What's on my desk? Part 74.
Hi!
Yesterday I was at KMK Scaleworld, one the bigger shows in Belgium. I didn't have the greatest spot, but still did well. Always nice to start the month with a fun event and seeing people again. Check the Scaleworld page for photos. Maybe you'll see some of my work (hint: 197) :-).
Speaking of: the Apocalypse is basically done. I rushed it a bit to have it finished on Saturday, and it was in Geel still smelling of oil paint...
First off, I had to apply some decals. I airbrushed a coat of gloss varnish and stuck on the decals. The 'Za Rodinu' (For the Motherland) markings on the side came from the Border kit, the '102' number was a leftover from an old Tamiya T-34. Hang on to your old decals!
While the gloss coat was on, I used Ammo Dark Wash to fill in panel lines and wash around details like rivets.
Next step was to airbrush a new layer of varnish, this time matt, to prepare for further weathering. I concentrated on pigments and oil dot technique.
Pigments were rubbed in the fenders, using two or three colours. A lighter pigment (Rubble) was sprinkled over it.
Then I dribbled some drops of pigment fixer over it to blend it all together and fix it in place. Some Rubble pigments were again sprinkled over that.
After drying, it looks like this:
You can already see a problem: the product is supposed to dry flat, but there are very prominent tide marks. For most of the fenders, this is not a problem, because the lines will be obscured by boxes and accessories. The patch on the rear mudflap is an issue, though... This will remain visible unless I do something about it. In the end I was able to obscure it using some matt varnish and more pigments.
On to the oil dot technique. This will represent dirt washing off the sides of the tank and/or pooling on horizontal surfaces. The effect will alter the uniform coat of green and give a dirty look to the tank. It's done by laying down random dots of several colours of oil paint, then streaking or stippling them with a thinner-moistened brush.
Oil dots. I used Dust and Starship Filth Oilbrushers and Titanium White artist's oil:
Time to pull these down:
This is the first pass. Consequent passes, using a moistened brush, will fade the effect more:
The effect is subtle, but you can see some streaking and the uniform green coat takes on some discolouration in certain areas. At this point I added a few dots of Burnt Sienna artist's oil, to get some more rusty areas. On horizontal areas you'll use more of a stippling, circling motion instead of streaks, as the dirt won't easily run off these areas and accumulates more.
Oils can also be used to replicate shadows. That's what I did on the gun barrels. On this tank these aren't smooth tubes, but are built up with rings. I added a small dot of Starship Filth on the edge of each ring and used a brush to fade these into the green paint. You can see the effect here:
Left side barrel has been shaded, the right one hasn't yet. Combined with drybrushing a lighter colour to catch the edges of the rings, this can add contrast to an otherwise bland area of the model.
So here's a few pictures of the tank in its current state. I've heavily chipped the oil barrels on the back, all the accessories on the fenders were installed and blended in with dust pigments.
It's a big, impressive looking model. It was a little rushed in the last stages, so I'll look it over this week and see if I can still improve some things. I also need to find a couple of batteries to power the lights.
Not sure about my next project yet. Stay tuned...
That's it.
See you next week!