Paul's Guide to painting and weathering Panda Hobby's 35th scale 9K330 "Tor" Air Defence System

Today Paul completes his model of the new Panda Hobby 9K330 “Tor” Air Defence System in 1/35th scale. After his In-box review of the kit  & his construction guide all that is left to do is paint and weather his AFV - so let's see how he did it and in what colours in toady's Part III of the story...

Painting & Weathering the 9K330 "Tor" Air Defence System

Manufacturer: Panda Hobby
Scale: 1/35th
Type: Multimedia Kit
Price: ¥6,640/ USD $56.63/€54.22 from Hobbylink Japan
Available from Panda Hobby distributors worldwide

Model by Paul Lee

Pt I: Inbox review

PT II: Build Guide.
Pt III: Painting & Weathering the "Tor"

Decisions, decisions, plain green or camo? While the plain green version would have been much easier to paint, it is hard to go past a nice camouflage scheme, and I am rather fond of the green, yellow/grey, and black scheme on the Tor so I made my choice. 

The scheme I was trying to replicate.

Starting out with AK’s Zashchitniy Zeleno as my basecoat, I then used Russian Green to add some lighter panels, before adding a couple of drops of white to the Russian Green to make some highlights.

I rolled Blu-tak and laid them around the areas that I wanted, first in AK’s Yellow Grey, and then in black. To tone down the contrast between the colours, I then misted over the entire model with lightened Russian Green once again before spraying it over with a coat of Pledge in preparation for the "mammoth" five decals, and weathering.

I mixed some black with raw umber oil paint for a line wash to bring out the various details and using a cotton swab to remove off any excess.

The tracking radar is usually a different colour to the hull although this is not illustrated in the instructions so I masked it off and sprayed it with AK’s Moss Green lightened with some white. I finally glued on the wheels and wrapped the tracks around the running gear showing the recommended 114 links to be perfect, although an extra pair of hands would have been really helpful to insert the final pair of pins to hold the tracks together.

I chose to do only a limited amount of weathering to the Tor due to the fact that it isn’t a front-line combat vehicle, so I gave it a used but not abused look by giving it very light all over spray in Tamiya’s Dark Earth, and building up a few more coats on the lower hull to show dirt and dust build up. I finally did a wash with Abteilung’s Basic Earth over the wheels and tracks to show some lighter dust and sealed it all with AK’s ultra matte.

So here is the real "Tor" in this scheme...

...the model in some detail.

Here it is - all finished.

I think the end result shows that the kit is worth the effort needed to put into the build. It was unfortunate that I snapped some of the struts in the search radar during cleanup, and some of the details like the tracks are questionable, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying they are wrong. It’s not a perfect kit, but it’s a kit of a unique looking vehicle and I think it is well worth the effort.

Pt I: Inbox review

PT II: Build Guide.

Paul Lee

Thanks to Panda Hobby for providing this kit to review