Steel details

More dark grey steel

This effect seemed to have worked nicely in the last couple of different-scale projects, so I stuck to it. The tracks I had already treated with this same approach, so it wasn't that different.

Starting in the front of the tank I painted the tip of the machine gun that barely peeked out of the armoured shield. The next I painted the short track bit on the front glacis plate and proceeded to the cables. All the tow loops I left purposefully green, they weren't supposed to be fully worn down to the bare metal.

We had a couple of tow cables on the right side of the tank, I painted them the same way. Later I should do a tiny highlight on them with a slightly lighter grey, perhaps. The only engineering tools were a pair of showels, they too became grey-tipped. While I was on this side I painted the antenna grey as well, but I thought I should check my Armoured Museum reference photos because I wasn't entirely sure of this approach. In the rear end there was that one track link to be painted steely.

The flipside had just a saw and another track link.

After these I painted the roadwheelery. Here my idea was that while the tank was on the move, the outer rims of the road wheels (etc) were going to be pretty clean of rust and dirt, due to the constant movement. That would look much better than the bright steel -painted ones on my T-35, I felt.

At this point I remembered that I had just plopped the attachment bolts on the road wheel arms for painting. I plucked them all off, except for the return rollers. This'd be a good-looking setup.

While I was spinning the model in my hands, I realized that the exhaust pipes were still green and they weren't going to remain that way for long in the nature, so I painted them grey for some upcoming mistreatment. In the same instant I decided to paint the engine deck's partially curved grille as well, I decided they had also suffered enough to lose any paintjob they had ever had.

Again, I wasn't 100% sure of the last bit, but there was time to change it still. It wouldn't be the first time my gut feeling was a bit off, right?