my weathered churchill

really good man... better then what I make.

honest comments...............ok here goes. the only thing i really notice is that your tracks are heavily covered in mud but your tank is still relatively clean. remember i am still a novice when it comes to building armor but i think more "mud" should be on the tank.

that being said, the build looks great. very nicely done. thanks for sharing.

joe

I would add some chunks to your mud, just to give it a little more texture. Some sand, ground-up kitty litter, coffee grounds, real dirt, static grass, that sort of thing.

thanks for the comments, i'm put some more mud on it, not sure if i know what you saying Peridexion, texture where? i would like some clumped mud around the tracks but i'm not sure how to do it.

This photo shows what I mean:



This is done with just sand added to your mud paint. It helps "bulk it up" so you can apply varying thicknesses and it provides more texture. Then by using different colors of washes and dry-brushings of the mud, you can make the mud more interesting, if that is actually possible!

What I want to know is why is this triangular marking in this photo so clean with all this mud?

Looks great.Great pics

Ok honest opinions for you. One, the pics are not very clear or out of focus. So it is hard to give you a true impression without getting a good look. Two, the mud doesn't look like mud in the picture from the rear. It looks a bit too glossy. I agree with Peridexion and he gave good advice. All in all, the build looks very good, just need some work on the overall blending of the weathering and mud.
Look forward to some more pics.

Cheers

Mo

I'd say you're on the right track (no pun intended), t3488g. The guys gave you some good advice, too.
As Moses mentioned, the pix are a bit too fuzzy to make any accurate assessment of your work, so I shall not.

It has gotten me interested in building a Churchill, though!

I think I would probably agree with about the glossiness of the mud. Perhaps a carefully targeted application of semi-gloss over it might tone it down or possibly a light coat of dullcoat. I think where you want to be with it is to have a slight sheen.

I also agree with the comments and suggestions about adding some more texture. I'm in the midst of doing a muddy Sherman, and my initial results of ground up pastel chalks with a clear coat as a binder are looking promising.

As far as adding additional mud to the rest of the tank, I suggest digging through all your reference photos, and maybe seeing what else you could find on the web. It may be that you are not too far off the mark. I've seen plently of Shermans in which the tracks and lower hull are really thick with it while the upper hull is surprisingly clean. A Churchill is obviously shaped differently, so will get dirty is different ways than a Sherman so check those references before adding a lot of extra mud. You can always add mud, but its is more problematic to remove later.

All that said, it looks like your well on your way to having a good looking Churchill.

i cant find any good reference pics of a muddy churchill on the internet, all of them seem to be clean, or just the tracks and suspension muddy, as see in the pic i provided on my original post. So i decided to get a refference book, does anyone know if "Churchill Infantry Tank, 1941-51" is any good?

Youre moving along in the right direction, T3488. With the good advice that has been given, your tank should finish up a real ( dirty ) beauty!

Dan

Dirty it up some more and it will really good.
mark956

t3488g, I have a pile of Osprey books, but I don't have their Churchill one. ("It's not my bag, baby", - Austin Powers) For $15, they are a good overview of the vehicles presented, with development, variations, service histories, several color plates, a cut-away drawing and lots of photos, with an average of around 50 pages.

As for the mud thing...Not necessarily more area needs to be covered in mud, maybe just an embellishment of what you already have on there. If you look again at your reference photo, you have the mud in the right places. Those guys are really churning it up, but if you look at the sides of the vehicles, they are fairly clean, just as you have modeled it. My thought was just to add a little more substance to it, like by adding some sand in the mix, to make it thicker and chunkier.

I am a bit like Brian, now I want a Churchill in my collection!

If you wanted to tone down the glossiness of your mud as was suggested, you can try a heavy drybrushing with a clearflat. That leaves some areas looking wet and some dry, which is often how mud appears on machinery. You could actually drybrush the mud with a lighter mud colour, that would do the same job and also break the colour up a bit.

Looks like you are going to end up with a nice Churchill there, mate.