Pinwash color over Panzergrau

Black or a dark brown would be fine. I use Mig's dark wash

I use black on dark gray and dark green, burnt umber on most everything else.

IMHO black too...well... black.  I use raw umber.

I think black is a good idea. Maybe the answer is actually none.  I may be on a fool's errand here. Trying to build a tank in a kind of retro style of the type produced by Tony Greenland around 1990. (Even have his Osprey masterclass book to help us along.) This style revolves around a large number of progressively lighter and progressively smaller areas drybrushed onto the superstructure. (Substructure is done separately.) At the end you're using off-white (maybe silver) to do the highlighting. It may be that panel lines will be getting darkened because they're not lightened. Greenland uses a full wash only for zimmerit and considers pinwashes optional for Dunkelgelb. Doesn't say anything about Panzergrau, although he discusses the color at length. It's like things are done backwards. Attached is a photo of a Greenland tank: the picture in the book is much more distinctly grey - zero olive or brown, but you get the idea. (Yet another illustration of how hard it is to deal with colors second hand. Wonder what the thing looked like in person.) You can also see Greenland doesn't like weathering: he says he models tanks, not mud. Stuff used to win IPMS prizes by the bucket a generation back. It's fun to try anyway.

Eric

I pondered the same set of questions when I came to building my 1:72 Italeri Pz1 AusB.

In the end I settled on a oil pin wash of burned umber darkened with a little lamp black. The colour of the wash reflected the dust weathering quite nicely as below...




I am happy with the results as it looks "right" to me.

I think all the advice so far is good solid advice, the basics of how weathering stages are carried out. When I think of black myself compared to lifecolour Panzer grey I dont see it working, Raw umber will. The pz38t is a minefield of rivets, so heres my opinion and its just me, no need to destroy a model because of my input.

Lighten the pz grey with grey, not white it will just turn grey, sounds odd but trust me.

Get your washes in as you see fit.

Heres where I would go different, before going to final weathering pastels etc. take Tamiya flat earth and thin down by about 80% to 90% and lightly wash in to the model, after it drys you will notice a very dusty finish, like the diry that never washes off in the real world.

Terry.