Markings of the Red Army

Prepping

Before painting anything I finally installed the tracks. Of course it didn't end up being as straightforward as it was supposed to be, thanks to one of them being slightly offset. Everything was solved with a bit of grunting, after all.

As soon as the tracks were properly set, I glued the hull halves together. At this point I remembered that I hadn't even touched the track links that provided extra protection. I'd have to take care of those before any weathering.

While I was waiting for the gluings to set I washed the tow cables. To do this I used the just opened, a couple of years old GW/Citadel black wash (the year I bought it it was called Nuln Oil, please don't ask me what they call it today). The effect looked good.

A RED ARMY UNIT 1945

For inspiration and such I looked at the instructions and what units were shown in there. A Chech or other unit would've required roundels and I wasn't into doing those for this project. The simplest one was a tank with number 13 from the Red Army unit "88th Independent Guards Heavy Tank Brigade", which just needed a number and a couple of white lines to be painted on and around the turret.

For the effect I started by painting the numbers with my own shaking hands on both sides of the turret, all the imperfection being calculated and deliberate. The same way I painted the horizontal line so that it looked like it was painted quickly and without too much care. Lastly I painted the plus on the roof part and tried to get a couple of paint spills or splashed droplets. I guess I could've gone for a few more bits of leaking / runny paint, but I thought this would do.

It looked "right" to me. This individual didn't need bears or red stars, so I didn't freehand any (I think I'd gone the Fallout route and painted the two-headed bear of NCR, being the funny guy I am).

Detailage

In order to provide some variety to the plain, flat Soviet Green I painted the fuel drums and the engineering toolbox dark green (VMC 70979 Dark Green). For a bit I pondered if I should've painted one of the fuel drums with yet another shade of green but I then decided that weathering would make them individual enough.

Speaking of the engineering equipment, there were the shovel and the saw on the sides of the tank. Both of them got a metallic paint (VMC 70865 Oily Steel) on the metal bits and brown (VMC 70872 Chocolate Brown) handles. The metallics I'd wash with either brown or black, most likely brown.