1/76th Panzerkampfwagen IV - Pt 3 (of 4) - it's a saga now

Right with all the fiddly, fussy, fixing done (or so I thought) I could get down to painting. 

First off I painted the tyres and rollers. These got the usual coat of Vallejo Model Colour German Grey (VMC 995). By using a brush with a decent point and keeping a small moistened brush to hand I managed to do these without getting paint all over the inner parts of the wheels.

For the main assemblies both of them had originally been painted in my usual Dunkelgelb finish which was Humbrol 83 Matt Ochre and Humbrol 34 Matt White mixed to about 65/35 ratio. On digging through my box of enamels I found that both tins of the fore mentioned colours had dried out! So I reached for the Vallejo and mixed VMC Middlestone  (VMC 882) with VGC White to get an ok if quite light base colour.

Base coated and looking very light

Using the Osprey Modelling the Late Panzerkampfwagen IV I chose the model that had the most complete set of photos showing the camo pattern from the most angles. This was a PZIV H from 5th Panzer in 1944 which fitted my gaming period. 

I started with the Cromwell kit and drew the pattern on in pencil then painted the colours in. I used Citadel Calthan Brown and Knarloc Green paints that I got cheap years ago when the last local toy shop closed down and they looked ok. I wasn't really too bothered about the correct RAL numbers as I was going to do a lot of weathering. Once I'd got the camo on I then applied a watery wash of the base Dunkelgelb to tone it all down. This worked better than I thought. The final stages were to apply various washes of VMC Umber Wash and then Citadel Devlan Mud to the areas I wanted to add more depth to. 

Fujimi (L) base coat, Cromwell painted

Fujimi with basic camouflage

Fujimi with Dunkelgelb wash

Using the Cromwell kit as the master I then repeated the process for the Fujimi body. 

I then painted all the tools, exhausts etc. Here's how the Cromwell kit was looking prior to adding the schurtzen where you can see the tools more clearly.