So I've decided I have enough "summer" WWII stuff in 15mm so now I'm going to start painting minis for "winter". For vehicles that means whitewashes. This is my first whitewash. To start with I painted the Shermans in Olive Drab and detailed the improvised sandbag armor. I applied decals and then masked them with frisket. Next I thinned down white paint to a milky consistency and applied that over the hull and turret. I repeated this twice more after each application dried. Then I applied a black wash (50/50 water/future floor polish with a few drops of black ink). When that dried, using a small, worn out brush I scrubbed on white paint to highlight the white wash some. Then, with the Olive Drab and a stiff brush, I "stippled" on some olive drab to represent the corners and areas where the white wash has rubbed off with campaign wear and tear. "Stippling" in my case means taking the stiff brush wet with olive drab paint and punching it onto the hull and turret leaving little dots of OD on flat surfaces and at edges. Repeat the white scrub and OD stipple until you get the look you want. Then I removed the masking from the decals, applied matte varnish and hit the model with a khaki/sand color mix as drybrush to highlight again.
After all that, I decided the tracks and running gear needed some mud so I added color to spackling paste and applied with brush and highlighted with lighter mud color after drying.
A busy procedure but I'm satisfied with it as a first attempt. Now I have some armor ready to fight the Bulge!
The minis are Quality Castings 15mm Shermans.
