Weathering Tamiya's 1/35 Cromwell

Dear fellow modelers,

Sorry for taking so long to reply but the past weeks have been filed with more homework than usual and because school to trumps hobby, I haven't had much time to focus on modeling. Any way, I would like to thank you for all your friendly advice, I have removed the german box that I had mistaken as wine case that came with the kit. (Embarrassing I know) I have since then replaced it with the correct part. I have since removed the seam on the bag attached to the fender. I also added a dark grey drybrush over the silver coating to help tone down on the shine. My next project will be the tamiya 1/35 char b1 bis which I decided to buy mig dark mug pigment for. I also am now experimenting with pre-made/homemade washes. There is only 1 question I have off you guys as of now, what is a filter and how do I decide as to which one to use? I ask because their are 5 filters for panzer grey alone! Warm grey, neutral grey, dark grey, blue, and brown, you name it they make it. Are they supposed to used together?

Sincerely- Dakota G.

Glad to see you experiementing w/new techniques!  May I offer a few suggestions?  Next time you're on the road and can see trucks or haulers or near equipment that sits outside like maintenance equipment, notice how their paint wears.  I would use aluminum to highlight only tracks -- never anything on the upper surface.  Most WW2 era AFVs used highly ferrous (iron) alloys for their major components.  If paint was worn off, it would immediately oxidize -- a deep brown/black appearance in 1/35 scale.

Remember, any light reflection meant possible death for the crews.  Keep your eyes open and you'll start seeing things you never were aware of.  Also eliminate any molding seams (your blanket roll on the left fender).  Also, while crews would pick up useful stuff, adding a German jack block (mounted on your fender) would serve no recognizable purpose.  Always think if you were an overworked, eternally tired, hungry and dirty soldier living out in the open.  What would YOU do to keep life simple, avoid extra duty and add to comfort?  Don't just add stuff willy-nilly b/c you have stuff in your spares box.

Hope these help.  Keep up the good work!

Looks pretty good, Dakota! Definitely getting the hang of it!

Some more advice: be careful about overdoing it with metallic colors when drybrushing. It's easy to get carried away and all of a sudden your model looks "silvery". A LITTLE silvery wear here and there is better from an artistic point of view. For dark tanks--gray, green, etc--use tan to drybrush, and then a little aluminum or steel to add highlights on top of that. On light tanks, like German Dark Yellow or desert colors, use a dark brown to drybrush. It makes a beautiful contrast to the base coat. Hit the second pass with some darker grey metallic to make some "worn" spots.

The dirt you did looks good. Get yourself some pigments though, and start learning about doing mud and dust with pigments. There are several brands out there to choose from. There are a lot of articles here on FSM too that can help you with methods to use these convincing products!

Here's an oldie-but-goodie I did about some Hetzer wheels that may inspire you.

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/3/t/83010.aspx#810209