Ageing and how to get tanks dirty, filters and other techniques...

Panzer III Ausf L, 11 Armd Division

My model of a vehicle from the 11 Armoured Division could be seen somewhere in 1942 in Russia. The photomontage resembles a scene that might have happened during the "Operation Braunschweig" (German Chancellor´s directive number 45), the Caucasian and Stalingrad-campaign.

I want to describe the painting techniques to age and weather a model tank, as such questions are frequently uttered in mdellers forums and e-mails.

Assembly:

In my report on the Panzer III Ausf J I had already described the differences between the Ausf "L" from Tamiya and the "J" from DRAGON. There one can also find the major assembly tips. Therefore I confine myself to telling you only some additional hints:
The position lamps first received a backing with aluminum foil and afterwards a clear piece of sprue was inserted, that was lit by a fire, till it produced a small drop. This was now my small bulb. I sealed it with a drop of one compound super glue and voilá, I had the glass as well!

The wiring was made by means of a small wire strand and normal wire. The thicker parts, where the wire was fixed onto the fenders, was made by aluminum strips, that were wrapped around the wiring.

The tool box at the left fender was detailed with a padlock and the respective hoop guard.

Generally spoken, one can build the tank straight from the box, as Tamiya did a fine job with this kit, but I improved it a little bit by adding some self-made tool clamps and a set of single track links from the Friulmodel company.

Ageing and weathering

First of all I primed the Panzer III with light grey colour, which gave me indices of flaws with the sanding and pluging up of the surface. Then a pre-shading with black followed. This was only applied at the edges and in a cloudy manner within the bigger armour plates.
The actual "German grey" base camouflage was then airbrushed onto this first shading, but only slightly and not to top-dress.

Several so called "filters" further improved the vivid and varying appearance of the surface.

How to do these filters ?

The following sequence of photos, that were altered by means of a photo processing programm, schematically shows the stages of applying the filters more clearly as if I only took pictures of the real thing:

First I dotted several oil spots in a random manner onto the model (see photo 1). When talking about "Panzergrau" (German grey) painted vehicles, one could use Prussian Blue too. But when we paint dark yellow tanks or cars, this colour is not applicable. The dots are to be applied in a very random way, but considering the places, where dark (oiling points for instance), respectively light (top armour plates) colours are likely to be found. Furthermore one should only work on small areas at once, because the next step is pivotal and has to be done rather quickly after the first one:

The dots (ochre, brown, prussian blue, burnt sienna, yellow...) are to be dispersed by a wide thinner-damped brush with downward strokes. See second photo as a guide. One has to continue stroking, until the colours blend into each other and are nearly unvisible. The third photo shows the desired effect.

When we are working on horizontal surfaces, the brush has to be dabbed, till the dots nearly dissappear.

The tracks:

The single track links have the major advantage, that the metallic shine can be received without troubles after the weathering techniques are done only by sanding them. So a first coat of black will be sufficient by now.

It is important to do some of the weathering prior to fixing the tracks onto the road wheels, because afterwards one cannot reach the track guides any more to do the sanding. So I did weathering stages except the step 4 and 5 in advance.

Weathering:

The following photos again show the effects of this weathering, this time without the help of picture processing programs. The details will be explained later.

Although such heavy weathering will obscure some of the previous filters, it is mandatory to do them on those places as well. Otherwise it could be that some "blank" spots might show through.

1. preshading, washing and dry brushing   2. filter   3. pigments and dull clear cote 4. gloss cote, another step of dry brushing   5. child´s hair, some more pigments

1. German grey base cote, washing with highly diluted brown-black oil colour (ratio of colour to thinner: 5% to 95%) and dry brushing with a lighter grey added to the base colour. Onto this one can start with a first phase of micro-painting to simulate small scratches and chipped colour.
   
2. Filter technique as already described above.
   
3. A mix of dry pigments and a diluted dull varnish (at a ratio of thinner/varnish of 1:1) I simulated heavy dirt, especially at the bottom parts of the hull and around the fenders. The more irregulative applied and the more pigments, the better it is. . Beware of a logical allocation of the dirt: the horizontal parts of the tank like the torsion bars and their limitations gather more dirt as elsewhere.
   
4. To simulate wet mud or soil I took a gloss varnish and a dark brown colour. Already dried spots are drybrushed again with light brown and moss-green enamels.
   
5. After I glued some strands of hair from my then two year old daughter (they were pretty feathery at that age), some spots were treated with some pigments, but this time dry-applied only helped by a dry brush.

One could also treat the upper parts of the hull with these techniques, if you want to simulate, that the crew produced some staining on the motor hatches or at the mounting and dismounting places, but don´t overdo the effect!

I made some footprints of muddy tanker boots by smearing the varnish-pigment mix onto a boot shaped stamp that came from my figure spare part box.


Rust is easily obtained when we alter the method of applying filters. This time we take only burnt sienna oil colour and blend the streks not as intensive as we did with the filters.

Normally rolled steel armour plates don´t rust. Only the additional devices, like tool mouts or - as you can see in the photo to the left - the bolts for the additional armour at the bow of the Panzer III do.

I hope, some of my hints will help you to add some realism to your models and I managed, to lift some of the "secrets" of the advanced modellers.

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