Question

You will want to paint the lower hull before you put on the road wheels. I normally paint the unassembled parts Tamiya Dark Yellow or Model Master Dunkelgelb. Then I assemble everything (minus the road wheels, tracks, plus the stowage and leaving the turret off as a seperate piece) and I camo it using either Tamiya Red Brown (mixed with a little Tamiya Hull Red to redden it up) and Tamiya Dark Green or Model Master Schokoladenbraun (mixed with a little rust to redden it up) and Panzergrun. I am actually doing that same kit right now for the Bulge build (starting tonight!) Let me know if you have any other questions.

Great! Thanks for the help. I will no doubt have need of your services later on.
Thanks again.

You should look at joing the Battle of the Bulge Group Build. There are a couple of us doing the King Tiger.

How do these group builds work? Is it just getting a group together working on a similar theme and share pics when they are done?

On every kit I assemble as much as the base color as possible, that way I don't get any unnecessary glue marks all over it. Some will assemble tools and all, then paint.

That's it in a nutshell!

I think I'll pass on that group build for now. I just got a couple of other models in the mail today, which should be easier than this one, so I am going to do those first and then tackle the Tiger. I need to get a lot of paints for it anyway.

No problem- actually it is going on for few months, so you can join in whenever you want. Stop by the thread on the GB link to check out our progress.

When doing armor I assemble the whole kit first.Then I spray my base and finiall coat.In this way I can paint the road wheels and what ever is left next.This also helps to do it this way in case I want to scratch built a little or clean up a mess that happens once in a while.Digger

I take a hybrid approach...usually end up painting the roadwheels by airbrush while they are still on the sprues and the attaching as a final step right before the tracks go on. Touchup where needed is done with a regular brush. Generally speaking, the lower hull receives a basecoat only as the camo pattern would be restricted to the upper hull, skirts, and wheels anyway. I've found this also makes it much easier to deal with rubber-rimmed roadwheels and retain the overall scheme between upper hull and the running gear.

How do you guys do camo patterns? This is where I will probably need the most help with it.

I may not be putting this together right now but I would still like to gather information on how to some it ahead of time so keep the tips coming.

Molina: I don't know if is your first model, but welcome to the world of modeling, my way to do it is first asembly the whole model including the accesories and then primer the model on a primer gray or rust color depends on you, then paint the scheme, for ambush i sugest to look at real pictures of tanks or models in the internet and always start painting the dark color then the rest, the last thing i do is the tracks, if they are from plastic or piece by piece assy, all and then painted in rust (testors 1185 is good) then let them dry for a day, next given them a wash(heavy wash) with black (80% tamiya Thinner, 20% Black Paint), let them dry for one day and the last and best step, grab a pencil and with your exacto knife peel all the grafhite and use your finger to aply to the track.

For weathering on your model use drybrush techniques or powders.....good luck and if you have a question feel free to ask me.....

Gabriel Salazar

Thanks for all the info. When I get to doing it, it will probably be my 4th model so far.

Only 1 question right now. What exactly is a wash? I've heard it mentioned a lot but have no idea what it is.

try this link out for washes
http://www.ww2modelmaker.com/modelpages/DDwash.htm

Thanks for that link Jason, I'm just about to start on a wash myself over here and that page just about sums it all up!

You're in good hands Molina00, so I'm not going to suggest anything that these folks haven't touched on. All good points toward a nice build. Good luck, and were here if you need us. Semper Fi, mike