Armour Painting: Leman Russ

Hey folks,

I finally have started with the Leman Russ/Tank painting project. Last week I began with the first steps after the assembly.
I'm going to make pictures from every step and write down a little paint log and I try to keep you up to date.

After a lot of reading in different armour painting forums and a few logs and stuff for how to paint tanks more or less realistically and after watching the Mig F.A.Q. DVD of how to use pigments and weathering powders I took my spray gun and started painting.

Priming the tank with white primer was the first step. I used Army Painter White Primer (first time I used another primer than GWs and I must say GW does a better job, as the Vallejo one seems to have the habit of tightening when drying and that lead to some ugly cracks in some places. But maybe I was too impatient and should have primed a few times more often with thinner layers). After priming I airbrushed Tamiya Dark Sea Grey on the whole tank as the base colour. When the colour had completely dried I masked the parts I wanted to stay dark sea grey with masking tape for the camouflage. I decided that I would paint this tank in the “two tone block disruption pattern” camo. (You can find it in Imperial Armour Vol.5: The Siege of Vraks part I page 187). I used German Grey for the darker grey again from Tamiya.

In the next step I airbrushed several thin layers of clear (Tamiya) for applying the decals and as preparation for the washing and weathering.

I used markings for the Tiger I from Bison Decals and decals from the Forge World Krieg decal sheet. My tanks should definitely be from the Death Korps of Krieg and the German crosses are regarded as unit symbol or something like that. I haven’t come up with the background as this is in a very early state and more thought of as training exercise in painting. But I will think about it.

Back to the decals. A gloss varnish underground is the best basis for applying decals. And I used Microscale solutions as well (this is a two component system of a setting solution Micro Set and a solution for softening the decal, Micro Sol). This offers a quick and easy way to blend the decal into the painting and it really looks like painted on.

After the application of the decals I sprayed two to three thin layers of clear on the whole tank to protect the decals.

Then I pin washed thinned black oil paint around all rivets and in all recesses. Pin washing means you use a small brush and paint only around the details, you do not wash the whole model/tank. I diluted the oil paint with MIGs Thinner for Washes and repeated the washing two times.


After the black I made I mixture of black and burnt umber oil paint, diluted with thinner for washes. I painted this wash more freely around the details and let it dry for a few hours. If you want to proceed faster you can use a hairdryer, this reduces the drying time to minutes.

When everything was dry I cleaned it a little bit with pure thinner for washes. When I was happy with the washing I airbrushed clear again over the whole tank to fix the wash.

Next steps will be dry brushing and application of pigments to give a muddy and dirty appearance.
That's it so far, I think I will have time on the weekend to proceed.