~ ! Clash in Tunisia ! ~ { Final Photos on page 37 }

Indy:  the truck looks amazing. I really like the wear on the paint. Its set the bar very high for the rest of the dio. I hope you don't take this the wrong way...the tarp looks very good and it s ahuge improvement over any kit piece, but not as good as the rest of the truck. It may be the photos.  You can always do the old trick of checking it out in a mirror. If I am out of line saying this, please let me know, I really don't want to upset anyone. Keep it coming, its great seeing this come together step by step.

Wow. The chipping on the truck looks real. I might have to try that on the project I'm working on now. The tarp looks amazing.

I'm watching and taking notes, Adam.  I plan to use the tarp method to make some window shades for that wacky tractor I am working up, it came wiht some molded ones that look like a piece of sprue, and that will never do.

your cover/tarp looks amazing, really real, realistic!

Thanks for the detail, I love this thread.

PS:  batten down the hatches, we are supposed to get some makor rain starting tomorrow night.

Great work really great work!

Bill

Did you modify and repose the figures?

 

Again I worked with the 1st shade, with the finer gun, and then worked the darker shade into the deepest areas, though it was quite difficult aiming and required great care.

 

Here's the finished product, with soft-enough colour changes,and appropriate lack of hard-edges . Hey! Something else is finished! 

 

 

 

 
I'll allow the paint to fully cure, and apply a sealing flat coat before unmasking, becuse I want the tilt protected, but don't want the bodywork matted yet.

So you'll have to stay tuned to see the whole thing together(me too  )

 

 

Some of the colors used we're just right to base-coat some of the garmets on my figures, so work on them unceremoniously commenced on those......

 

Thanks for joining me.....tommarrow we'll have a look.......................... 

EDIT P.S> Thanks for that Ed. I see you squeeked in the comment in-between posts again! That's OK still valuable. Yeah--I got this post half-down and the FSM server went all fritzy again and I thought it was all gone......I had recovered half of it. Hopefully this looks like the post now when I push the little button !.

You are most welcome Adam!

I agree the tarp on the left is primo and very well sculpted I might add but I probably won't! 

Looks great man!  I want to find the inventor of Milliput and give him a bone crushing hug! 

Buddho

This is incredible....

Edmund~  Your imput is always appreciated and you obsevations are 2nd to none. Likewise I cherish comments like that for all time my friend!!

BoB~ You a great man to have on my team! For sure... Im glad you are getting the most from the entire Blog, I am commiting this one to history for better or worse~~

Buddho~ Sometimes less is more. What a great thing to add, Thanks and it should even keep getting better.

Now thing start to really happen

I used them as practice for all the painting steps as well, to work out any color changes or bugs of the process, without risk to my model.The tarp covering stacked equipment(on the left) I used to try to get things to go wrong, testing the limits, as it we're, and the 'thrown-aside' tarp(on the right) I tried to present an example of everything going just right.

The finished tilt-cover, coming up in the next post, is in-between the two, but servicable. It's features we're just a little too complex and folds just a bit too deep for as Ideal a result as the tarp on the right. It is just about what I was after.

 

~Continued with the main event.....

This is incredible....

Adam;

WOW! this is un-real man.  Every so often I have to start from page one and sit with mouth agape in awe.

Bob

Hey Adam,

First of all you know my affinity for freshly painted tires I can't get enough of them.  It's a crying shame what had to be done with the tires but necessary!  Looks great!  I like the method you used I will have to try that.  This is one beaten up soft skin.  Holy Bejesus but very believable.

You are doing fantastic work both in the building and documenting of this build.  I will be referring to this WIP for years to come I am sure!

I can't wait for figures!!!

~Mike~ Sounds very cool man. A very popular configuration & for good reason.

~Will~ Thanks to you Mister

~Wayne~ Thanx, you betcha Man, the desert takes it out of you, & everything else. You know it

~RB~ A appreciate and value that endorsement a great deal. Fits with my reasearch entirely. At the shop we have an actual sandblasting booth and someimes I've found it interesting to see just how I can take the edges off of details with it(on a practice part only !) I was thinking how of ways to use that kind of assualt AND yet have a maximum of detail also(NOT  with real sandblasting!)     Anyways, thanks for those marvelous compliments!

~Narayan~ I'm happy to hear you appreciate the work to get the subtle changes into what isn't a subtle weathering. My pleasure to bring it here.   Super facinating info there about the Peugeots in Tunisia. What we're you doing there? Tourist? Riding around in  beat car with no doors?

From  Exit Rommel  by  Bruce Allen Watson

 ""The aridity was crushing. Normally, an ordinary man with no water supplement on a hot day loses so much bodily fluid that he would probably be dead by nightfall. Of course it rains, but much of it evaporates before hittting the ground. Once in a while, a torrential rain passes over, turning the sand to goo and making the wadis treacherous places as walls of water suddenly and unexpectedly wash everything before them.  Or suddenly or just as unexpectedly the sand begins to riffle as the wind increases. The sky turns yellow-tan and great billowing sand clouds race across the desert in a violet storm. slashing exposed skin, erasing paint from metal objects, and clogging any piece of machinery not adapted to desert operations."

