Tamiya’s 1/48 King Tiger is nice little kit with a surprising amount of detail for a model that is quite a bit smaller than the usual 1/35 kits I build. I didn’t have a specific plan when I started it, other than I wanted to build it pretty much out of the box and pretty heavily weathered.

The kit has the early Porsche turret and although the cover picture shows it with Zimmerit, no Zimmerit is included.  I was fine with this – the weather I had in mind was going to be better without it.

The hull is die cast, which is nice and gives it a lot of weight.  Parts attached directly to the hull needed to be superglued but the upper hull attaches with screws.  It all went together easily, without fit issues.

My plan was to have very heavy chipping on the tank, so with that in mind I started by painting everything in a dark red steel colour:

I sprayed a MIG chipping fluid over this, then as soon as it had dried I sprayed a red primer (Rotbraun):

Once the primer had dried, I rubbed it carefully with water in select areas to  chip it away, exposing the steel.  I had a follower on instagram comment that this primer would never chip away and that it’s unrealistic, but I’ve found a few photos of tanks where the primer has done exactly that.

Using Panzer Putty, I masked out an outline for the next colour, dunkelgelb Aus 44 DGIII.  Once masked, I sprayed the chipping fluid again, followed by the paint:

 

I then chipped the this the same way as the primer:

Once more, I masked, sprayed the chipping fluid followed by a coat of  Resedagrun with a few drops of the previous Dunkelgelb. This final layer was also then chipped.

Tracks went on, followed by decals.  The tracks were weathered with oil paints:

I used a selection of oil paints, including some of the new Mig Oilbrushers’ – where where pretty good. I first used them as a general filter to help tie the camo together, then applied more specific rust and grime streaks. Rust was applied more liberally on the horizontal surfaces:

Finally, I finished everything up using Mig Pigments:

A couple of detail touch-ups and I’m very happy with the final result: