Considering how long the Vorpanzer sat in the building stage, it’s absolutely zoomed through paint!

Priming

As per usual, I started with primer. For the Pz.III, I opted for Model Master enamel primer for two reasons:

1. Of the primers I use, it’s the only one that doesn’t need a polishing sand

2. With the heat, I trust enamels a lot more than the Gunze and Tamiya options

Panzer Schwarzgrau

When I was sourcing paints for this build, I had a heck of a time tracking down a good Panzer Gray. The local hobby shop was out of the Model Master enamel, and their stock of gray and black Vallejo has been crap for months.

I ultimately decided to give Lifecolor another try, after a relatively positive experience using it on the Mustang’s cockpit.

This was my first time spraying Lifecolor over an entire model, and I have to say, mixed bag.

On the plus side:

• The color accuracy is phenomenal. Compared with photos of pristine Panzer Gray vehicles, it’s about a dead match.
• It goes down smooth. Even when it seems its not, it dries thin, with no dusting.

On the minus:

• It still airbrushes sloppily. Testors acrylic thinner is the only thing I’ve ever gotten it to spray decently with, and it’s good enough for base coats, but I can’t imagine trying to freehand camo with this stuff.
• The first coat is awful. This stuff NEEDS primer to grab onto, and even then it’s dicey. Only with subsequent coats, as it can grab to itself, does it start to build solid coverage.
• It’s not durable. At all.

I want to like Lifecolor, but I don’t think it’s in the cards. Still, it looks cool:

After the main painting was done, I attached the spaced armor, then painted the outside of the plating to match the rest of the tank.

Winter Camo

The Panzer III Ausf.Ls of Pz.Abt.502 wore an interesting camoflage of Panzer Gray with splotches of whitewash.

To replicate this (not exactly – I’m doing a different take from the same unit), I reached for some Tamiya white, but my bottle of both XF-2 and X-2 were both empty. So instead, I pulled out some Gunze-Sangyo Offwhite, thinned it down, and went to town.

Drybrushing

I’m not to the drybrushing stage yet, but one of the questions I immediately ran into was, what to drybrush this with to bring out detail? After a bit of experimentation, I’m opting for the same paint I’ve used on my allied builds – Model Master Dunkelgrau:

Up next, decals, track, and weathering!