Beam crosses and brown faces

After posting the last entry I continued painting the fenders. When both of them were coated nicely I slapped them on the hull. After the glue had set nicely I mixed a bit of Dunkelgelb with an even smaller amount of white. The end result was slightly but somehow lighter than the base colour, just like it was supposed to be. I set the model in my painting box so that it was resting in a pleasant 45º angle enabling me to spray the paint exactly from top of it.
It doesn't show too clearly but maybe it worked somehow?

However my attempt went, the model doesn't seem to be ruined.

Next I struck my paintbrush on the machine guns. First I painted them simply grey-black, on top of that I drybrushed some metal colour and finally painted the handles brown for some wooden looks. Pretty simple but works nicely enough in my opinion.

After the guns I painted the outside tools, first the metal parts with that grey-black and then the handles with brown. To decorate them a bit for a worn look I drybrushed some steel on appropriate surfaces. The driving lights and the side view mirror I just painted with flat aluminium. At least the driving lights should be washed with a light yellow to make them look a bit more like headlights. Or maybe some thinned down black wash because the lights aren't on. Hmm. I'll ponder on this a bit still.

While random paintjobs were drying I cleaned the crewmembers a bit and glued their bodyparts together bit by bit. Later I noticed that I had forgotten several mould lines despite my attempts to inspect all pieces thoroughly. Oh well. The main thing is that as a whole they look better than if I had just stuck them together without any kind of cleanup...

Crew mostly in pieces

In the end I decided that I'll assemble these guys completely, excluding the helmets, before I paint them. For a while I had thought if I should paint their arms separately but then I decided against it, it could end up looking a bit silly (and needing touchups afterwards anyway). So I'll save myself the trouble of working on the same parts repeatedly. Soon we'll see how this ends up.
On a side note, I don't think I've ever added all the gear on these tiny guys before. For some reason I've never dared to go into the arms race with these 1/35 or 1/72 -scale guys. The larger scale people have mostly been just tank crews and the Hummel's gunners without plenty of gear... where are those SP-artillerymen anyway? Those small scale guys have had an insane amount of junk with them despite the smallness... and it scares me :P Water flasks, bayonettes, gas mask containers, bags and pouches. We'll see how this one goes, at least these are bigger than those ultratiny 1/72 bits.

They're just missing some paint and their hats

All that crap fit surprisingly nicely on their waists and backs. The guns are going to wait for a moment, though, for obvious reasons. The first round consisted of their uniforms being painted with Vallejo's Green Ochre and after a short paint-drying break all the skin parts and their boots were painted with Vallejo's Chocolate Brown. Of course my plastic aryan supermensch are going to get a lighter skin tone during my next painting session, the brown is just a hopefully good base colour for the recesses and such (reverse highlighting?). At least brown is better for that than plasticy gray, in my opinion.
Next I'll paint their trousers with Vallejo's Iraqi Sand and maybe drybrushing the coats lightly with that same paint to give them some definition - that green ochre is a bit too dull alone. I've got two skin paints (Vallejo's medium flesh tone and dark flesh, if I remember correctly) to be tried. I'm hoping that these guys are going to look like they've been in the sun a bit already, not like they just got to North Africa. If I feel really daring, I'll try to do something about their eyes and mouths, even though I can still remember how awful my last attempt was. Detailing the uniform shouldn't be too difficult and I'm not going for anything too daring, anyway.

Paint coat after the first phase

I also tried to freehand some Balkenkreuzen to the sides of the vehicle. The small ones I painted on the sides, rear and front I approve of, but that monstrosity on the nose that shows mostly in the air... that's just awful. That'll need to be fixed. Quickly. Small insignia are easy to paint freehand, without fooling around with masking tape or anything, but that one just went wrong. *sigh*

You can't always win, but you can always lose.