If youare going to do WW2 German Armor then anything goes Marian. The crews would get a can of a color the consistency of grease. They would thin this with water, or fuel or kerosene to apply it to the tank. They'd use brooms, paintbrushes, mops, rags and it would have different consistencys, application styles etc.
Some crews, especialy in the DAK and during the campaigns into Russia would camo the tanks with mud and dirt. Completey covering the vehicles so that they blended in with the geography (relatively, as much as a pzr4 can blend...) but again this was done impromptu and with varying results.
Not to sway you from obtaining an airbrush, becuase I highly reccomend it, but we are too often "captured" by our modern day, machine age, everything is done at the depot view of military vehicles. With crisp paintjobs and reltively undamaged vehicle skins. (Not alot of trees to hit in Iraq) where as in WW2 the germans were pretty good at diving into a bunch of trees and bushes at the first sign of air attack. This "weathered" vehicles pretty quick.
Now even if we look at crisp paintjobs in a 1:1 vehicle where a compressor and spray gun were used, there is overspray and soft edges there at close inspection, say 10'. With scale effect, that will make a pretty crisp line, almost brush clean maybe. Certainly a brush could be used if the original piece was camo'd using a paint brush or very "rusticly" if rags or a broom were used.
Now, ask yourself who are you modeling for. Let me rephrase that....who are you building for? Yourself or are you entering competition? If it is for yourself, the best finish you can provide with the tools available to you with your current capabilities and experience is all that you need. Now if you are building for competition, then it will be necessary to play the tool race and not only aquire those tools needed (airbrush) but also hone your talents to match or beat those you are up against. And in competiton, the closer the race, the harder the scrutiny. The guy that has one more rivet than you wins. By that point the competition is long past the finish stages and judges are looking under paint. Very subjective area here too. And another thread all together.
Are you happy with what you've done?
Obviously you are proud of what you've done. We've been fortunate enough to have you post pics of your work. So I think thats all that matters. Ultimately all we can do is offer criticism (and its always been constructive. Though we may differ on opinions, but that is based soley on our own experiences and aesthetics, I don't think anyone has ever said about anyones presentation that it sucked or told anyone to think about a different hobby) and you can take what you like and disregard which you feel is needless. Hopefully we teach and learn at the same time.
Please keep up the good work and continue to post your progress on your projects.
Like the SCA, we learn by doing. I think half the fun of logging in is to see what everyones been working on.
reagards.
Mike