A multiphase priming process

for thing in things:

As I've mumbled many a time, I had decided to take care of the painting and final assembly a bit more complicatedly than usual. The hulk of the Ural was already weird enough with its structure (to someone like me who's very used to the sleek and clear lines of Panzers), so I decided that I'd save my few remaining poor hairs if I painted all the main subassemblies separately and only set them together when they weren't overshadowing each other while painting. Some guru could've painted everything perfectly on a fully assembled BM-21 but I'm just a nonsense-class amateur who does this for fun, so I chose this route.

Of course I had to do all this in many sessions to achieve the cleanest results. I started by setting the smallest bits on masking tape strips so that they wouldn't fly around under the air pressure coming from the airbrush and so that I wouldn't have to fight with my fingers being on the way, either. On the first session I painted one side completely and the next evening I flipped the bits around for the remaining sides.

The spare wheel rack I painted 90% on the first go and then just fixed what had remained obscured. This bit was a very simple thing to paint and I guess I could've glued it onto the chassis but somehow I had the idea of it ending up being on the way or something being blocked annoyingly. So out of convenience I did it separately.

The bulkies of parts 

The truck itself was just insane. Especially with the power transfer system that was blocked by the frame and, well, absolutely everything on the bottom. They were casting shadows over each other and were generally difficult to reach. I couldn't leave them untouched so I spent a huge amount of time in preparation and going over things with the airbrush multiple times just in case.

In the end the truck took two very long priming sessions, of which the first one was the more complicated one by a long shot. I started with the engine compartment, of course, and the nose area in general. When I had painted my fingers into a corner, also known as the rear axles, I left the model to dry overnight. Then I finished (and did some touching up) the rest the next evening.

The carriage

What remained was pretty simply painted. Luckily I realized at this point that I'd actually want to paint the core of the spare wheel as well, so I quickly detached and cleaned the halves and took them onto the painting station. Again I took care of the priming process in two stages, especially as the tubes ate paint like a starving wild beast. I also had to leave some parts clean to avoid those annoying "wet paint got stuck here" effects.