A white lady

Little time in the evenings and the vehicle starts to look like a whitewashed something. I applied the decals from the leftover-stock and the unit sign (towed gun battery of the 14th Panzer Division - only a fictional vehicle but who cares? I'm not a history expert with tenthousands of original wartime photos. Unfortunately.) from Mig's dry transfer set. First of all I used gloss cote and then the decals and when dried a light gloss cote again to seal them. There was no real need of Mr Mark Softer but I used it... just in case.


Then I hairsprayed the model lightly (this time only once) and waited 20 to let it dry. After that I sadly realised that my Gunze flat white bottle is almost empty so changed to Vallejo Model Air white. It tends to clog the airbrush so I often washed the needle-tip with a brush damped in alcohol. The white was sprayed unevenly and unfortunately on one place a bit too thick layer. It's a proof: I must practice much more.

And now the fun part. Using a stiff brush, the scalpel blade, a toothbrush and my fingernails the chipping started. Smaller, bigger chips unevenly trying to do it on places where the whitewash is logical to be more worn... First stage:

Some drybrushing with Humbrol dark grey:

At some places the base grey was toooooo dark so I filtered and washed the whole model with diluted white oil paint. And the even-more-fun part... Mixing the "pasta" to begin the heavy weathering of the lower parts.

This pasta is to give the "thickness" and not to give the color - that will be build up in several steps. Now we are here and waiting for the next weekend... brown wash, rust, dust, mud-splatters, and so on... There is still so much to do.

Whitewash

I tested the hairspray method and it worket quite well. Two layers of hairspray went on the wheels leaving 20 minutes of drying between. Though I think it was equivalent of three layers as I sprayed it from a short distance...

Then Gunze Flat White followed...

When the white has dried (30 minutes) I scrubbed the wheels with a short-bristle brush and the result was satisfying.

At some point I scrubbed it too strong and the primer became visible but as the wheels will be heavily weathered that won't be a problem. To avoid it on the vehicle I used gloss cote (that is also good for the markings...) to seal the base color. And also will use less hairspray and lighter coat of white as can be seen in the discussion here. By the way the base color was lightened a bit with panzergrey + sand + white (well... I think it's absolutely not visible on the photo.) Not too much. But feels better now :)



Next will be the markings and the hairspray method on the vehicle. Maybe next weekend...

Priming, mess and hairspray...

Months passing by and I'm slower (in modeling) than ever. Though my new workbench is still beautiful, huge and messy with plenty of place to store my things and if the bench was not enough than I could put everything on the shelves... as seen below:

This weekend seems quiet (I've been waiting for a weekend like this for such a long time...) and finally I could do some modelling. I continued the Panzerbefehlswagen IB as it is quite close to finishing and I need the sweet taste of finishing a project. :) I primed the model well before we've moved to our new house...


Now I painted it to panzergrey (used Gunze's No401 paint without any lightening as I plan to paint a heavily whitewashed vehicle so this grey will be hardly visible). I love the tone and texture of Gunze paints by the way. Or have I mentioned that yet?

Of course the wheels and other small, later-to-attach stuff was painted as well. Next will be some gloss cote and than the hairspray + whitewash. Though I'm bit afraid of that as I've never tried and the timing will be also interesting as I would need at least 2-3 undisturbed hours to complete the hairspray + white + washing back procedure.
The base is also in construction. I glued the Miniart base together (quite fair amount of sanding was needed but it'll worth I think) and primed with Vallejo black primer.

I'll do the door from wood just for the sake of mimicking reality. I'm in trouble with the "meaning" or the "message" of the dio as it is quite small and I'm quite without fantasy (this time). The vehicle will be one of the Pz's used on the back lines for command tasks. Maybe an artillery unit commander's wagen? 1942-43? I have the figure into the turret:

I plan to cut the radio stuff from it and would put binoculars in his hand with a map. Absolutely flat and "fantasy-less" idea. Maybe a guy in greatcoat beside the vehicle pointing somewhere with his fingers? Ehh... I don't mind if it will be unimaginative. I would like to finish it professionally. To learn how to do whitewash. And snow. And ice. And cold on a 20x20 cm dio.

And not to forget the pre-christmas period when I was waiting for my wife in a huge toy-store (she was buying presents for the kids in the family) - and bought two oldie but interesting kits. Pretending I'm a time-millionaire... This kit was bought because of my wife. REALLY. :) She saw a 250/1 in a documentary film and said that it was a nice vehicle, why I hadn't built that before?

And this was bought just for fun and because it was very cheap...

That's all for today. I hope tomorrow I can try the hairspray technique on the wheels.

GAZ dio idea

I love my new bench. Plenty of place and light and totally separated from other "living" parts of the house. Ideal for modelling. Yesterday evening I started to visualize how the Gaz-AAA dio should look.

Moving...

Today I begin boxing my models and on Wednesday we'll move to a new place. We rent a much bigger house so the kid can play in the garden - and I'll have an own modelling room (partly used as a storage room, but who cares?). My new empire. Huge desk, good ventillation, nice ligts... Just like in a dream. Now let's pack...

Weekend session

This weekend I almost finished the Pzbefehlswagen. I'm not really satisfied with the results, first of all the fenders are far behind my expectations. Not only the quality of soldering (next time I'll try to solder with higher temperature) but the fit of the parts was questionable and I don't really know was it my mistake or Lion Roar's. Some strange solutions were experienced. Little holes on bending lines, lots of parts without any mentioning on the assembly instructions, etched parts tendency to break, etc... I don't say that it's a bad kit but it's definitely not for beginners like me. As it is said in my other hobby, archery: never blame the bow if you miss the target. That's it in modelling as well so I blame only myself - I have lots to learn especially soldering :)
Some pictures. The back and the right fender, almost the best part of the vehicle:


The front, upgraded with MIG Productions Notek lamp and Aber's old MG34 barrel. Not the nicest barrel ever but works OK for this model I think. Wiring is self made and the lamp on the right fender is made from sprue parts because Dragon's original was far bigger than the original seen on wartime photos.

And the famous left fender. The ugly soldering is not really visible but the fender flap is... eer... not so nice. The jack-block is self made from balsa wood - looks cool now.

The tracks will be from other kit (Magic Track... I don't want to use the expensive Modelkasten track for this kit...) and I'll start to examine how others do snowy - muddy painting as next step is painting.

Few weeks and ready...

Two more hours spent assembling the Panzerbefehlswagen and now it starts to get shape. It needed lots of filling and sanding but went OK. I started to use superglue instead of soldering because I was not happy with the results of my soldering "sessions" - see the left fender below - and I need some time for mental regeneration before I try to solder again...



The jack is ready - please do not recognize the seam line on the arm of the jack... I sanded down the original weld bead and replaced "home-made" welding (ultra thin styrene rod glued, than a little more ultrathin Tamiya cement on it and do the "pattern" with the tip of the scalpel blade).

I hope I can finish this little vehicle with 10 more working hours - that means about 5-6 weeks... The paint will be an experiment, panzer grey with white camo, trying the hairspray technic...