Panzer III First Look.

Hey All!

Slapped a coat of paint on the PzIII and the ATG yesterday and have started the weathering process.

The 45mm ATG is really a great mini. Detail is above average and it paints up well. My only issue is the spoked wire wheels but this would be a tough one to model. I base coated it in Vallejo 72067 (game color) and highlighted by adding 857 golden olive and a bit of white.

I changed up companies when base-coating the Panzer. I used Tamiya Acrylic XF-63 German Grey (lighted with white) as I have found that it has much better 'stick' than Vallejo. For general painting and detail/shadow/highlight work, I find Tamiya has too short a work time and so use Vallejo for pretty much everything else. 

I think I have the scale issues worked out with the tow cable; I use a smaller gauge wire for the cable and use a larger gauge for the loops.

While painting the Panzer, I sometimes have to leave well enough alone as I tends to overpaint things. One issue I have with Vallejo paints is that they tend to change both color and intensity once dry so you have to compensate for this by test painting swatches and using brighter colors. I usually paint and re-paint highlight and shadows until I am happy with the look but I could eliminate a lot of this if I just take the plunge and lighten the crap out of the color to begin with!

I like the way that the turret bulge turned out. It is my first attempt to use epoxy to scratchbuild and it worked slick! I went a bit over the top with the rust but I was thinking that the Panzer IIIG would have sat out most of the winter 1940-41 until the Soviet invasion so ...meh!  As this is an early war Panzer III in Russia, I wanted to keep the the kit minimalistic but I decided to add a few more items. I scratchbuilt a pail out of aluminum rod and wire and also a ammo box.

There is SO much room for improvement with the running gear on BF panzers! I really tried to paint both the details and highlights but due to the rough modelling of the wheels, you can only do so much...there is really no symmetry. Some wheels have 6 others 7 holes, unevenly spaced. I am still pretty bummed out by the running gear but overall and happy with the look so far. I will be adding mud to the running gear to cover the imperfections.

Cheers!

Troy