Hand tools painted and some more modulation...

Annyira megtetszett ez a moduláció-dolog, hogy még átmentem egy-két részleten újra a highlight színnel, kapaszkodók, miegymás kiemelésére, és nagyon elégedett lettem a végén. Nem tudom, hogy mennyire fogja ezt tompítani a koszolás, filtert nem tervezek rátenni, de kosz meg por az lesz. Hamarosan lefújom a félfényes lakkal, aztán pedig jöhet a vedöring. Kicsit megint kezdek aggódni, hogy mindjárt hóvége, de azért két hét alatt csak készen leszek tán...

I used the highlight color to enrich the look. I quite like this modulation thing though I weren't that extreme modulator as some of the "big ones". Also painted the hand tools and now I plan to apply satin varnish and then weathering commences. Fingers crossed. End of month is approaching...

Weather(ing) report

After a short pause (some renovation of the modelling/hobby room in the house) I continued with the weathering. No clear plan to follow. I apply different products and then check the result and apply some other products to reach some variation. Up until now I faded the colors with oils and used AK Interactive's light dust deposit (cool stuff, really), washed the vehicle with AmmoMIG brown wash and weathered the lower hull with ProModeller wash plus some oils. And of course the old classic: MIG Productions pigments - these will be used instead of the general pre-dusting with airbrush and I'll dirt the tracks with them, too, to achieve somewhat consistent look at the end. I still have some chance to finish until 30th April (and get that Campaign Ribbon on armorama.com) so my motivation increases day by day. What I have to do to finish:
- painting the tools on the rear deck
- painting the visors
- paint/weather the exhaust and the jack-block
- weather the skirts (and decide: to use nor not to use all of them as they hide the tracks - and if the hide than it proves to be an unnecessary effort to have them from Friuls)
That seems to be possible in almost three weeks.
And some pics from the weathering phase:

Rotbraun done

Well, this camo turns out to be interesting. Historically not correct but as I don't try to imitate any specific vehicle, I don't really mind the issue. If I were a "rivet counter" than maybe I would worry more about the historical issue but...
So. It is too reddish to my eyes but later it will fade and change. I sprayed a light gloss cote to prepare for the markings but the pics are "before-cote".
Regarding the paint: AmmoMIG paint is OK for large surface painting but it was really annoying to use it with the 0.2mm needle for precision painting. Every 20 second it clogged the needle (though I used its own thinner in 2 parts paint : 1 part thinner ratio) - the finish is nice, and it levels smoothly but I hate when I have to stop to clear the needle or when sudden "bubbles" burst out of the airbrush and make spider-like results which are hard to correct. Nonetheless the basic painting is finished. Now let's get to the weathering. Not too much as I don't like nowadays' trend of over-weathering everything - covering details with mud saying "the real vehicles are really dirty". But these are models. And I like to see the details not the mud effects :)

 

 

 

Leopard primed finally...

The Leo is primed finally. Some minor touches are still missing, tow cables, mud flaps, machine gun, and last but not least the commander figure from the turret. But at this point the finish line is clearly visible - which is JIT because the tank hunter campaign is about to start on armorama.com...

Turret ready

Driver's compartment ready

Just finished the driver's compartment at the weekend. The chipping and other fancy "weathering" stuff was intentionally kept to minimum as the vehicle was quite a new one. Some dry-brushing on the steering and braking system is hardly visible on the photos. Next time I'll spray a much lighter shade of both the green and red-brown but this time I didn't want to spend more time with a part which won't be visible. Now it comes to the funny parts: the hull. With lots of PE and worries.

Paintjob

I've painted the drivers compartment. I hesitated a lot what colors to use as the vehicle is a late war model but based on the same basis as the Pz 38(t) tanks. But I'm quite sure that it wasn't constructed by "cutting down the tank parts and welding on the flak parts" method so the early war Czech paint scheme was not good for my purpose. Instead I decided to use the red-oxide floor, Elfenbein walls and green machinery as an alternative. No clue how exact it is historically (I guess not too much) but it seems to be a probable alternative - and not to forget: it won't be visible after finishing the model. The red-oxide color was a gloss paint so I had to overspray it several times with flat cote but with moderate succes. My explanation of the result is that the floor was greasy and oily... the wall is not purely white but the lighting and the camera of my iPhone resulted in a much lighter color than it is in reality.

 The green parts look nice with a little shine on them (though the paint was flat as indicated), maybe I could use a lighter shade as the weathering will not be too visible on this color. (note: the exact color codes must be updated to this blog entry)

And finally - after a few years of modelling I first time felt that I've cleaned my airbrush really thoroughly. Sounds a bit odd but it's true - now it shines like diamond and sprays like hell :)