"... (not only) the faces are covered in dust",
...but also the whole vehicle.Supply trucks in North Africa were exposed to an instensive weathering process which presents itself somewhat differently due to the extreme conditions to the weathering process in Europe:
- Rust is prevented by the lack of air humidity (and strict N.C.O s) or was usually sanded away by sandstorms (Ghibli).
- Colors are bleached extremely
- Color paints cling badly because of the sand storm effects already described.
- Oil and fat traces disappear underneath the vehicle from the sand. (this is due to the fact that the sand can get into ever possible and impossible corner of a vehicle.)
- The wear and tear marks from constant usage by the crew are very little, as covered with sand rapidly.
In reality if camouflage color was unavailable, crews often made do with
sand/earth/water mixtures, which did not have good adhesive
qualities and therefore left the dark grey basic colour underneath show
through. Only in further in the campaign did the availability of camouflage
color improve.
Latest fashion or "Reality"?
Now the dilemma: whether to make an impressive "competition vehicle" or your average "run of the mill" version straight out of the box. Where is the difference?
New thing is rust the last word in the painter's mar-ket for model builders
and desig-ners. Each screw is surrounded by such rust and interes-tingly enough also welding seams
are rusted although this doesn´t occur even after de-cades. If anyone doesn´t believe me then check out: World War Two Battlefield Relicts.
On the right is an example from this stunning webpage.
Here one can see individual braids hanging loose and worn although sometimes life can depend on a good tensile strength of the tow rope tow rope! Tanks, according to statistics, that usually spent so little time at the front (normally up to only one week!) are "micro-painted" in a way, that most of the camouflage is worn off due to extensive usage.
Give a try to compete at a contest with a "new-surface" tank! I guess you will earn no better place than from 20 onwards...In order to avoid that mistakes, I kept the painting true to life and concentrated on showing the sand-effect in small areas and increasing detail by "micro-painting".
Painting Master "Mr. Fluff"
After acrylic color priming with light-grey, rendering and preshading also
in black, there followed a further coat of "German Gray" from Tamiya.
Before the coat of the Africa-brown camouflage color I covered all windows and the places which shouldn't be painted with liquid masking compound called "Micro Mark". Unfortunately I dilluted the liquid too much with water and this effected the masking qualities of the liquid. I removed it and my second attempt proved much better.
By means of adhesive strip tape I easily removed the dried Africa-yellow color to show weathering and bring out the grey colour that had been masked underneath. It works also well if one rolls the tape together into a lump. Following this I sprayed the markings/tactical insignia with a template.
I used a more strongly diluted and "misted" bright sand color in the lower
areas of the vehicle to show the aging process.
Some filters with very bright dust colours and washes produce a general dusty impression. Then I replicated highly worn paint areas but using Humbrol enamel in a nearly pure white colour to show extreme usage around the rear loading tray of the vehicle.
This was then dabbed with moss green and sand pigment colors and also with bright earth colours in order to give a weathered impression. On the cab side and on the loading area I used a very bright range of sand pigments. Some black pigment types of dust were used with the engine and the exhaust to improve realism a little more. All pigments were applied dry by means of a broad brush.
Finally the dust shown on the windshield was created with Tamiya masking tape which I cut in the form of
the wiped surface which covered the unpainted parts of the windshield.
Then I diluted Tamiya acrylic colour strongly with iso-propanol and laid on a fine mist with the spray gun. Note: one should hold the spray gun a bit away from the model so that the spray dries slightly before impact on the vehicle otherwise one gets a smeared color.
I removed the masking tape directly afterwards and sprayed again another thin layer color over the uncovered windshield. This time I tried to leave the spray gun somewhat open and the color mixture thicker in order to achieve a splattering coverage. This was to simulate clumped dust, that had resisted the windshield wipers efforts of cleaning the wind shield entirely. So that the whole does not work too sterile, I removed parts of these dye films finally with a kitchen role.Result:
The Show Modelling brought out a marvelous P.E set which creates additional work during the building stages... This is worthwhile however due to the weak basic kit model.© Juni 2003 Schachinger
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