~Painting The 7.5 cm Pak 40
~Yes.. it's been a while......
~Not wanting to worry about the finish on the fieldgun as I moved it around quite alot during the base-build, I saved painting and weathering it until now.
~You may remember my Dragon Pakgun from the 1st chapter (I know it's been a while! 
) I had it completely assembled, base-coated with Tamiya TS-46 Light Sand & a few coats of Future applied.
To get some interesting camoflage into the scene, I'm going to portray a Tropin two-color Camo of a gun likely headed originally to the nearby Mediterranean, that was diverted to defend a not-quite-overwith Axis presence in Tunisia.
Above I've masked-off the sand-coloured stripes using the Liquid masking Fluid again(I was considering using the popular silly putty metheod, but with all the delicate little parts on this piece I wasn't sure about that stuff, I just have mre experience/ confidence in the latex. To continue with my norm( of trying to show how to do some common things a bit differently
) I began by spraying a much lighter, brighter color 1st, This colour was a mix of Tamiya XF-58 Olive Green, XF-57 Buff & alcohol
~~And then misted on a darker blue-green seen in my reference, made of a mix of Tamiya XF-18 Medium Blue &XF-52 Olive green
The paints we're lightly applied to avoid build-up along the mask
~Although the green is a pretty close match--the sand color I used is alot more lively than seen in the reference shot--(which shows more of a grey-biege, but it looked a bit sickly with my groundwork colours in trials and I took some liberties to tweek it a bit--)-still, it does get a bit closer after weathering.
Weathering included first and over-all glaze of Pollyscale clear gloss mixed with s small amount of both Tamiya Buff & Deck Tan to unify the camo and represent some old road dust too. After drying several hours this was followed with a gritty-looking dark wash of Floquil Engine Black & Tuscan. This brought out some small details and imparted a grimy look.
Above It's very close, I'm just applying some final touches with pigment powders, and picking-out some detail items with Tamiya paints. The Tires(painted seperately) where drybrushed with Floquil paints in the same way you say on the Kubelwagon, and the treads loaded with sand by way of a sludge-wash. A few other details we're dealt with in ways consistaint with those earlier in this blog.
Since this fieldpiece is supposed to be only around a month old in the story my Dio tells, there is minimal scratches, no rust or missing parts, but there is a great deal of dust & grime.
~More pictures to follow~~~~
Some more images of the completed Pak 40
Bare steel areas depicted with my old favorite mixes of Testors Enamels, Steel, Bright Silver, & Black thinned with white spirits
Very minimal paint scratches hand painted with Vallejo Camo Black Brown and a very fine liner brush.
I did take some liberties with the colors as seen here, but I think the over-all look is still right, considering I'm dipicting frairly fresh paint--and the look on the Dio (not showing yet
) seems to be very good
~Work has already started with the grip of figures...updates up soon ........
thanks for reading along Gents.............