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Tamiyabigstuff

56022 1/16th Panther build

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Started the build of my 1/16th Panther kit this week.

Having recently completed KV-1 & KV-2 builds earlier this year which have been painted dark green all over, I quite like the idea of going for a camouflage finish on the Panther.

I've not done a camouflage finish on anything larger than 1/72 Airfix kits - so I'm after some tips / techniques - basically, how do you do yours ?

TIA.  

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Assuming you will be using an airbrush...Spray your base or lightest color first. Once dry apply ropes of plasi tac poster hanger  or blu tac across the model to outline the boarder areas. This will give a great mask and will also allow the transition between the colors to be a nice soft line as opposed to a hard line like on British cammo patterns. Fill in the areas you don't want panted with masking tape or paper. Whatever works...Keep in mind that armor painting was often done in the field and not "perfect" You could literally use anything you could find to help you blend in better. I love winter cammo with sloppy white wash added over the base colors. There is a hair spray technique that can be used as well to get very cool effects.

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Hi Bigstuff nothing like a Panther!

Salvine has pretty much hit the nail on the head, but I have a few additions.

1stly try to find Silly Putty if you can. It is more pliable than blu-tack, leaves no grease and will never pull previous coats of paint off. You can reuse it time after time too. 

With a Panther you probably want the softer edge camo rather than the hard lined Ambush style. I used Silly Putty to mask off the hard edges on my King Tiger. To achieve soft edges, Place the silly putty in the places you want to mask, then cut out a piece of paper that overhangs the putty by about 5mm in all directions and place it so it is about 5mm off the surface. This creates a gap that the paint will blur into and thus the softer edges. There are loads of tutorials online like this one.

2ndly getting the right colours is quite easy. Tamiya XF-64 Red brown is perfect as is. For the yellow, I mixed Flat White with Desert Yellow which toned it down nicely and for the Green I went with JA Green and some Grey which I felt stopped it being too green, if that makes sense. 

3rdly, once it is sealed with clearcoat (I prefer satin rather than Matt, and satin works far better for the next stage) give it a nice wash with some of these. It really makes the seems ping and gives a softness to the paint.

Have fun!

 

 

 

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For  my jagdpanther build, I just sprayed the camo on freehand with a badger airbrush without any masking:

 

I started off my drawing in the edges of the colour with the airbrush producing the finest line possible, then filled in the colour with the airbrush set to give a wider pattern. What the other have suggested will give a better finish, but you can see in the thread above what the  lazy approach can produce.

 

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