This is my first ever RC tank. I have upgraded it with metal sprockets, metal idler wheels, metal susp arms, 3:1 gearboxes, new prop. S&S, RX-18 board and LED-machine gun. But I am not quite happy with the paint job/weathering.

What can I do to make it better looking?

A.

Hi Atkleiv,

If you like my suggestion, here it is...

You can spray some Dull Cote to remove the shiny surface, Your tank has the wet look... and also the rust is too much,
active tanks on battle seldom develop rust as seen in your tank, tank in musuems maybe but not in combat.
As for the burn black look use more Flat Black Matt from Tamiya acrylic to simulate soot, again yours looks wet.

Overalll the appearance would be improved.

Here's mine before I upgraded it, now it looks totally different with upgrades and EL MOD, Istill have'nt finished it though.
Still waiting for me to complete her....[][]

Best regards

Patrick C.

Well, my first advice would be to take pictures at daylight and without flash, otherwise colors and shadows get distorted.
On first glance I can find the following shortcomings:
1. You have unpainted surfaces - must fix even if you need to take some stuff appart;
2. The gray seems too dark, but cant be sure without daylight pics at least;
3. Some surfaces (like the fiefel filters) need some sanding;
4. Rust seems genuine (one of those nifty rust kits, I suppose) but is applyed in blobs which are not logical;
5. The rods in the tow cable mounts should be brass colored if not gray - on the pics they at least seem the same color as the wooden handles of tools
6. Engine grills seem painted semi-gloss black - I would suggest to paint them gray as the rest of the tank and use a touch of powder pigments - black sooth perhaps - this also goes for the exhaust area and muzzle break.
7. Id suggest getting metal tracks, if only for the looks. There is nothing lasting you can do with the plastic ones thats worth while.
8. The spare tracks on the front panel would likely have an even coat of rust. (btw, fresh rust is briter, old rust is darker, you might want to give this a consideration);
9. If the gray is in fact too dark, you could either repaint it or give it a very thin white (or light gray) wash. (My own Tiger seems to be too dark, so I ll probably opt for a whitewash when Im done);
10. After the final painting of the tank, it would be good to give it a black wash to make details stand out more.
11. Drybrushing a lighter gray on lead edges is a good thing to do as well.


Cant think of anything else right now. You might want to consider beautification accessories (if you want to go that far, that is) like scraping off the tools and getting metal ones, correct metal headlights and stuff like that. One important addition no Tiger should be without is photo etched fine engine grills on the engine deck. And of course, you must add a zink bucket accessory!

Tanks did have slopy paint jobs back then, even if you make a mistake its not that bad, and if you also add dirt then everything is fine. Weathering is something you will need to read about and practice, there are quite a few techniques and materials you could use. The most important thing is that it should be logical.

Dont be afraid to experiment. At this scale, you can redo the painting and weathering as many times as necessary to feal pleased with it, so keep going at it until you like the result!

I hope Ive been helpfull

Be very wary of rusting German tracks,even the spare ones on the front plate.

The metal that German tracks are made from has a very high (as I understand it)zinc content amongst other things resulting in them never rusting,hardly ever wearing and rarely breaking.

As to weathering then I can only relate to you my own maxims.

1/ Study as many photographs of your subject as possible.

2/Paint what you see,not what you think you see.

Mark

Thank you all for a lot of good advices... this forum is really helpful.

But I have some questions:
- What is "doing a white wash"?
- What is "drybrushing"?
- Is "dull cote" a kind of clear, mat spraypaint?

Thanks
A.
Norway

These links have some usefull instructions on weathering:
http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazin...weathering.htm
http://www.culttvman2.com/dnn/Portal...weathering.pdf
http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?...rtid=34&page=1

Also, look for pics of 1/35 scale tank models on the net to see how they are weathered. A quick answer to your questions would be:
- whitewash - applying a coat of very thinned white paint which cloud and lighten the main color (make sure to test the resulted thinned paint on another similar surface before applying on the model)
- drybrushing - is used for acsentuating highlights of outer edges of surfaces - goes with a lighter shade of the color of the surface you will drybrush - lightly dip a brush in the paint, wait for it to dry off to the extent that it still leaves marks but it cant be used for smooth painting, and brush the edges in fast strokes. Again better test and get used to it before applying on the model.
- dull coat - yes, it is a transparent mat coat,either sprayed or brushed on to remove the glossyness of the surface.

Pitty I have no photoes to show you of how these things look at the end, but do a google search on weathering and you will come up with a lot of information. Weathering isnt easy but its probably the most fun part and gives uniqiueness to your model.

