After many years of publishing all of my modelling work (and more often than not, work I was doing for someone else’s needs) I found myself completely burnt out on the hobby. For the last two years plus I’ve really only been able to assemble stuff, in fact I probably now have about thirty five models sitting in sub assemblies waiting for paint.
There’s always been something almost therapeutic for me when it comes to assembly, for me it takes much less thought than painting and allows my mind to wander and work things out etc. I have always referred to it as ‘finding oneself while losing oneself’, but enough of this philosophical drivel, I’ll get to the model.
These are the main subassemblies I’ve broken the model into for painting, if I decide on any sort of stowage I’ll sort it out after paint. I’ve kept the model ‘out of the box’ to avoid getting sidetracked and risk losing interest but I won’t lie, those oversized headlight grills and a few other simplified or just straight missing details do annoy me but let’s soldier on, this is about paint!
When it comes to primer I’ve long since given up on any of those acrylic versions, they just don’t hold up as well as their solvent based brethren. My first choice is MrHobby lacquer based primer, in this case black.
After coating the model and letting it sit, I’ll go back over the model with just lacquer thinner in the airbrush, settling the primer in even tighter.
I let this dry overnight and begin painting the next day using LifeColor acrylics. LifeColor are my favorite paint for military vehicles, they dry so flat compared to anything else I’ve ever used. This can be a bad thing if you’re not expecting it, wet shiny paint doesn’t look like the same color when it’s powder dry and the color shift can throw people off.
Note: This does not represent the color at all! My phone camera and bench lighting are making this look much more brown than it is
I’m not the biggest of fans when it comes to decals and Tamiya can make some pretty thick ones at times so I’m going to paint as much as I can. First things first, stars. I have some stencils and some masking tape and get right to work.
^^^ thats a more accurate representation of the color
I used Tamiya paint thinned with lacquer for this task, I can get the paint much thinner this way than straight acrylics, so this way I can avoid a big ridge after pulling the tape from too much paint being flooded on.
With the stars on and dry I’ve started picking out the details like seats, tools, tires etc. I’ve even painted the Jerry and a slightly different color of Olive drab. I’ve also applied a slightly different shade of Olive Drab to the entire vehile via sponge. This isn’t chipping, this is just to add some variation to the solid color and serve as a foundation for the weathering to come.
In my next post I will finish adding some more details to the interior and getting them painted as well as starting with washes and filters and perhaps the first of the earth effects. I may even make some stowage for those two front fenders to hide the missing footman loops as well as the molded on hood lifting handles.
As always comments, questions and criticism is always welcome.