Gray Death detailing

Detailing rounds

Ah, it was the time for picking out details and tinkering on absurdly small things, and that was glorious. The cockpits, energy weapons, and all the individual bits on each mini - just the stuff I enjoyed the most in painting these little pieces. Of course I always came up with something new to fool around with so I never got very quick at this stage.

Reddening the cockpits

I liked to have the cockpits standing clearly out from the rest of the paintjob, and quite often I've ended up painting them in red. That being said, they ended red again. Over the flat black bases I painted a red-brown (RLM26) layer, then into the lower right sectors a red (RLM23) inverted L-shape or a blob if I was low on space. Into the red corners and their opposite corners I painted a white (VGA 72701 Dead White) dots or shapes as reflections, as space allowed. Like every other time, some panels succeeded better than some others.

Everything looked so much nicer in the Lance photo than in these individual supercloseups:

Energy weapon lenses

My process hadn't really changed since I started with this silliness. First I wrote down a list of what I actually needed to get done and in which colours:

1. Small Laser / Bloody Red (VGA 72710)
1. Warhammer 2pcs [LT,RT] even though I hadn't found out their places yet
2. Medium Laser / Escorpena Green (VGA 72732)
1. Warhammer 2pcs [LT, RT]
2. Ostsol 4pcs [LT, RT, LT[R], RT[R]]
3. Shadow Hawk 1pcs [RA]
3. Large Laser / Magic Blue (VGA 72721)
1. Ostsol 2pcs [LT, RT]
4. PPC / Electric Blue (VGC 72023)
1. Warhammer 2pcs [LA, RA] 

I didn't take the intermediate photos again and just took the "and now they're done" shots afterwards. My reasoning with this was that I had documented it many times enough and it didn't make sense to repeat the same substeps with photos every time.

The Warhammer was supposed to carry two Small Lasers in its torso but I simply didn't find them marked. That CT grille definitely didn't work as a palceholder so I skipped them. I decided not to worry with the gloss varnishes at this point on any of the surfaces but to do that much later.

Jump Jets

We had two jump-capable 'Mechs, Shadow Hawk was obviously one of them and the similarly named Phoenix Hawk IIC also carried a load of JJs in its back. This time, like I've done for all the nozzles, I painted them with electric blue and added some diluted white to the outer edges. I didn't paint the Shadow Hawk's nozzles as they were holes for the jump effect's plumes, so I just drybrushed them gently on the edges.

A chipping session

For the chips I used a piece of a plastic sponge and greyish white in various wearable-looking spots, mostly edges and other easily damaged areas. Into some of the larger or more noticeable chips I mixed my black grey with red for the deeper scratches. Basic stuff but more bothersome than on the 1:35 scale.

Replacement armour test

Foolishly I jumped into my silly idea of painting some fixed battle damage. I did that by painting some random panels and armour blocks in a grey I have always disliked a lot (VMA 71276 USAF Light Grey). As opposed to the novels, I didn't go for half-limbs or anything large like that even if it would've fit the theme pretty well.

The Warhammer had been shot here and there, no concentrated clusters of PPC damage.

Ostsol's Left Torso looked like it had gotten a healthy amount of damage right next to its head and I started thinking if I should also paint the left chest piece next to the Large Laser, it'd cover quite a bit of internal damage. As if it had taken a nickel-ferrous Gauss slug right next to the cockpit. That would've been an ear-ringer.

Shadow Hawk had also been just nibbled at.

Soot from the projectile weapons and more replacements

Getting back to the weapons, the foursome had three AutoCannons and a couple of Missile launchers. As they were they were quite clean so I drybrushed their firing ends and edges with black. Of course I could've used a black pigment but that was less easy to control than drybrush, and I didn't want to make them look like Soviet hardware either.

In my excitement of fine-tuning I also painted a few more panels as replacements. Especially Ostsol's left side called my attention.

To wrap this up for this week I had a photo of the Phoenix Hawk IIC's Jump Jet nozzles that I had completely forgotten to share earlier:

Hummel weathering and final detailing

Final quick things TM

Camo painted, all subassemblies done, the crew reassigned past the Eastern Front. All that was left now was the most fun tweaking, fine-tuning and nitpicking. And making a mess, of course. How long could that take, a couple of silly hours?

First rusts and getting fancy with wood

Weathering got started with rust oils being slathered over the track armour and the exhaust pipes. I did these things before I painted the numerous dots on my Hinterhalt-Tarnung but collected the photos and yapping into a more thematically accurate post. These all used Light Rust (ABT060), the exhaust pipes because they were constantly hot and the track armour was a new chunk that had been very recently driven on. Or that's what I thought and implemented based on this mental nonsense.

For the various wooden pieces I made again some brown wash (aptly named ABT080 Brown Wash). After the application my favourite piece, for once, was the jack block that ended up looking great. The jack's wooden handle was an important detail, in my opinion.

