Metalhead I know a lot of people use gloss paint or even that floor wax on their models. If they get the results they want that's fine, but that doesn't make sense to me, just for realism. If I were you i'd just put a gloss on the areas you want to weather and where the decals are going to go. I skip gloss entirely, I just use CA glue to hold on the decals, since two of my tanks have zimmerit and it's the only way to get them to stick on the zimmerit.
Real tanks do of course get filthy, but they are also sometimes clean especially say before an inspection or some such, and you can make them every condition in between that you'd want to make them, EXCEPT shiny. I prefer light weathering, some people like to go the worn beat up look. The point is the paint of all tanks on a battlefield in real life look dry as chalk, whatever condition they are in. Except maybe the T-80 'show tanks in Red Square in Moscow on the May Day parade none of them ever look showroom new, or shiny at all.
That's for tactical purposes of course, shiny big things draw enemy eyes, and fire. Besides which, armored vehicles are all painted in matte (flat) colors at the factory. So if you add a gloss, to me it would only be temporary anyway, for weathering purposes, and I would waste little time on putting a matte finish afterwards. A shiny surface is better for doing a wash so the paint will flow into the panel lines. I just work around that, I use arroyo washes and run it into the seams etc. then quickly wipe off the excess.
If you used Tamiya paint it's an acrylic, I think, so you need to use the same kind of paint for an overall flat or gloss.So that's what you need to use for your clear. If you use an enamel like Testors, or the rattle can matte clear from lowes or home depot, this could make your paint job peel, craze or wrinkle. And you don't want that. I don't use tamiya because it's expensive, and my local hobby store never has the colors i want anyway. It's easier, for me, to work with good old enamel like Testors, then you can coat it with any other paint you want-hardware store paint is usually enamel and it's $5 for a big old can. Even if Lowes/Home depot paint doesn't come in the color you want, or only came in a gloss, you can just paint matte clear right over it. I only use hardware store paint for the basic colors like white, black, and red primer, and matte clear, but with our tank models you do use those colors a whole lot, even if not in big spray can quantities its still cheaper-and black is black after all.
Last edited by Marc780; 10-09-2014 at 07:55 PM.