Paint one side, turn over and repeat!

With the wheels painted in dark yellow the tyres now needed to be painted. Normally tanks have a rubber tyre on the running wheels. However, from my research and looking at the kit wheels, most Tigers were fitted with steel tyres. Two reasons for this. Firstly was the issue that rubber during WW2 was a scarce material so alternatives were used by Germany especially towards the end of the war. Secondly, slthough the early Tigers were fitted with rubber tyres, the weight of the tank literally ripped them to bits. Most early production Tigers received steel tyred wheels later on in their lives. It was, apart from emergency situations, forbidden to mix the two types of tyres on a tank.

With that sorted out it was easy to start painting the tyres on my Tiger build with some Tamiya Dark Iron paint which seemed like a good shade to fit the bill. Again, a monotonous job and a case of paint one side, turn over and repeat but it got done eventually.

With the tyres painted it was time to tone down the paint with a brown wash. The effect is shown in the photo below and markedly makes the wheel look much more realistic. 

Once again, another monotonous job but I have at least done both sides of every wheel now.

They still need a highlight wash of black so that will be another hour or so of paint one side, turn over and repeat!