Well it's been a few days since I was online. I had my gf and her sister over, so I didn't get to do as much as I would have hoped for, but whatever.
I finished all my assembly. The only problems I had were (as I suspected) with the skirts. I made a jig, and with some force, managed to allign everything properly.
The upper and lower turret did not meet up flawlessly, and needed quite a bit of filler, so a couple of hours of filling and sanding ensued.
I left the tank in OOB status, but replaced all handles with brass wire. I created the triangular structure around the AA gun using very thin steel wire.
I had made up my mind to finally try a desert scheme. I did not really like the colours offered by Tamiya, so I decided to go look for something else. My LHS owner very nicely pointed out that Model Master makes an exact colour match (Marines Gulf or something like that) colour and it is acrylic. I picked this up.
I airbrushed fairly thick flat black lines along all panel lines, exhausts (this will have to be done again around exhausts), and edges. I thinned the MM Acryl using Tamiya X20A thinner, to a very very nice result. The exact ration varied but averaged around 2 parts paint to 1 part thinner. The colour looks just right, and the layer of black underneath shows through very very faintly in only a few places, giving a very nice and subtle effect. This is where I stopped.
I was originally planning to lightly airbrush faint brown lines over the panels to show weathering, but I think a wash and drybrush is enough. I won't have time to do this tonight, but tomorrow, I'll probably end up giving the whole thing a wash.