The chipping detail is very nice to see. and especially the variation in colour as you get from the weathered surface to freshly exposed scuffing. Good stuff.  Thanks for sharing.

I remember seeing some very beaten up Peugeot 203s and 404s in Tunisia, and your weathering is not inconsistent with what taxis look like! I remember one 404 taxi with no doors and no straight panels!

I agree, that truck could have been off of the first shipload of equipment and still running late in the theatre.  Softskins were everybit as important (if not more so) to the AK as armour was and used until it was used up - then stripped for parts.  The desert environment with it's constant daily temperature changes and the inherent natural sandblasting effect would not have been very kind to most, if not all surfaces - especially painted ones.  Your talent for weathering is obvious and enviable!

Looking Good Indy,

rb

Great work! That is looking awesome!

I really like that opel, it's coming along great and I can't wait to see this dio done..

Hey Adam,

 You are most welcome and yes, it has helped... As for my build which was put on the back burner, has been reaccuainted with my work bench lol

 I am going to place a FlaK 37 AA gun on the back bed as it was field applied.. The over all colour will be German gray and a hastily applied Panzer Yellow splotchy of camo(wheels will be over all Panzer Yellow). The Flak gun will be over all Panzer Yellow with the green/brown camo

 As for storage I am not to sure.. Maybe some tarps, jerry cans, a spare tire and if I can find some AM ammo cases/rounds for the 37, I'll add those too...

 I have one other item to be added as storage but I am not going to say... Other than that, it's add as I go!! Thanks for asking!!

Flaps up,

Mike

Rangers Lead The Way

These effects require very fine-line painting, and for that my favorite is the "Liner" brush.

 (It's entirely possible that I may have scratched my signature into that front fender above when i was chipping it     )

After I liked the hubs, I painted the tires thinnly with Floquil 013 Grimy Black, and then an even mix of the "Grimy" and Floquil 009 Primer, and then Primer with 25% "Grimy", This was done as a matter of "relief painting" , not dry-brush, as my brush had too much paint on it to call it that. The Front wheel in both these  shots is finished to that point. The Rear wheel on the left has two more steps done. !st, I thinned-out the last highlight color and smoothed -out  the entire sidewall   ( you can see the difference above) and then mixed that colour with equil parts 0011 Reefer White and dry-brushed that final highlight onto the edge of the tread by way of some gentle flicking       ( which I admit I enjoyed) You can see the final highlights on the right, below

 

Once I get some sand into and onto these tires, I think they should serve well. These are the very same wheels you guys have seen countless times, no doubt, in many Tamiya kits, thier Standard  Wheel, WWII, German Vehicle........ but I thought they we're pretty nice mouldings, even with thier age and common-ness, so I though I should make the most of them  . that's all for today......

~Ed~ Thanks Brother, You're a good man & great friend  

~Mike~  That's all much-appreciated. I happy that you've found value in my (I hope) well-produced posts. This truck is finnaly getting somewhere interesting. I'd really love to see a detailed build-up when you get around to doing your Tamiya  Opel. There is so much you can do witht hese, so many variants, different roles they we're tasked with.... what kind of ideas do you have for yours? Stowage?

~Jet~ Thanks Man ! Please stick around, there's plenty more gunna happen here.

~RB~ Thank you greatly for the excellent remarks ! I'm trying to do something extra-special with everything in this Dio.    As for the chipping approaches, Mig Jeminez was saying on his blog recently that the hairspray is great, but for certain kinds of chips, and he likes doing it along with the more conventional ways(I asume meaning with sponge & brushes)     You're Tamiya truck is a very cool looking model. I guess it represents an early Opel truck originally Grey, later painted Dark Yellow , likely in a field-shop, maybe when the 20mm was installed? Now the yellow paint is wearing away. I like the look of your chipping too,especially around the cab. Only thing I would mention is having the dirt/dust on it more of a contrast with the paint color. That's one challenge I have yet to face with mine...getting the look of the surface dust just right (maybe Steve Zagola's "Dust Glaze" method ?)

Your weathering is awesome!  Well done Indy, well done indeed!!!  I must try your chipping method sometime -  mine has always been "Brushed-On" vs. your "Brushed-Off" .........................

.... I like your method better.

Cheers,

rb

Great job on the truck so far. It looks amazing.

Can't wait to see everything finished and in the dio.

Hey Adam,

 I just came across this thread and I tell ya, I am very impressed my friend..!! I really like how you put this all together from start, the build, mods/updates, pre painting preps to now... I definitely like how the steps to painting the vehicles make the finished build realistic..

 I am in the midst of doing Tamiya's 3 ton 4x2 Opel and I can not wait to see how yours turns out!!

 The way you brought all this together, I can really envision the dio and I can not wait to see the finished product..!!

 I will definitely be following this is one fer sure!!

 Thank you for be able to share this with us

Flaps up,

Mike

Rangers Lead The Way

That's what I thought it would look like!  You do not dissapoint my friend!  I really like the tonal differences of the chips and this as I stated before will really draw the eye with it's complex weathering.

Thanks for documenting this Adam it will come in handy!

