I decided that I would approach the weathering of the hull interior in a "layered" fashion similar to that I would use on the exterior. To that end, I started the process by stippling some enamel Burnt Umber using an old round sable brush. The brush was treated the same as if I were going to dry-brush but I used a random stabbing motion instead. Very hard on the brush but produces a nice effect.
The Burnt Umber is pretty stark, so to blend it in a bit, I used the same stippling approach but with the base color.
With that foundation laid, I turned to the interior details and added the seat back cushion and also detailed the wood seats. The wood effect was created using a thinned wash of MM enamel Leather over the base coat color followed by a dusting of burnt umber artist pastels. The black leather cushion was painted using a base coat of MM enamel Gunmetal followed by dry-brushed patterns of the base coat color, MM enamel Leather, and a light dry-brush of the enamel Gunmetal to tie it back together.
I installed 9 of the single-round Pak 40 ammo containers after a test fit with the upper hull revealed that the 10th round wouldn't fit properly.
Driver's area received some attention as well. I installed the seat, the gas mask holder, and the various gears and levers. Kit-supplied decals along with Solvaset provided the dash board instrument detail.
The entire lower hull received a coat of Future to seal in the paint work and initial weathering as a foundation and was left to cure overnight. Then I applied an overall wash of enamel Raw Umber and followed that up with a 2nd wash of enamel Raw Sienna. A pin wash of enamel Burnt Umber was used to bring out some of the panel detail in the floor as well as other details like the hinges on the ammo bins.
Not wanting the interior to be too dark, I went back over the washes with an additional dry-brush pass of the base coat color and further layered/blended things together until I had the look I was after.
I sealed in all the work with a coat of MM Lusterless Flat to remove lingering gloss from the Future and then joined the upper and lower hull halves together. I used rubber bands as a set of "helping hands" at the three strategic points on the hull that wouldn't result in the compartment sides warping in the process. The hull nose plate was added as well to make sure the alignment worked for the later exterior components.
I noticed in the PT reference photo that I've been using that the cleaning rods were tucked away on the left side using the space between the mount brace and the hull as a convenient way to keep them close by but still out of the way of the crew when working the gun. So I dug around in my spares bin and came up with a set of 4 rods from another DML kit, separated them and cleaned them up, then painted and detailed them and arranged them into position. Once I was happy with the way they sat, I used a small amount of liquid glue to secure them in place.
I decided I wasn't going to deploy the rear-mounted MG42 on its mount so it was installed instead in the seat-back bin along with an ammo can from the spares bin.
That's all for now, next up will be detailing the Pak 40 and working on the remaining exterior details.