PMMS
tamiya PZKFW IV Ausf.D
Tamiya 1:35 Kit No. 35096
By David Murnain

Tamiya

The Kit:
This is the old Tamiya Panzer IVD done OOB, even down to the incorrect tracks as supplied with the kit (i.e. 40cm tracks with ice tread instead of the 36cm tracks that should be on an early Panzer IV).

This being only my second armour model since getting back into the hobby (I have been concentrating on aircraft previously) it was intended to be an exercise in trying to apply some new ( to me at least) techniques by applying oils based washes over acrylic paint and dry-brushing using enamels mixed with oils. The finish is intended to show a faded Afrika Korps example, and was achieved by spraying a thin and slightly irregular coat of Gunze radome Tan over a base coat of Tamiya German Grey. To avoid ending up with a paint mix that is too thin and prone to runs, I thinned the colour with a bit of Flat Clear in the mix as well as thinner (Methylated Spirits). After gloss coating and decaling, a wash of thinned burnt umber oil paint was applied. A coat of Flat Clear dirtied up with a little sand colour was applied and them some dry-brushing with a mix of white oil paint and panzer grey coloured enamel paint. Finally, a thin coat of Tamyia Buff was sprayed over the lower areas to dust things up a bit.

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At the club meeting to which I took this model along to the finish generated some interesting discussion along the lines of "were they really that colour?". Granted, I didn't spray the tank any legitimate RAL colour, but the idea was to represent a heavily faded example as seen in photographs where the tanks appear very light due to either the paint fading, and/or the reflection of strong desert sunlight. While not perfect on the first attempt, the techniques used did give the sort of look I was after and I can only suggest that people try using oils over acrylics as the techniques were easy to do, and look like that with a bit more practice can give convincing results.


Model Copyright © 2002 David Murnain & PMMS
Page Created 22 March 2002

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