Morning all!
More great progress last night. My main focus, after finishing the build portion, was to prime the Type 16 and get the preshading done. Here’s what the model looked like after I primed and shaded it:
To prime the kit, I used Tamiya’s grey spray primer. I’ve used airbrush primers from Mission Models before, but I find that this primer has far better adherence and strength, and I find the grey undercoat works well for shading. Speaking of shading, this is the first build I’ve done where I have decided to preshade the model. I used Tamiya’s black lacquer to shade radiators, exhausts, smoke dischargers, shadowy areas, as well as the gun barrel. I tried to graduate the intensity of the shading on the cannon, so as to represent the effects of the flash when firing.
One thing that’s really pushed me towards using lacquer paints has been how quickly they flash off and dry. Without a doubt, they improve this stage of a project immensely. In one night, I was able to completely paint the entire kit! After the shading was done, I painted the underside of the Type 16 in Olive Drab lacquer (freehand, I don’t think I’ll be using masking tape at all on this kit). From there, I painted the rest of the vehicle in JGSDF Brown, also a lacquer. The reason why the entire kit got painted in brown is because, if you look at the real vehicles, it’s clear that brown is in fact the dominant colour. If I had to guess, I’m going to say that Mitsubishi HI has machines that spray the green strokes either in the absence of brown or overtop it. Ergo, I want to copy this process.
Here’s what that looks like:
Well, that’s all I have for this morning. Hopefully the Dark Green will go on tonight!
Stay safe,
-Dennis