Hey guys; well I've been working on the ol' DML Hetzer w/ Verlinden interior, and have gotten the tracks on and the suspension/wheels/tracks painted and weathered. I chose to do it this way because of the funky and permanent way that the Eduard PE skirts mount; they are pinned to the hull and it would have been nigh impossible to get in there and paint and weather it the way I wanted to if I had fixed them in place. It's for this same reason that I never paint tracks on the model; it seems impossible to accurately depict the wear along the inner wheel travel of the tracks, and to properly show bare steel wear on the guide horns. After this lower hull is done, I'll finish up the skirts and paint the rest of the whole...
But first, the build log, starting with a quick tutorial on how I build my tracks:
1. Fix a strip of masking tape sticky-side up with two strips holding either side down, and then take each individual track with tweezers and lay them together. The tape will serve to bind them until the glue is applied:
...then lay down the Testors glue--other liquid glues set too fast to allow working with the tracks...
Let the glue set for about 10 minutes to allow the tracks to bind and become pliable. Then, wrap them around to about this length, and let them set. Don't use too much glue or they might stick to the wheels!. A shorter middle run can then be added to complete the run, and will ultimately be glued in place only after both runs have been painted.
Ok, here the wheels have been painted...notice how drastically I lighten my Dark Yellow. The red is Tamiya's Red Brown, the green is Model Master acrylic. Still looks like a toy!...
The tires have been roughly painted with a mix of black/Pz grey/tan; they will be touched up later. A filter/wash of raw umber oils, a more specific, heavier wash of raw umber/orange/black is added...
...and chipping is done with a small piece of black packing foam found in some resin kits. This is basicaly the same as biffa's (![Bow [bow]](/emoticons/icon_smile_bow.gif)
) kitchen sponge method. Not only can you dab the sponge into a mix of the same oil mixture as above, but when you've got most of the paint off it, you can drag it across the model like drybrushing, getting some nice "abrasions" and scrapes, as well as transfering it to bolt heads, rims, etc...COOL!
Now, after a wash of acrylic tan (acrylic to preserve the thinner-based oils) to age the tire rubber and impute a dusty haze, I mix up some celluclay, tinted with craft store acrylic paints, and a little white glue, add some cut-up Woodland Scenics grass and some real dirt for texture, and smush it (is that a word?!) in around the wheels...meanwhile, the tracks are being painted seperately on the side; chocolate brown base coat, followed by washes of tan, then rust, then blackish-brown; the inner tracks and guide horns will be drybrushed in steel and set aside for now...
...after the tracks have been added, it's time to go to town with the MIG powders.Here's where the tracks and hull are made to come together, artistically. I used a mix of both MIG P232 Dry Mud with MMP 020 Worn Armor Yellow--a nice dusty brown mix...I swabbed it on with a very diluted mix of water and clear flat, then hit it overnight with a LIGHT (!) coat of Dullcoat to secure it. Lastly, a few more pin washes of the aforementioned oil mixes, a light drybrushing of steel over the track faces, a further very light DB of dirt brown over the same track faces to provide even more depth, and --voila!--time to start on the "meat" of the hull!
Looking pretty old and battle-weary; just like an early Hetzer should, IMHO! The key to getting this look is LAYERS! Layers of weathering, and patience! Now I'll have to finish the skirt mounts, add the skirts and some add'tl detailing under the top plate that I sawed off, and work on the base...I want to set it in it's element, in a type of viginette. Gotta find a good figure to keep my lil' deuce Hetz company! Shouldn't be long now...!
Questions and comments always welcomed and appreciated!