Pigment to Pewter

On this cold, March winter day, I am winding down my five day weekend from work.  What was originally intended to be a multiple day salmon fishing excursion with my dad, turned into lazy days of World War II Online(more about that in another post), a trip to the hobby store, and today I was able to actually get some painting in.  All this due to some nasty storms bringing wind, rain, cold temps, low cloud ceilings, and freezing levels.  Obviously it did not make for very good fishing or flying weather.

Similar Colors of Tamiya and P3 paint

Recently, I purchased some Tamiya paint pots to try on my GHQ and C in C miniatures.  My Privateer Press P3 paint color purchases have been geared more toward Warhammer 40,000 and so I was looking for more military colors for my tanks and trucks.  After reading FineScale Modeler and noticing that they use Tamiya paint a lot, I was curious to try some.  The hobby store I frequent carries a large selection of Tamiya in all sorts of cool military type colors whereas their P3 selection isn't as vast.

So far, I've found that Tamiya is a little more finicky in that it seems to be less forgiving on brush strokes than P3.  I'm finding the need to work fast and not go back over the same areas too much with the brush while it's still wet.  I can get away with this a little more with P3.  I'm reminded that I'm definitely a beginner and still refining my technique.

Overview of what all I'm currently working on.  Russian AT's, T-34's, Panther V's, GAZ  Trucks, Pz38's, BT-5's, Stug III's, Opels, and German AT's with Half-track haulers.  

That said, this session was more of a "test" session with the new paint.  I'm still not sure about the color schemes I want on my Opels so I've got a couple of test subjects going.  I've settled on green for the Gaz trucks, but I want to try dry-brushing with a lighter shade of it to see if I get the look I want.

Opels still very, very early in the painting process.

After ninety minutes in the garage, my feet became numb from the cold.  Even with the heaters on, I can only get it to about 57 degrees in there on days like today.  I need to wait for the paint to dry and the feeling to return to my lower extremities before applying some more finishing techniques to see if I'm close to getting the desired effects on the models.

Russian GAZ trucks, also in very early painting stage.  

Overall it's been slow, but a very fun session.  I am learning new techniques and how to work with different paint and still searching for the desired effect.  It's experimentation that makes it fun and challenging for me.