Weathering session one

Somewhat calmer metallics

Bright as polished steel, clean engine pieces would've been at home in a model of a plane on the final stages of the assembly line. That's not what my plane was, so I drybrushed said pieces heavily with Gunmetal grey.

They looked a bit more plausible and alive, in a way, now. Of course I could've just painted them completely flat with the gunmetal, but my vision was to get a bit more lively look on the engines instead of what a plain gunmetal delivered. This was again something that just depended on your taste.

Washing

Next I washed the metallic parts with brown (VMW 76513 brown) to tone them down a bit more. I thought that the brown was a better fit to this model than the black wash I've used more often on metals.

I had somehow thought or most likely just remembered awfully wrong that my storage contained some of the Vallejo Model Wash that was meant for light vehicles, but after rummaging through my sets three times I had to admit that I really didn't have it stored anywhere.

As the next best thing I applied the grey wash (VMW 76516 for grey & dark vehicles) that I've used on a bunch of builds already. After I had applied it on I wiped the excesses off, where applicable.

Now the bottom half of the plane was practically fully painted, except for the little vents below the air intakes that I thought to wash with black, based on the reference images. A stronger effect could've been fitting but I felt that I'd at least start with a black wash.

Already my mind was working its way to get obsessed by the next stages. Of the decals I'd use the red stars and I guessed the unit number(s) too, but the insane little markings and whatnots I might not even bother to glance at. Decals have almost always just left me annoyed and offended.

Regarding the decals I remembered that in my rss feeds someone's fun scifi vehicle and how the maker had weathered the decals by gently airbrushing over them the base colour. The model in question was, if memory served, sand-coloured spinner or a fighter, so that approach wouldn't quite work in this case, thanks to the camouflage pattern. Of course I could in the final stages, before applying the matt varnish, filter the whole damn plane with a dusty colour (VMA "Dirt"). Though that approach would require another go at canopy masking...