1/56 Panther repaint

 

I'm back with some new (old) models, this time a repaint of the Italeri 1/56 scale Panther with anti-air armor I completed several years ago. I was never really happy with the paintjob and weathering I did and decided to give it a new lease on life. 

I didn't want to go to all the work of stripping the entire thing down to primer, so I decided to simply overpaint everything. I started by adding chipping around worn edges, repainting the tools, and adding a little more depth to the tank commander figure using acrylics. Once that was done and sealed, I started by giving the tracks an overall wash using AK enamel track wash, and then picked out worn metallic parts with pencil lead. I started on the oil weathering by applying a white filter over the entire model and, once that had dried, doing a much deeper wash of white oil paint. This left the whitewash with a semi-transparent layer overall to represent a weathered finish but, wanting to keep the whitewash heavier in areas that had less wear and exposure to the elements, I began dry blending white oil paint into crevices. You can see a good example of this on the glacis plate under the MG mount and near the track covers. 

I then applied a detail wash of brown, green, and black oils (the colors shift darker lower on the hull to represent mud and heavier weathering kicked up by travel). As rusty as the previous weathering had been, I wanted a darker tone to the armor panels and mufflers so applied an overall wash of dark umber and then applied multiple filters of red, orange, and finally yellow oils. With the pigment load getting higher and higher, this creates the "dusty" oxidized effect without having to use dry pigments. 

Finally came mud. For this I used Vallejo European Mud, focusing on the track areas, rear hull, and lower glacis. Once dry, I loaded on old toothbrush with paint and "flicked" it over the lower hull to create splash effects, using Vallejo European Splash Mud, Vallejo Dark Olive, and Secret Weapon Caked Dirt.