Hi all,
I’m really in deep with the Aleppo dio and wanted to get something a little less gritty and depressing on the bench for a spell as sometimes we all need a mental health break, right?
Well I stumbled across some pictures of a tank I’ve seen a few times when I lived in London. Stompie is a former Czech T34-85 that was acquired from a film prop company in the 00s by a local entrepreneur near Peckham/New Cross. The story goes that he owned a little bit of arable waste ground off a residential street and applied for planning permission to build something on it, but the local council said no. By way of revenge he applied for permission to put “a tank” on the land which the council assumed meant a buried water tank of some kind. They approved his application so he put the tank (which he’d bought from a film prop company who had featured it in the movie Richard III for his eight year old son) on the land and turned the gun barrel to point at the council offices. It was removed for renovation recently and it isn’t known if it will return, but over the years many local artists have painted the tank in various abstract schemes and it is quite the rabbit hole to delve deep into all her many schemes over the years - there have been over a dozen.
More info here - Stompie: The Mandela Way T-34 Tank - Atlas Obscura
The tank is unofficially named “Stompie” locally, thought to be a tribute to South African anti-apartheid activist Stompie Moeketsi.
I had a T-34-85 finished build sat waiting for paint as it happened, so I thought I’d give my own Stompie Scheme a shot. We dont often get to do abstract creativity in this hobby and let me tell you, it was a hugely rewarding and refreshing experience. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Now instead of copying the scheme others have done, I thought it would be cool to come up with my own abstract design. So I have.
I’ve always liked the aesthetic of digital camo schemes on modern armour and thought it would be cool to do a digital-theme camo but in lots of bright colours. The whole point of digital camo is camouflage so I like the idea of a camo scheme that stands out so much. A reversal of purpose, echoing that of a war machine now as a metal canvas for art. Sorry if that’s a bit arty farty but I like that sort of thing. This was done by hand with brushes only, no airbrush, using Model Color and Game Color acrylics.
So here’s my abstract art design as a saluting nod to Stompie from Mandela Way in South East London.
The vignette was scratchbuilt using a bit of wood I had lying around and some stones, static grass and some dandelions and grassy tufts. All painted black in the night shift method then airbrushed and drybrushed. Weathering was super restrained, with just some very light dust deposits, no mud obviously, rain water grime and streaking and some dark green water pooling effects on the road wheels as if it’s gone a bit moldy and green in there. The pigeons I randomly had in the parts box from I can’t-remember-where so I put them in too. 
