Panzer VI Tiger II King Tiger 501st Ardenne 1944

Painting a King Tiger II Step By Step

Tiger II (Panzer VI ausf B)

501st SS heavy Tank Battallion (Schwere Panzer Abteilung 501)

Ardenne Winter 1944

Warlord Games 1:56 for Bolt Action

Step1: Primer

I tend to use what I have at hand, this time it's a normal hardware shop light grey primer. The best I've used to far it's Tamiya Grey Fine Surfice Primer, I'm not airbrushing it up, as I'm lazy and I don't want to deep clean my pen every time :)

Step 2: Pre Shading
I've used Tamiya XF1 Flat Black and I worked the areas around the recesses where i want to build the shades and where the light won't go (under the sideskirts for example). I've paintet black the under hull and the tracks too.

Step 3: Basecoat

I've used Tamiya XF60 Dark Yellow to make the Dunkelgelb base. 

I've applied two layers thinned up, more thinned then usual airbrush consistency, and I tryed to avoid the black areas on the first layer, then from slightly far away I've covered the black areas too, the aim here is to make a nice faded effect from yellow to black.

Step 4: Color Modulation

With the help of some scrape plastcard, I've made the highlight son the flat areas, modulating the color adding XF57 Buff and XF2 Flat White in increasing quantities.

The first highlight is 50% Dark Yellow 50% Buff, the second 33% Dark Yellow 33% Buff 33% White. The tecnique it's not difficult, it takes some attempt to make it look right, don't start out with a beauty like a King Tiger! (I've added more pics so you can have a look overall where I've added the lights)

Step 5: Masking tape

I'll make a classic 3 tone german camouflage, late war these Tiger II were painted camo straight from the factory, so it was sharp edged large spots, so it requires some masking.

It's a bit time consuming, I made my wrapping up in the kicken table with the tape, a modelling knife and a nice cup of coffe.  

Step 6: Painting Green

The green color is Tamiya XF 58 Dark Green, again has been applied in two thinned out separate layers. I've also made some color modulation again by adding some Buff the first and a bit of white for the latest. To be honest it's matter of drops, so it doesn't have any fixed mix percentage. Here the result