Painting
I would like to think that after many years of making armour and aircraft models that I had a single, foolproof sequence of painting which worked every time and always gave consistent results. Sadly, this is not the case and I’m still trying different ways of finishing my models – but then again if I kept on doing the same thing every time it might get a little tedious for myself and the unfortunate souls on the receiving end of my articles.
One thing that rarely changes, however, is that I prime my models using light grey automotive primer straight from the rattle can. The brass elements of the model were first coated with Halford’s Primer before the rest of the model was coated in Halford’s Plastic Primer.
This time around, with the model having a single colour camouflage scheme, I decided to pre-shade and pre-fade the model. This is often done using black and white, but in this case I decided to use white followed by dark brown to give a little extra colour to the finish. The model first received a patchy coat of Tamiya White (XF-2) concentrating on the upper areas and centres of panels.
This was followed by an overspray of Nato Brown (XF-68) mixed with Black (XF-1). Here I concentrated on recessed areas and also used the colour to undercoat the tracks.
I also applied white and dark brown to the rather complex looking underside of the vehicle. I often wonder how the undersides of tanks were painted (though I must confess I sometimes use this area of a model to test such things as washes or drybrushing before committing to mode visible areas of the model). With German WW2 vehicles I tend to assume, perhaps wrongly, that they would have been primed and then left unpainted. In the case of Russian armour I really have no idea, so decided to treat the underside in the same way as the rest of the model.
After the priming and pre-shading a seam popped up running down the middle of the gun barrel despite the fact that I had previously cleaned this up with great vigour and praiseworthy diligence. I have noticed that a previously invisible seam can often reappear between the fuselage halves or between the upper and lower wing halves on aircraft models. I’ve often wondered why – perhaps this is due to excessive handling or the maybe due to the action of paint solvent? After regaining my composure, I sanded the barrel back to the bare plastic, treated the offending area with a mixture of superglue and talcum powder set with an accelerator and re-sanded the seam. Provided that the superglue is mixed with talcum powder, it dries with a hardness similar to that of kit plastic and can be sanded easily and quickly.
