What's on my desk? Part 28.
Hello again!
It's the third week of summer holidays here and the weather has been very... changeable. Sunny and clear one day, then short, vicious rain- and hailstorms the next...
Anyway, I've been working primarily on the house this week, more specifically on the road. Last week I showed you how I painted the cobblestones. This week I've given the entire piece (except the interior floors) three washes of thinned Dark Wash. Yes, you can thin washes even further. I did this because I felt the consistency of the wash straight out of the jar was still a bit too thick. Applying several lighter coats gives me more control over the effect. Once all this was dry (thinning it prolongs the drying time a bit), it was time to start lighting it up. I wanted to be precise and only lay down the Light Dust effect in between the gaps. I used a long-bristled liner brush and only painted the joints, wiping away any excess immediately with some kitchen towelette or a q-tip. As you can imagine, this takes a lot of work. Constantly turning the piece perpendicular to my brush for almost every line was a lot of fun in particular... Here's a picture halfway:
And here it is after a few days, when every line was filled. I also drybrushed the wood floor a bit, to make it stand out more.
If I would make this road again, I'd make a cut between the sidewalk and road and lift the sidewalk a bit. At this point that would damage my work too much, so I'll leave it as is...
It looks great already, if I do say so myself. I've been watching Night Shift on YouTube and have taken a lot of inspiration from him. In particular he has a video on making and painting a section of cobblestone road, which has been very helpful.
I've made some progress on the roofs as well. The shingle roof has received the same Light Dust colour to outline the individual tiles, while at the same time giving them a bit of rain marks effects. Some mossy green (I'll have to watch Night Shift again to determine the colours) in places might be cool to finish it.
The red tile roof has changed a lot as well. I wasn't very happy with the rust-wash-over-white-primer look, so I painted a couple of tiles with some red-yellow mixes and gave the rest a coat of Streaking Rust effect. Looks a lot better now. I think a thin Light Rust Wash may now have more effect, followed by an application of the same Light Dust and some mossy green.
On to Pierre and François. I painted François' pants and fixed his helmet and arms. His messenger bag (visible out of focus on the picture) is almost finished as well. Once that's done, I'll pose them both on/near the ARL and call the whole thing finished.
What else have I been doing? On Wednesday evenings (yes, build meets are still going!) I've been assembling the Border Models Stuka G1. Border is going all-in on 1/35 scale and has released several aircraft in that scale now. Honestly a good idea and a bit of a mystery why no-one else has done this before.
There are three major(1) scales in military aircraft: 1/72, 1/48, and 1/32. There are three major scales in armor modelling: 1/72, 1/48 and 1/35. See the problem?
So Border is trying to create a new market. Still remains to be seen if it will be succesful, but the quality of the kits won't be the issue here. This one is very good, although the cockpit is bit sparse.
You can immediately see how big aircraft actually are compared to a tank in the same scale. Something that isn't really obvious when working in 1/48 scale...
See you next week!
(1) Footnote: there are other scales, of course. e.g. 1/144 is used for civilian airliners or big bombers. 1/24 exists, but is limited in application because it results in a BIG model. In ground vehicles there are options in 1/100, 1/76 or 1/56, but these are primarily used in wargaming.