I must admit that the clocks changing and the additional hour gave me a head start today. While the wife and daughters lazed in bed, I got up early and cracked on with the tanks. With domestic duties today I couldn’t see me making much headway, but anything achieved would be a Brucie bonus.
I had sprayed the undercoat on yesterday, black car paint. Contrary to some fears, spraying up under the skirts was dead easy. So now I wanted to get a base coat on top of that.. A rummage through my paint collections revealed that my supplies of Middlestone were dangerously low, so I used Vallejo Yellow Green, code 70881, as opposed to the Middlestone 70882. It’s slightly more green, but as a base coat is absolutely fine.
The first coat went on quite wet, as seen below, after which I gave the bottle a better shake and put on a better second coat.
Once that base coat had dried I washed the tanks with magic wash made up of black ink, brown paint, water and a few drops of washing up liquid. That collects in the recesses and gives a fair representation of built up grime. It was a blowy day; fortunate as the plastic card means I cannot dry these in the oven.
With the magic wash dry I was able to dry brush on the Middlestone. A coat of pure paint then two more with increasing amounts of white added ended up likt this:
That dried while I set up a spray paint booth using some old carboard boxes and set up my air brush. It’s a rubbish old single action airbrush and I am not very good with it; however, it is well worth using as the spray effect just cannot be replicated with a brush on models of this size. I get a bit bored with the ubiquitous “ambush pattern” that I normally use for Normandy so I gave the matter some thought. In the end I decided on a single colour camo job, green on top of the middlestone. I settled on a mix of Russian Green and Reflective Green thinned with windscreen wash. I buggered this up a bit, making the mix too thin, but much of that can be covered up as the process continues.
After that it was a case of doing the detail. A flat coat for most stuff, then a wash of Army Painter Quickshade, and a single highlight. I take a bit of time where there are areas of rust and oil or smoke, washing with the relevant colour and they using Tamiya Weathering Master pigments. The light is now going , both for panting and, sadly, for photography. But here’s a few snaps of where the have got to today.
I’m afraid that the colour is buggered up by the poor light. Tomorrow I will be adding some scratches and the decals to finish these off. That should be done in daylight, so we should have some good snaps for you.
All in all, another long day of work, but good results.
MONDAY MORNING POSTSCRIPT
Well, a night of well-timed insomnia allowed me to finish off the Panzers. I used a pan scourer to add paint chipping in heavy traffic areas, then added Panzer Lehr insignia, and decals. A final touch up with some pigments and we are done. We have slightly better light this morning, so here’s a few snaps.
I’m pretty chuffed with these, they certainly have the lived-in look that I like for tanks in general, but particularly German tanks of the late war period. They really have presence on the tabletop as well. It wasn’t a difficult project, just time consuming and requiring of patience, something I am not well-equipped with. Overall I think they will look quite respectable, especially when I look back at the original:
Today is going to be dedicated too finishing off an additional Sherman and working on the Brasserie along with some bits and pieces for the table. Hopefully I’ll also get to set out the game so we can see what else is required.