First Airbrush Project...Kursk!

Well there's no use in having a new airbrush setup if I don't go ahead and start an insane project with it.

A couple of years ago I collected German and Russian 15mm armies for a large Kursk scenario (July, 1943). I got a good portion of the way through the Russian forces, but stalled out on the Germans as my attention waned. I had brush-painted the majority of the armor force to the point of getting the base dark yellow color shaded and high-lighted. Honestly, it was a messy finish that I was never really happy with. The whole project went into the cupboard.

So now it's time to resurrect this beast and do a proper job on the paint schemes.

Everything started with a base coat of can-sprayed Tamiya dark yellow.

Each piece then got a heavy wash of floor wax and black paint. After that was dry, everything received a highlight dry brush of lightened yellow. As you can see, the base coat, which would then have received camouflage paint, was pretty rough. This is where the project stopped a couple of years ago.

However, now with the airbrush, the project is back on the table, and the base coats are now smoother...and I'm really looking forward to starting into the camouflage paint schemes.

These are all the German armor pieces I'm working on right now. Base coats with preliminary shading have been redone, and it's time to move on to the camo.

This assortment of 15mm pieces come from several manufacturers. Anything with a Pz III chassis is from Quality Castings, except for the StuG III Fs, which are the very nice models from Skytrex. The Pz IV Gs, along with all the tank destroyers, SdKfz 251s and Opel trucks are from Battlefront. The Tigers are the excellent models from Peter Pig...incredible, four different Tigers...so nice. Finally, the Kfz 10 and PaK 40s are, I think, from Quality Castings.

Next up, I start into the camouflage painting, weathering and detail painting. Time to see what this airbrush can really do.

'Til next time.