Following on yesterday's footsteps, the final processes for the weathering stages were completed today.
First order of business was the application of a pin wash of roughly 90/10 Thinner/MM enamel Burnt Umber using a 10/0 brush to all the raised details and panel lines.
Since the previous washes and filters had removed much of the glossy surface, the pin wash "bloomed" in some places and the excess needed to be cleaned up. This was easily done with the same 10/0 brush and careful use of clean thinner to fine tune the result.
Next up the entire vehicle was given a coat of Testors MM Lusterless Flat in the spray-can to remove any remaining vestiges of gloss from the Future and to tie all the weathering in together. This was allowed to air dry for an hour or so and then the pigments were applied. I used a combination of Mig Pigments Rubble Dust, Europe Dust, Light Dust, and Dark Mud mixed together as dry powders. This was turned into a slurry/wet mixture by adding ordinary tap water with a touch of dish washing liquid soap to break the surface tension and the wet mixture applied liberally to the lower hull, tracks, and running gear with an old sable brush. The mixture was left to air dry which took about an hour or so.
I put on a dust mask to avoid breathing in the fine pigment particles and went to work removing excess pigment with a large round stiff bristled brush. The key here is to remove varying degrees of pigment depending on the surface in question, leaving for example more in place around the leaf springs and suspension but removing more on the wheels themselves, etc. I used some smaller square tip stiff bristled brushes as well for the tighter areas where needed.
Some additional fine tuning was done using both wet and dry cotton swabs until I had the result I was after.
That left one final detail...the installation of the radio antenna. This was accomplished with a small amount of CA gel applied to the base of the RB Models 2m brass antenna and then inserting it into the hole I'd pre-drilled earlier on in the assembly process.
The antenna was the painted with MM Non-buffing Metalizer Gunmetal and it was off to the photo-booth for the completed shots:
