The weather gods were more accommodating this evening vs. yesterday so I was able to complete the work I started. Prior to painting, all of the cutout areas needed to be masked off and this required a little more creativity than usual due to the nature of the areas to be masked. For the hull, I used strips of blue painter's tape that were cut down and positioned with tweezers to create a vertical barrier. For the turret, since the cutouts were curved, I used strips of sheet styrene inserted from below and wedged in between the small gap at the turret rear and the front with a small strip of painter's tape at the bottom to keep it in position.
The primer coat of Italian Dark Brown was applied by airbrush to check all the putty work and insure I didn't have any bare plastic showing through.
Next came the base coat of Panzer Schwarzgrau also applied by airbrush. The road wheel hubs were sprayed while the rubber rims were still in place to insure paint didn't get into unwanted places. Once the paint was dry, the rims were dismounted and painted separately with enamel Gunmetal.
I added some highlights and shading to the Panzer Gray with a mix of 80/20 Panzer Schwarzgrau/Light Gray and lightly sprayed it on various areas for some color variation as a foundation for the later weathering steps.
