Painting: Zvezda Panzer II

Today I share some freshly painted and decaled Panzer IIs.

I previously reviewed these awesome little models here. I was really impressed with these tanks. They are designed well and require a minimum amount of assembly and fuss. Despite the plastic on the models having a slightly glossy finish, they held paint really well. I followed my now standard paint scheme. You can find details of that here.

I have chosen to model my Panzer III DAK force as 2. Company, I Battalion,15 Panzer Division. Historically the 15th had a single turret number of their models to depict the company. In this case, the 2nd company. I have also added decals for the the DAK stylized Palm symbol. After a fair bit of research, I managed to get the company number right for the Panzer IIIs and IVs (watch this space), but the Panzer IIs wrong. They should be from 4. Company. and therefore have a 4 on the side. Bummer!

The steps I took to apply the decals were:

1. Paint the area to have decals in Vallejo gloss varnish.
2. Cut out the decal and soak in water.
3. As the decal is soaking, paint the area in Vallejo decal medium
4. Push the decal onto the model from the backing paper using an old brush
5. Position it with the brush and when right dab with a tissue to remove excess liquid.
6. Leave to dry for a minute or so and paint gently with decal medium

I have only used the Vallejo brand but there are others that I have seen people use that are probably as good. The key is to use the gloss varnish first to give a nice flat surface for the decal to attach to and then the decal medium to help the decal fit to the models surfaces and prevent frosting when you get to the final varnish stage.

Once the decals were done and they had dried overnight, I painted the whole models with Vallejo Matt Varnish.

I hope you enjoyed this article. Stay tuned for the Panzer IIIs.