Of course all the wooden things benefited from the wash, in this photo the crates and the plank setup were still damp and looked much better after drying. Somehow the shovel handles didn't get as much of an improvement in visuals, perhaps it was because of the missing or simply bad woodgrain texture/effect.

Before I started applying the oils I had glued in the machine gun and the rammer, so I wouldn't snap them off at a horrendous moment. That rammer was the weirdest of the wooden tools, I had not seen a real German version so I didn't have any actual knowledge. My memories from quarter a century ago of a Soviet rammer even had, maybe they were painted green? Without any better information I made it as a wooden stick, anyone with facts is welcome to comment.

While I still had leftover brown wash left, I thought I could start on ruining the compartment's floor. This was a general messiness layer, I was going to go through the tinier details with Sepia a bit later.

Howitzer installation

Now I installed the gun in its place. Visual progress was glorious.

When the glue was cured long enough I started diluting some darker brown wash (ABT002 Sepia), messing up first the boxes and crates with their lines and crevices, the flooring and general corners and the gun overall. The outside I ignored pretty much completely to avoid finger messes, the only outer surfaces I poked were the sides of the Panzerwanne and the bogies. Without the tracks they were accessible so this was a good moment for them to get treated to some nastiness.

Caterpillaring

Some days later I installed the road wheels in place, and the tracks one by one. Next I inserted the drive sprockets to the front, and aligned the teeth with the track links and after letting the glue set a bit, I looped the opposite end of the track around the idler wheel and pressed it in place. On both tracks at this point I heard a tiny snap and as the first photo showed, the overeagerly painted tracks had lost a tactical amount of flexibility and I had an accident in my hands.

The situation looked worse in the photo than what the reality was. As the tracks were of the correct legnth, I could get them glued together again. I decided to simplify this a bit by gluing the return rollers in their spots and then glued the tracks onto the road wheels to avoid too much free movements when closing the tracks again. That was my plan, at least. While the gluings were setting I installed the shovels into the rear ends so things could progress while others took a step back.

When my fixings were curing I washed the wheelsets with my Sepia wash, and after another curing break I wiped excesses away. The next evening I glued the track ends together on both sides, and on the left side I decided to add one spare link just to be safe. I still needed to paint it, of course.

Staring this close the patchwork stabbed my poor eyes, but I could not notice from a bit further away. Maybe I could mask it a bit with some mud paste when I got that far.

Drybrushing

Once again I considered for a fleeting moment if I should drybrush all the corners and edges with their own camo pattern -dictated colours. That moment of madness didn't last long and I used Ivory instead (VMA 71075). Yup, it was easier for my eyes to catch a hold of the edges and bolts this way. Then I glued the planks onto the rearmost boxes even if I wasn't using the little guys at all. Maybe I could glue a shell or three there, if the inspiration struck that way.

'Tis but a scratch

Regarding the chippig I leaned to gentle wear as opposed to sandblasting. Looking at the model I was thinking if the travel locks could leave a stronger mark onto the barrel, in addition to that I would probably just go for the edges and such that I could think people to be crossing a lot, or hanging from. Anything else would be in the combat compartment, after silly artillerymen dropped their shells on the floor fuzes first, and whatever they did when no one was watching.

I gave a quick shot at a lightened RAL-green for some chip base, but that was going to be too tedious and I just switched my approach. I painted the hopefully random scratches and lines with a slightly lighter sandy yellow. As always, I  then filled the larger ones with black grey that had a drop of red mixed in. Doing that was too exciting and I forgot to take any detail photos.

More oil

To make my mistreated paintjob a bit more lively I made washes of Abteilung's Light and Dark rusts (ABT060 and ABT070 respectively).

The brigher and fresher rust I stippled into the chips. After a bit of setting time I blended them into their surroundings.

The darker rust I used on a few places, mostly to the hooks on top of the armour panels, on mirrored sides of the vehicle. I applied some rust, and then pulled them down toward the ground.

While I was happily doing all this I also made a thin mix of Dark Mud (ABT130) for the lower hull and wherever I thought muddy crap would fly when you drove a thing like this outside.

Ultra matt coat

I was under no impression of getting this out of my airbrush so I brushed AK's Ultra Matt Varnish on the model by a paintbrush.

The actual last things

My ultimate task was sponge-applying some Tamiya's Weathering Master pigments. I used mostly Mud and a small amount of Light Sand. The sandy one I used mostly to further highlight some upper surfaces, edges and bolts on the superstructure. At this point I remembered to fix the aiming stakes' reds and whites, and the completely ignored convoy trail light in the bottom left back corner. For its base I painted it off-white, and when it was cured I used some Citadel's Green Wash I had bought either in late 1996 or early 1997. That stuff was still valid.

When I couldn't imagine spinning the Hummel in my hands much anymore, I got to the graphite pen and used it mostly on the tracks, a bit on the shovels, jack block's metal thingies, jack's ends, and a bit on the tow cable. With this amount of time spent I felt the Hummel was just about finished.