HAYA Chieftain Mk3- first impressions

[zooma]

My next job is to paint the metal drive gear sprocket and idler wheel, the road wheels, the main gun barrel and the front glacis plate (these are not painted on the Chieftain as it is delivered) before I start the weathering .

I need to find out what would be the best shades of paint to match the pre-painted Chieftain - preferably Tamiya NATO Green and NATO Black colours as they are the easiest to find locally, but I will check any other types that are easily available in the UK to air brush with as there could be a slight difference that would make one type match the pre-painted parts better than the others without having to mix paints to get the best shade match.

As long as the newly painted areas are close enough to each other (colour wise) I can probably blend the old and new paint finishes together so that when they are weathered it will not be possible to see the join!

[zooma]

My set of cheap plastic tracks arrived safely from HAYA yesterday and I started to add some red/brown to the appropriate areas (on the outside) to act as a base for a rust colour.

The exhaust pipes were also given the same treatment as I hope to achieve a rust finish on them that looks like what I have seen of full size Chieftain tanks.

Today I will apply the same treatment to the inside of the tracks and when the paint drys I can take a look at picking out the highlights etc.....before hiding most of it under the weathering!

[zooma]

I need to paint the front lower hull where the factory painting stops, and this area of the tank (being right on the front of the tank) will be the most visible if I cannot get a good paint match so I will do this first.

The other parts of the HAYA Chieftain that come unpainted (main gun barrel, road wheels, drive sprockets and idler wheels ) whilst they are still important to get painted in the correct colours, are not so directly visible as the front of the tank will always be.

NATO green and NATO Black are the correct colours for a Mk3 Chieftain so that is what I am going to use and hope that the factory applied colour is close enough to allow a nice blending between the factory paint and the airbrushed lower hull areas (that are delivered in unpainted green plastic.)

The factory supplied finish is quite good but if I can't blend the colours together properly then I will respray the tank completely - but I want to avoid this if possible.