Peppy
Off to a great start Lee.
Looks good

Lee Haffenden
Thank you Peppy! 🙂

Martin Oostrom
Hi Lee, it looks like the paint on the schürzen is a bit too rough for the decals to properly lay down. Then you get air bubbles under the decals which no amount of decal solution will solve by itself. Sometimes punching the tiny air bubbles with a needle can help.
On a more positive note: some mistakes made, some lessons learned and still a nice looking Stug

Lee Haffenden
Thank you Martin for the advice! I'll definitely be trying this technique in the future. Any way to smooth the surface of a model prior to applying decals? I have found since applying the matte coat that the decal carrier film isn't as visible. Hopefully, the weathering will hide it even more!

Martin Oostrom
As it is a matt surface in the end, some gentle sanding can help. Don't apply too much pressure, as a sand through is even more work.
Prevention is better. Thin your paint a bit more, even the Tamiya xf stuff. Airbrushing is a delicate art, pressure, thinning, temperature, humidity and distance to the model are variables. And then there's needle size as well.
When you have the paint in your cup, spray some on a spare piece of plastic, disposable spoons are very handy. Better to waste a bit of paint on a spoon, then to have to strip a kit and start over. Sometimes starting over is the last option, don't hesitate to use that option.
And armor has the added bonus of mild to heavy weathering to hide mistakes 😉

Lee Haffenden
Thank you so much! All of this advice is super helpful! I'm still new to the whole scale model thing and airbrushing even more so. I probably don't thin my paints enough and I also tend to be a bit haphazard with my spraying technique. The plastic spoon idea is a good one, I'll have to give that a shot. I've got a lot to learn and that for me is a large part of the fun of this hobby!

Martin Oostrom
You've come to the right place. Most people here are more than willing to share their secrets. Just ask.
And these old Tamiya kits are great for learning. Relatively cheap, good fit and easy to build.
The last tips for today: - When airbrushing, always start with the hard to reach and easy to forget spots.
- 4 very thin coats is better than 1 thick coat
- Never buy a kit without checking the reviews on this site. Saves you from disappointments.

Lee Haffenden
Thank you again! I've had a lot of fun with these Tamiya kits, but for my next model, I'm trying another brand, namely - Revell. I want to try lots of different brands and different types of vehicles eventually. I like the look of a lot of the Revell models and heard good things about them. But I'll definitely be coming back to Tamiya in the future

Spanjaard
nice model, and really good advice from Martin. if i may give some too.... pin wash it works better if applied over a gloss surface. so my suggestion is, paint with matt colors, apply gloss, apply gloss again, apply washes, and then seal it with matt varnish. it looks like too many layers, so it pays off if you can make them (as Martin said) as thin as possible.
using washes over matt colors, make them look a lot more "dirty" than if applied over gloss. believe, i did that with and X-wing and it ended up gray rather than white with a wash 😉 Same wash over glossy colors it is a lot more fluild and excess can be removed (what can be impossible over matt)

Lee Haffenden
Thank you Spanjaard for the advice, it's little things like that, that are easy for me to get wrong at this stage. I've been using different youtube videos to help me with the weathering and painting, so I probably just misunderstood something along the way. Luckily with this model, the dirty look is kind of what I was after, so it's turned out alright, I think. I'm so happy I decided to upload these projects to Scalemates, I'm getting so much good advice along the way. Thank you again!