What's on my desk? Part 101.
Hi!
This Sunday is the BSMC convention in Putte. It appears I forgot to register,... oops. I'll contact them and see if there's a miraculous late entry option... Otherwise, the shop will be open on Sunday afternoon. Update: no success. So open on Sunday from 1-ish until 6.
Update 2: two tables came open at the last minute. Find me in block M. See you Sunday!
The builds then. The McLaren has been picked up by its owner, so I can start on the next one. Stay tuned for more...
Moving on to the Bergepanther, I've given it a shiny coat and a Dark Brown wash. I've also started weathering on the underside and tracks. One of them came out perfectly and can stand on its own, the other has a loose link somewhere, so I'lve left it on the former for now.
You can see I've given the teeth a light metal drybrush. Less obvious is the Tracks Wash applied to the outside and the outer parts of the inside. You can see it somewhat on the track run that's standing upright: look at the colour difference between the inside of the rows of teeth, as opposed to the outside.
I liberally applied Moist Ground from the Ammo Heavy Mud Effects range to the sides. Colour doesn't really matter, I'm after the texture first and foremost. The vehicle will be made dry and dusty in consequent steps.
Lots of weathering to go!
The T-2 Buckeye is now completely painted.
I'd like to show my process for obtaining faded paint. It's a combination of pre- and post-shading. Shading in general means you're after an effect where the centres of panels are lighter than the panel lines, giving an impression of sun-faded and worn paint.
You can do this by pre-shading, where you spray an exaggerated contrast (using black and white for instance), and then apply your colour in thin, translucent layers. I'm very bad at this, I tend to end up with a fully opaque colour coat. It's also more difficult when applying camouflage.
Post-shading means you spray a regular coat of paint, then lighten this base colour (e.g. with some white) and airbrush the centres of panels with that.
Let me show it in pictures:
First layer - straight Tan (A.Mig 202 or Vallejo 348):
Nice colour, but it's too flat and smooth. A few drops of Satin White added to the Tan, sprayed into the panel centres:
Note that I follow the panels, not the camouflage. This is a post-shade. I now have a more interesting-looking colour coat, but the contrast is too high.
So the last step is using my post-shaded colour as a pre-shaded base. I go back to the straight Tan, but thin it until it becomes translucent and spray very light coats:
The contrast is reduced, but we still see the shaded layer. Nice.
The Greek Buckeyes were painted in a four-colour (one below, three on top) camouflage, so I need to repeat this process for the next two colours as well.
I start with masking putty to protect the Tan areas:
Then I apply light green (A.Mig 004 or Vallejo 294) in the same way, avoiding the areas that will become dark green:
Again, the lightening follows the panels, not the camouflage.
Here's the side of the nose. It's basically one big panel, and you can see I don't follow the contour of the mask, but spray right over it:
This will tie all the shading together.
Masking putty doesn't stay in place when handling the plane, so I pulled it all off and re-applied for the dark green (A.Mig 206 or Vallejo 289).
Finally, this particular T-2 had a special colour scheme with a black tail and wingtip tanks. The nose and walkways on the wing root also needed a black coat, so I masked it all off (with tape this time, because I needed straight lines) and sprayed Satin Black.
[If I could make one selfish wish, I'd ask for a lifetime supply of masking tape. :-) ]
And here's the final result:
Even more masking was needed to paint the insides of the landing gear bays. I decided to already install the legs, because these are a tight fit and I would damage the paint trying to get them in place.
I noticed after taking this picture the nose gear leg is askew (Google that word :-) ), so I'll have to reinstall it. The good news is the all-important weight test has succeeded: I put enough lead in the nose so that the jet sits on all three legs without issue.
Next: gloss coat, decals, panel lining, gear doors, flat coat, ejection seats. Hopefully I can finish this one before Christmas
That's it.
See you next week!