In order to prep for painting, I followed my usual routine of mounting all the road wheels, sprockets, idlers, and return rollers on toothpicks with small globs of blue tack poster putty to hold them in place. I masked off the appropriate diameter circles in my trusty circle template as well. The lower hull also had all of its mount points for the suspension masked off with blue tack to make it easier to install things later on and the turret was broken down into the upper and lower halves as well.
I took in progress photos while I was doing the actual paintwork but they came out poorly, probably because I was rushing in and out due to the 96+ degree heat and didn't take the time to check them properly before heading out for the next step. I primed everything with a coat of Italian Dark Brown and then applied a base coat of Panzer Gray followed up by additional applications of 2 lightened shades of Panzer Gray for variation. I'm disappointed that the photos didn't come out, but you'll be able to see the shades in some of the follow-on photos.
With the main paintwork done, I turned back to the interior of the lower hull. The wooden lattice was painted with my own special mix of wood color and then treated with alternating artist pastel doses of Black and Burnt Umber to get their look where I wanted it. You'll notice in the photo below that there are squarish looking stamp marks in the wood...I missed these when I installed them otherwise they would've been cleaned up. The tread plate area was first dry-brushed with Steel, then given a wash of Burnt Umber, and dry-brushed with lightened Panzer Gray to round out its look. It's worth noting at this point that the Trumpeter interior only provides for 36 rounds of ammunition where Spielberger says it should have 60...so I think Trumpeter skimped on this area for some reason.
Next up was the lower half of the turret. It received a Burnt Umber wash as well followed by dry-brushed lightened Panzer Gray to give it some depth and highlights. The radio had its details added and the MP40, gas mask, and gun elevation and turret traverse wheels were also further detailed.
I had a terrible time trying to get a decent shot of the added crew gear on the inside, but all of the mess kits, canteens, and gas masks were also painted and added at this point giving the turret a fully-loaded look. Everything fit well on the interior and, curiously, one of the canteens is really well detailed, C12, vs. the other two, P3. I tried to place this one in the most noticeable position to take advantage. Trumpeter went through the trouble of molding an additional canteen on this sprue, why they stopped at just one is unclear.
I also detailed the gun breech with Steel for the block and detailed the breech block handle with metalizer Gunmetal dry-brushed with Steel. The whole breech area was given the same Burnt Umber wash and dry-brushed lightened Panzer Gray treatment as the lower half. For just a little variety, I hand painted the "rabbit ears" scope in Panzer Gray to produce some shade difference and also painted the rubber eye pieces on both sights with Aircraft Interior Black.
With all the interior bits in place, I joined the upper and lower halves of the turret together. The fit was generally good but on the left side the join between the top and bottom requires some putty work to produce the required seamless area.
Next up came a return to Steps 10-13 and the installation of the various fender tools and gear. All of the different tools were removed from their sprues and some had extremely thick points on delicate parts such as the clamp handles that required very careful removal. I cut them free from the sprues first leaving plenty of attachment point in place and then trimmed it down using sprue cutters and a #11 blade, sanding as well where needed. The wire cutters and track tensioning wrench are supposed to have mount pins according the instructions and holes are provided for them in the fenders but the actual items don't have the pins molded. I also encountered a small issue with the axe in that the jack is mounted just a tad too far forward so I had to remove its pins and install directly to the fender. Otherwise everything went into place exactly as it should have. The two-piece jack block was also assembled and installed as were the spare wheels for the rear deck.
The rear hull received some attention as well. The muffler was base coated with MM Non-Buffing Metalizer Gunmetal and then given 2 successive light washes of Rust to produce its look. The metalizer has very fine metallic particles and these react perfectly with the wash to produce a rusty but not heavily corroded finish. The brake light and reflectors were painted with Tamiya Acrylic Clear Red and the Notek light with Clear Green for their lenses.
Last thing for the day was to install the road wheels and return rollers on either side. Getting the suspension to sit level was a challenge due to the off-center holes I'd mentioned back at the beginning in Step 3. To address this, I clipped off the ends of the suspension posts to varying lengths as needed wheel by wheel and glued them directly to the base of the posts since this is where they are designed to contact.
Now all that remains is to construct the MK tracks I'll be replacing the kit-supplied items and construct and install the tow cables for the turret and it will be on to the weathering stage.