Panzer III

Hello!

This is a little 1/72 Panzer III from Revell that I have started to work on…

The vehicle was built pretty much out of the box with a few scratch built additions like the cargo rack in the rear. The stowage is a mix of sculpted blankets and bags in Green Stuff together with ready made resin boxes and a fuel drum. I also replaced the barrel with an aluminum one and added a copper towing cable.  The grilles over the airintakes was made from one of those pyramid shaped Lipton teabags which I cut to size and glued in place. I used thin styrene strips on top of the mesh to make it look a bit neater.

The painting started with doing the black basecoat and on top of that I airbrushed German Grey in various shades. Over the grey I airbrushed two coats of hairspray which I let dry. On top of that I applied a sand yellow mix which I airbrushed on using the cloud pattern technique which means more color in the center of armorplates and other flat surfaces and less color over edges and in places where shadows would fall.

After the sand color had dried a couple of minutes I started to make chips and scratches using a stiff cut down old paintbrush which I had moistened in water. Once the water reaches the hairbrush layer, it dissolves and makes the top layer of paint to crack and chip creating wear and tear just like it happens on a real vehicle.

Further weathering and detail painting of tools and stowage was done once the vehicle was placed on the base to ensure that the vehicle would blend in well against the colors of the base. For the weathering I used different shades of artist oils and pigments to make the tank even more dirty.

The base was done with wall filler and white glue and some fine sand. The bushes was made from steel wool that I airbrushed in a light sand color and the grass turfs are from Mini Natur. The camel skeleton that lies half buried in the sand was sculpted from Green Stuff and come copper wire.

Cheers

Sven-Åke