About 2 years ago I decided to return to modelling after a bit of a mental health break. To ease back into it and after much good advice from my brother (my main gaming and modelling partner), I decided to start working on things that had no pressure. This meant no time pressure from commissions, no quantity pressure and limited quality expectations, and by that I mean things wouldn’t have to be dripping in rivet accuracy, I really needed just some build, glue and enjoy time.

Luckily I had a bunch of older/second hand junker 1/35th kits sitting around which would be both a cheaper start and easier for my dimming eyesight …..

Enter the old 1/35th Revell Jagdpanzer IV (I believe its an even older Dragon rebox) which I got secondhand with some parts already assembled. Much earlier I had mostly finished up the assembly but it was sitting around as I had no idea (or intention in all honesty) of doing anything further with it. So as a return/test project it seemed ideal, only needing a little tarting up before being used as a brush painting testbed. As some might know I brush paint everything as a compressor is out of my pay grade, so before getting too enthused in the larger scale stuff, I needed to know if my style of brush painted camouflage and weathering would transfer to 1/35th scale.

So what was the process?

I made a few simple changes, first swapping the L/48 main gun for the spare L/70 supplied in the kit which is for a later kit version. Ideally the front glacis plate should also have been changed to match the later versions gun. I did try to pry it off to replace it but the glue was too stronk and bad things started happening. I faked the steel wheels normally fitted to the front 2 roadwheel positions to offset the added weight of the L/70 mounting, by adding some cardboard disks, good enough for government work. I scrounged up a periscope from the spares box for the commander’s hatch and hacked at some of the track guards as I like to do. That was about it, ready for painting.

Painting and Finishing

As is normal now, I primed/basecoated it with a Tamiya rattlecan. I’ve found this stuff is a pretty strong primer and I prefer to get close to the desired colour as it just makes it easier for my process, don’t think I’d ever prime in black for example. I then brush painted the base German dunklegelb using GW acrylics and did some panel lightening by progressively adding some paler bone colour to the yellow base. Ok technically it’s “zenithal” highlighting but I hate these new-fangled modelling hipster terms . . . I tend to over-lighten the base colour always though as weathering always darkens things. I painted the tracks and rubber on the roadwheels as well at this stage. I have a couple of old “hooked” brushes which make it easier to get in between the wheels and get into the tracks properly. They can always be touched up later anyway.

Onto the camo. Pretty simple, select the pattern and apply in stages. I stipple first with the chosen shade (see the green in the pics) which has about, roughly, 50% of the base yellow added. This gives a nice blended base – faking some tricky airbrushing work right there. Then I add more green over that initial blend, sometimes using a different green depending on the look, till it gets dense enough. I did the next colour (the red/brown) in the same way before giving the finished paint a light drybrush of the base yellow. This ties the camo colours into each other and the base.

Finishing up involves edge highlighting, panel lining, chipping and shadow blending. Edge highlighting is just a very light edge drybrush with a very pale yellow, really to give a base for edge chipping but it also adds some old school drybrushing definition. Panel lining uses black or brown and is built up in layers Don’t start with very dark shades. In general and for all the steps, it’s easier to add but very hard to remove things if overdone. Chipping is small dots and scrapes using a blue/grey mixed custom colour, although really any darkish grey could be used. It isn’t all meant to represent “chipped paint” but also dirt and general crud. I use some of my finest brushes here working to keep it random and semi-logical. Finally, I blend around things, post shading is what the cool kids call this I believe. For this I used both a thinned acrylic red/brown and oils, the oils being very, very forgiving to use.

And there it is. I was happy enough with the result to figure I could box-on and brush paint the bigger scaled stuff, and so went off to finish some more things, more of those later. But, is it finished. Nah, the sharp eyed will see a lack of track mud and dust, no decals etc. But I will get around to those, at some stage, maybe …..

cheers – Q