Was going to post pics of the finished Achilles the other day, but the weather was too bad for taking pics of a Dark Green vehicle (the yellow painted Panther pics for that GB were off colour too).
Then I went to my club meeting and got the bright idea to try a weathering trick one of the guys from my club told me about. It looked great on his Pershing, so I gave it a go. Basically mix pastel chalk with Tamiya Thinner and paint the very thin mix on the running gear, hull, etc. When the thinner dries it is supposed to leave the chalk as a nice dusty film in the kit crevasses, etc. Note the word 'Supposed'!
Remember when I had problems with the Future/Flat base mix (my son thinned the flat base with turpentine) and I had to repaint it, well now that the thinner has dried it has cracked the paint in all the crevasses and the lower half needs repainting again. Not Happy Jan!
Have stripped the lower hull and running gear and tracks back to bare plastic this time (that was fun, trying to keep the oven cleaner out of the interior to keep that painting detail intact), made sure the kit was very clean and dry , and have sprayed the Dark Green again - this time from a new bottle of paint bought elsewhere. Have a new bottle of Flat base and new bottle of Future ('Pledge one go' in Australia according to future Guru Swanny). If I have problems this time I will be donating this kit to anyone who wants it. It is cursed, cursed I tell you. Even worse than a 'Monkey's paw' ). Deep breath. Calm down, okay, I'm alright now. Just hope it comes out 3rd time lucky.