Tristar Pzkpfw 38(t) Ausf. B with Interior Cutaway (2009)

[Bill Plunk]

Now that I've made it safely back from vacation and had a chance to rest some yesterday, I got back to the workbench today and invested some time in the weathering process.

First order of business was the application of an overall wash of enamel Raw Sienna. I used a round sable brush to apply this liberally to all the different surfaces and let it dry.



Working on that foundation, I applied some dot filters using Flat Sea Blue, Flat White, and Panzer Dunkelgelb to further vary the overall finish. A small square tip brush lightly dampened with thinner was used to blend the dots together and create the desired effect.





I'm going to let this sit overnight and then continue work in the morning. At a minimum the Raw Sienna is going to be reapplied as a pin wash to all the rivets and raised detail and I may make some other adjustments as well depending. It felt good to be back at the bench after the break for sure.

[Bill Plunk]

Continuing on with the weathering process, I applied a pin wash of Raw Sienna to add some more dust accumulation effects particularly around all of the rivets. Adjustments were made where too much wash accumulated with a small pointed brush and clean thinner.



I applied a sealing coat of Testors Lusterless Flat in the spray can to the whole model and let that sit overnight. The next step involved the application of Mig Europe Dust pigments to the tracks and running gear to match the weathering on the upper hull. I added a drop of liquid dish soap to ordinary tap water to break the surface tension and combined the powder pigment with the water in an old prescription bottle lid. The mix was applied wet with a round sable brush and allowed to air dry.



Excess pigment was removed using stiff bristled brushes as the first step. Next I made additional adjustments using a combination of wet and dry q-tips to fine-tune the look to where I wanted it.



With that out of the way, it was time to attend to some of the loose ends such as the turret crew seats. These were assembled and installed into the turret since the turret had to be in place before I could add the radio antenna.



Speaking of which, the antenna was installed using a small amount of CA gel into the pot on the hull front. I also added the delicate formed brass gun-sights for the 2 MGs courtesy of the LionMarc set. The antenna and sights were then carefully painted with Non-buffing Metalizer Gunmetal.

[Bill Plunk]

The last thing to do was to reset the white balance on the camera and take the walk-around shots: