Panzer III's Vorwarts!

When I first saw the Plastic Soldier Company 1/72 Panzer III kits announced I was pretty excited because I loved the other German armor they'd already put out in the scale.  This relatively new box set comes with three Panzer IIIG or H model tanks(I modeled the H).

The kit was very easy to assemble and each complete tank used parts from a single sprue...everything fit together well.  The only hiccup was a slight molding error(a small pinhole on the top of the gun assembly) that I filled with some green stuff. 

I've been playing around with washes lately and I am very happy to say that I finally have a method that I am happy with.  After basecoating the model with Vallejo Model Air colors, I sealed each tank with a straight out of the bottle airbrushed coat of Pledge Floor Care Multi-Surface Finish.  This is the same product known as "Future" except they have dropped the future logo altogether(I called the manufacturer to confirm it is the same thing).  I used this as a perfect gloss sealer of the painting before going on to washes.
Speaking of my wash...
I used a "Magic Wash" homebrewed Dark Umber wash using the following:
-4 parts water
-1 part Pledge Finish(see above)
-1 dropper of Liquitex Umber Ink
-1 dropper of Liquitex Black Ink

This wash perfectly found it's way into the panel and hatch lines around the model while having almost no effect on  the overall hue of the model.  Below you can see one  of my Panzer IVH's from PSC next to the Panzer III.  For the Panzer IV I used Vallejo Umber Wash and it really shaded the model and took down the colors. Additionally, I had to go in and do a pin wash of black wash on the panel lines of the Panzer IV manually.  Note that on the Panzer III, using the method described above, I just did a straight out overall wash of the Pledge/Ink magic wash and the details are even crisper that with the previous pinwashing on the Mark IV(note: for the two tanks below I used identical basecoating/highlighting methods...but note how much more effective the wash was on the Panzer III(bottom)). 

I finished up the model with a blast of Testor's Dullcoat to knock out the shine and mud pigments from Vallejo.  I love these little "Panzer Dreis" and they will make a nice addition to my German army. 

Thanks for viewing/reading...happy wargaming everybody.
~Gareson

P.S. More bad news about the way Games Workshop treats retailers and gamers today...SO GLAD I dropped that game and company years ago!