Tamiya PzKpfw IV Ausf. H Early Version Build

Looks pretty good.  But try to avoid the "hand of God"  look that modelers sometimes exhibit when airbrushing snaky camo lines.  Look at your 2nd picture.  It's hard to imagine a 2-in tall scale person with a paint gun and long and unwieldy air hose, climbing all over that tank just to keep long runs of uninterrupted camo lines.  Try to picture a guy who is splattering paint on himself and wanting to finish the nasty duty to go loaf off.  What will the camo look like then?  I'd say fewer contiguous lines and more jerky effects.  That's my opinion.

HTH

Roy;

Thank you very much for looking at my build.  That makes perfect sense when you put it in those terms.  Well, I have a PzKpfw III up next to keep practicing.

John

I say pretty good effort. I'm guilty as well when doing my camo schemes.

Don't worry a whole lot about color. Once weathered, the colors will be altered anyways.

Roy,

Will the same apply for modern vehicles??

I guess modern tanks can now have long continuous camouflage patterns, hey, they are even very complex "digital" camouflages (MARPAT).

Does it apply?  I don't know of many modern armies who permit their crews to randomly spray camo onto their vehicles.  But given the presences of some the ad hoc camo schemes present in German WW2 stuff, you definitely see lots of originality.  I think its incumbent upon us, as miniaturists, to look at solidiers' tasks and see how they'd appear in our models.

Most modern Western armies use patterns to camouflage their AFVs. That is not to say that the patterns are always followed- there is almost always some variation. But often the painters/crews dont have the latitude that German ones of WWII had. They are more of bands or splotches of the camo colors. And I do recall once being put on paint detail myself after a evening of celebrating in Holland (good Dutch Beer) and minimal sleep. lets just say that I was not following the MERDC pattern.

Well, I finally finished it:)  Here are four final pics.  Again, I am no photographer.  Seemed to come out with a reddish tint to the pics.  Here is a summary:

I built it out of the box except for making my own tow cable by twisting a small wire and then gluing it into the end pieces.

I used model master acryls for all the paint except for Tamiya fine grey primer in the can.

I made the mud by mixing a ground up Van *** brown chalk pastel with water and Elmer's glue.

I first darkened it by an oil wash of black a small amount of burnt sienna.  I then thinned out just some black to make the streaks on the skirts on the sides.

Future was sprayed over the whole thing and the decals were placed.  Three coats of MicroSol to set them.  They are not really good decals IMO as they still silvered a little.  I then sprayed future again.

I then used Tamiya's weathering orange rust for the tracks on the front and the muffler on the back.

All in all for my second armor model, I was happy with it.  Learned a lot and am now working on a Pz III.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84704985@N08/10502091793/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84704985@N08/10501890356/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84704985@N08/10501896944/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84704985@N08/10502194894/

John

Hey John, that looks pretty good!  Camo came out nice as did the light weathering.  I assume the twisted wire tow cable is the one in the rear?  If so, very nice job with it, although it seems a bit bright.  Could be the flash?  Overall a very nice build for your #2 armor model!  Looking forward to your Pz. III!

John,

It looks pretty good for only your second armor model.

A word on "Dark Yellow". That term is almost a misnomer. "Dark Yellow" is, in truth, almost a light tan in reality. In order to get a proper DY, mix your Dark Yellow with at least 50% white or actual "tan". It's honestly better to get a lighter tan than a darker tan, because when adding washes to it, you're going to wind up darkening it quite a bit anyway. UN-lightened DY coats always come out too dark when ram umber washes are applied.

Second thing too--don't apply Future to your WHOLE model. That's unnecessary. Just "spot-apply" it where your decals are going to go. Then apply the decals and seal with an acrylic flat coat or semi-gloss coat. These hold filters much better than gloss coats do anyway. Some guys like to apply washes over gloss coats, but I do mine over semi-gloss, almost-flat coats.

Not bad John. I think the camo came out well. I would put some steel on the drive-sprocket teeth, for it would be worn clean.

looks nice. don't sweat the colors too much. if you compare yellow, green, and red brown from any 3 paint companies they will be different. and paints fade in weather anyway, i use wirs fake flower stems for tow cables, rub them down with mettalic gray and over that powders or washes.

The chocolate brown is supposed to be that color. Shocoladen Braun is the RAL color and is found in Model Masters RAL line in both enamel and acrylic.