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.

Devastators based

Bases

As so many times lately, I used Vallejo's Mud Effect to create some sort of an irregular terrain for my BattleMechs to stomp on, and let it cure overnight. It's been a nice and simple method for getting a quick non-flat ground that won't fall off the base when moving the minis. The next day I gave the ground bits and the 'Mech feet a drybrsuhing with a wood-coloured paint (VMA 71077 Wood).

A colleague commented my wip photos* and humbly suggested some sort of an edge highlighting to improve the readability of the minis. I had no argument against that, he just managed to express it better than my generic low-level annoyance of low readability. That was a useful term indeed. So I gave them a gentle drybrushing with a medium grey (VMA 71120 USAF Medium Grey). Despite my A4 background, or exactly because of it the minis ended up looking darker than in the other photos. Or I chose a worse place for the lights, or I simply didn't understand how my phone camera worked.

 

*) The WIP photos pointed out three more masking tape pieces. Hopefully those were the last ones. Unbelievable.

Devastators oiling and decorating

A sepia pin wash

I thinned down some brown oil wash (Abteilung ABT002 Sepia) and spread it over the bits, concentrating on panel edges and crevices. I also remembered to wash the dorsal gun options that I parked on pegs.

 

After about half an hour of waiting I cleaned the excess darknesses away. I concentrated mostly on the sun-kissed surfaces, the stronger shadows in the lower parts were not harmful.

As always, the difference between non-washed ones was incredible. What I hadn't planned in advance was the merc company decoration. These were, attitude-wise, very different from the Clan Warriors, Successor State armies, corporate troops, or the so-called serious mercenary companies. These were the troops that could have smiley faces, dice, Ace of Spades signs, catchphrases, skulls, graffiti, rainbows, unicorns, or whatever set out however. Of course in this scale any words would be unpaintable with my limited abilities, and I wasn't going to start decaling them either.

My main point with this pondering was that they should be decorated a bit differently from my usual approach. The other thought was that maybe I should've thought of it before doing the oil part? That could always be redone, but again I noticed that I had gone with my autopilot.

Lenses and panzer glasses

Aaaaanyway. I decided to do the energy weapon lenses and cockpit viewports now, because if I fumbled with them over any possible decorations, I would be cross. So black canvas, colours over. To compensate the sand yellow and green something blue would be good, maybe with a red tint. The mixture of blue/red was pretty low in brightness and didn't stand out as nicely as I had imagined. Redoing them all in blue was a solid plan b.

Devastator 1

The armament on the Devastators was very clear: the Gauss Rifles didn't need to be touched, the PPCs in the sides got the Electric Blue treatment and the four Medium Lasers got Escorpena Green on them. Plus the usual white-mixed layers, of course.

 

In this photo you could see that the viewport didn't really stand out.

Devastator 2

I worked on the Devastators in series, so the same descriptions applied here.

Both of their searchlights were painted with Fire Orange, and I used that on the targeting lasers on top of the Gauss Rifles as well.

Marauder 1

Not many weapon effects here: the Arm pods had PPCs and Medium Lasers. In the photo below I had the three-barreled version of an AC/5 installed.

A number of viewports were modeled on the Marauder model, I decided to use the lower and upper front viewports. The side ones and the one that looked like a skylight I skipped.

Marauder 2

Like the Devastators, I painted the Marauders in a series. Or more accurately I painted the weapons in the most numerous first -order (in this case Medium Lasers (12) -> PPCs (8) -> Large Lasers (2)) to supposedly save some time.

Group shot

Unique smudges

The stompers needed some individualism still. I had thought of random markings, graffiti, obscenities, or somesuch to be painted on these reckless mercs. But then I always remembered my subpar freehanding skills, so I didn't want to ruin my stuff just because.

Caution stripes 

At least I could do some kind of hazard stripes. I started that by painting some bits with Yellow Ochre, as the sections called my attention. I managed to find a good amount of space for them on the Marauder dorsal gun options, as well as their sides and ankles. The Devastators were a bit more boring and got stripes on their shoulders and Gauss Rifle sides. One of the Devastators had to take some hazard marks on its ankles when I noticed an underpainted area.

I tried to keep them in check instead of going overboard. 

Rank markings

Something gave me the idea that maybe these lucrewarriors could have their military ranks painted on their machines. I really wasn't up to speed on any military organizations, so I didn't know what kind of ranks the MechWarriors would generally have and my best idea came from the BT novels. Relying on the tried and tested Stetson-Harrison method the chief became a captain with a || painted on the Devastator's left shoulder. The next Devastator got a single | bar for a lieutenant. My Marauder pilots then got to be lower in rank than those, and the <<< and << were more visible than the silly bars. Probably in real world the chevron-folks were way too low in rank to be piloting things, but luckily I didn't need to care about that. Another option was that they all were ultra-admirals or something.

Numbers

Without too much pondering I painted numbers on the legs in black and white, or black grey and off-white. Maybe the different Lances would be using different colours to make them distinguishable? I had time to dwell on these little questions.

Shiny lenses

Now I iterated all the glasses with Vallejo's gloss varnish, the weapon lenses twice. IIRC Camospecs' B1BFlyer did at least three varnish layers on his energy weapons to get a nice convex shape on them.

 

Situation check

Next time I'd attack the hex bases. At that point maybe I should check the edges of the energy weapon barrels, so that the metallic surfaces didn't have a silly gloss on them.