) were painted off the model in the time-honoured fashion by mounting them on cocktail sticks (aren't these little things really the unsung heroes of model making?) The rubber parts were then simply blocked in with two successive coats of dark grey acrylic wash, which flows very easily up to the rims without too much overflow. Any big slips can be wiped away and anything smaller will have disappeared by the time I finish weathering. The two on the left have had two coats, the others only one...
So this is how it looked once I had put wheels and tracks (which were about to lose their shine) back on. I think we're in business!