Wow you will have quite a bit oif tonal variation for your chipping!

I got my Diet Coke and I am waiting for yoru chips!!

~Thanks Edmund~ and thanx for putting it in writting. All your tips on using hairspray are coming in handy, Buddy. I've never used it for anything but small jobs before, although I'm likely to try it again & again now.The alcohol seems to work the best for me, and I'm likng the look of the chips done the next day, better than those done immediately. There are a myriad of factors including thickness of hairspray, thickness of paintlayer, the modeler's touch when removing, among others that seem to be difficult  to convey or repeat exactly between us all. That MMIR article you shared with me is a fantastic read, but I'm not prepared to spend literaly weeks on the chipping using laquer thinner like Mr Rinaldi in issue #46 !! He did a great job on that build, no doubt, but I need somthing to work alot more rapidly.

In order to achieve a very sun-faded, as well as chipped-up paintjob, I'm using colour modulation by way of four different tints of the sand paint color. This color was mixed from Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow + XF-57 + XF-2 Flat White and thinned with alcohol. I poured some of into some small take-out cups with lids and added progressivly more White to each, to get the four different tints.Above you see the 2nd darkest color applied thouroughly to the sides, but only as a light key-coat to the tops, to avoid build-up.

The lightened version went to the tops of roof, bonnet, & fenders, and then the darkest colour was graduated loosly up from the runningboards, and painted into the inside corners of the bodywork. It also went onto the bed-side hardware.

Later,  after It was sure it was dry,   so I could really see the difference,   I applied the really  light (fade-out) tint to the top-facing surfaces only. the 'wood' of the bed-sides we're sprayed in with a lighter color in thier centers.

The entire bottom of the truck was sprayed with an even darker chocolate shade than it started in( a color saved from the Kubelwagon base-paint). This paint was applied to the insides of fenders, the whole exhaust, and even allowed to creep up the edges of the bottoms of the sides, so that chip colours will mingle and show great damage to the paint on every road-facing surface. (you can see the effects of this on the edges of the fenders and under-bed toolboxes) It should pay-off later.

Not much body-paint will exist nearest roadway.

Wheel-hubs got a spray of the darkest color with a little freehand spritz in the centers with a lighter one. Close enough is good-enough for me as these will get alot more work.

These jerry-cans got  a number of possible colors after a similar hairspray prep.

~~~Next up...here comes the CHIPS~~so go get your   'S    

          I'll be back with that!.................INDY OUT !

Hey Adam,

We talk on the phone and discuss and critique each others work and i forget to post to your WIP's or think I did remembering a conversation we had.  I think I speak for a majority of us when I say thanks for taking the time to be so methodical and diligent in passing on your methods and techniques.

It's interesting that you discovered that the Isopropyl alcohol is the most efficient method of chipping.  This is going to look fantastic with paint on it.  Keep firing down range Sir this is going to be a great anchor for your Dio!

Bill! ~ We've been crazy busy too,I totaly understand(right when we're suposed to be getting xtra time off too!) We will catch-up very soon,Man.  ALSO,  Glad you appreciate my work like you do! 

Narayan~ Thank you all for all that, it's an honor to hear it As for my personal love of doing the wood grains, I think it comes from days doing it as a woodcarver, where I'd take a new piece of pine and distress it into having an old split-up heavy wood grain....Great Fun!

I found what I liked was using alcohol 70%(greenarrow)and a short-bristled brush with a little stippling with a fine brass-wire-brush too. I found water worked, but was a bit less controllable(red arrow). Of course better results can be got with a more patient hand. 

A great deal of patience is what's needed to make the laquer thinner  work   subtly. Here(red arrow) I did some rapid work to see how it lifted the paint. The( green arrow)   is another example of using the brush   &  brass & knife-tip too,with alcohol.

I stumbled on a great badly-distressed paint appearance(above)  by soaking the Tamiya paint with laquer thinner. It crinkled-up like a paint-remover attack, but I'm thinking   it may come in handy some day for a burned-out paintjob.

One last sample, this one painted without hairspray, to see what the alcohol removal would look like, with a brush(red arrow), and stippled with the brass micro-brush(green)

 

I did some selective dry-brushing on the trucks metal-work , with some metalic enamels  , and used some liquid-mask on certain areas I knew I wanted chipped. It's difficult to see here which is which.

 

 

 

I masked-off the tarp, as it's current paint is a perfect pre-shade for painting it later, and hit the wood-work of the bed with a very diluted spray of Tamiya XF-52 Flat Earth, so the chips in the wood show a different color than the metal.

 

OK,  NOW it's ready  to paint !!                                 

 

  Wish me luck Mateys                      

Nice nice work on the Blitz with the details, the tarp and worn bed. I am constantly amazed by military modellers, who make plastic look like wood....too much work for me!

Keep it coming.

Wow, Indy, I have a busy couple weeks at work, you open a full scale assembly line of fantastic stuff.

That TARP!  The add on grill guard, the soldering, the PE, and now PAINT!!!

Looking mighty fine, sir.  Thanks for taking time to detail that voodoo that you do.   

NICE!

Bill