It also would be helpful to look thru the 750+ pictures in the gallery. It will give you some good ideas.

These guys will give you tons of great advice atkleiv.
I will also add never give up on your paint jobs they will get better with ever tank you do.

Painting is painting, whether its a tank or a landscape it takes talent, practice and patience. At this point I only have a little of all three. I will be painting/weathering my Tiger in the next couple of days, when I do I'll try to post some pictures.(if I can ever figure out how on this site) It worth repeating that the gallery contains a wealth of ideas and inspiration.

Here are some tips for painting your model. Start by visiting these helpful web sites for some lasting instruction and various ways to approach the same problem:

http://www.internethobbies.com/seofpi.html

http://www.naritafamily.com/howto/ki...hoto_frame.htm

Google "Testors Dullcote" to answer your question.

Darn, I just ruined my Tiger after a white wash with faulty paint, its now all sticky []
I ll have to remove the paint and start over...

Tip: Before stripping the model, what type of paint are you using?
Also, I suspect it is way to cold right now to be doing panzer model paint work, unless you have heat lamps.
Find a way to had some warmth to the tank surfaces, even a hair dryer can help, but do not get carried away and melt the plastic.

Im generally using Revel enamel 77 mat with a brush. But I used a very thinned Agama mat white enamel for the wash and I guess it was old or something. I hate those Agama paints, they are decent for airbrushing I guess but awfull for paintbrushing. Temperature is low but good for the paint to flow more evenly and brush marks disappear before it drys out.

Allright. After having read all the posts here about my not to good paint job, I have decided to repaint my Tiger tank. Yesterday I repaintend the whole tank with the red oxide primer color, so no my Tiger is back to basic.

I guess my next step would be to paint the whole thing german grey again?

Any short step by step that I could follow after this?

A.

This is just a short guideline:
- primer
- basic color - panzer gray in this case
- decals application
- *
- filters and washes with thinned paint
- black wash
- powder/pastel pigments
- mat coat

* If you are adding new details or have disasembled some details, you ll have to figure out when to add them, usually its after the decals so they get weathered as well.

Thanks again, Leggeron, for the tips list. But I must admit I am a bit nervous when I am going to whitewash my tank now after your experience. What is best to thin my Humbrol enamel paint with?

A.

I personally go with any model paint thinner for enamels, doesnt matter if its Humbrol, Revel or something else - it needs to be for enamels. Other folks may give other advise though. Also be sure not to rub it in hard, just spread it over. So basically paint it panzer gray and after that wight wash it with very thinned white paint. You will have to come up with a ratio, lets say 2-3 drops of paint and about 10-15 ml of thiner and see how it goes. you can add either if the color is getting too thick or thin. What wight wash will do is break the uniformity of the gray - give it a bit of unevenness. When doing this you will notice how the thinned paint tends to accumulate in recessed areas such as pannel lines. When you do a black wash later - do it mostly over such areas and it will make shadows and pannel lines stand out. If you are not sure, first test on a different surface - for example the bottom of the tank or a rear mud flap, something you can quickly fix or wont be visible.

P.S. Ideally let each paint coat dry until the next day before you do something else.
P.P.S. If it looks bad, let it wait until tomorrow and its dryed out before you panic - usually it looks better when nicely dryed. Scrutinise it then, maybe you ll like or maybe you ll want to fix it. Thats what happened with my wightwash, I paniced a few hours after doing it and started removing the paint with thinner. After removing half of the paint I got really pissed off and went to bed. In the morning however, the other half had dryed out and it was no longer sticky. Now I have to do the other half again.

This my first RC tank also, so Im a bit worried about how its comming along as well. I ll make some photos tomorrow.
Btw, the hoses of the feifel filters of my tank were very glossy, I gave them a thorough witewash and they look much better now. Also tryed the HL decals but they are awfull and removed them immediately, ordered some proper ones today.

P.P.P.S. I seem to have spelled the color white in quite a few wrong ways in my posts [&:]

Why don't you consider using white finger paint for the whitewash so you can wash it off after winter. It looks great IMO!

I didnt mean winter camo. Just to give gray some fading and irregularity - I ll post some pics tomorrow.
But, that looks absolutely great! I have never seen paint like that though, is it sold toy stores?

Allright, after a lot of work it ended up like this:

A.

Definitely looks much better, see you have improved your technique quite a bit. I would tone down the orange-ish rust on the stacks. But that is just me. Nice job [sm=thumbs_up.gif]

Wade

Yes, I was also thinking about that. But with what? A black wash? Some drybrushing with grey?

A.

I bet you like it more now
Good job!
Try a black wash (or a very dark brown wash) first and see how it goes.