FINISHED -- although now I see the photo's it looks like I've gone OTT on the Hellcat and will probably revisit it and tone the weathering down. Still and all though, after that's been done I think they'll look good for an ETO Nov-1944 diorama.

The 30-cal added to the Hellcat came from my spares box, but it looks way over-scale, (probably 1/32). I'm pretty sure I have a better one, somewhere.

Oh yeah, and I forgot about the outside of the M4A1 Commander's hatch....

So, not really finished after all then....

Darn, the more I look at these photo's, the more unhappy I am with the M18 weathering and that 30-cal. So I'll do something about both tomorrow.

Oh well, all constructive critique shall be gratefully received.

Cheers

Nope, I just couldn't leave it alone. That's a lot of the goop removed from the Hellcat and I've also replaced the 30-cal.

Reckon it's looking better already and I'll do some more tidying up on both models tomorrow morning.

I appear to be having problems with using pigments -- like being way too heavy handed with them. Seems to be that I do better with very controlled mini-washes. It'll only improve with practice -- I hope.

Hello Harry!

Looks a lot better now - although I have my problems with it. For me the contrast between the "clean" and the "dusty" areas is too stark, and they are too close to one another. I'd recommend blending them together a bit - with an airbrush or something like that. Other thing - the colour of the dust doesn't match the colour of the groundwork, the tanks look a bit like they just teleported on the spot. I'd recommend "weathering" the base a little with the same pigments - that should blend the tanks right in. Make the grass a little dusty, too. So - good luck with your dio and thanks for sharing, have a nice day

Paweł

Pawel

Hello Harry!

Looks a lot better now - although I have my problems with it. For me the contrast between the "clean" and the "dusty" areas is too stark, and they are too close to one another. I'd recommend blending them together a bit - with an airbrush or something like that. Other thing - the colour of the dust doesn't match the colour of the groundwork, the tanks look a bit like they just teleported on the spot. I'd recommend "weathering" the base a little with the same pigments - that should blend the tanks right in. Make the grass a little dusty, too. So - good luck with your dio and thanks for sharing, have a nice day

Paweł

 

Hi Pawel,

Sorry but I better clarify; that's just a generic mat I occasionally use for photo's and is simply to add some visual interest -- it's not the diorama base.

Decided last night that for the time being, I'm going to stick with controlled mini-washes for weathering until I get a lot more practice using pigments on old models, because they're simply don't seem to be working for me and I really should have called it a day on the Hellcat around this stage here;

Having said that, I did notice an interesting effect yesterday. Now, I've no idea what caused it; chemical reaction? or just a property of the Scale75 pigments I'm using, but if I took a hairbrush to the M18 to speed things up, the pigments seemed to separate and take on an off-white color which closely resembled "frost" in the thinner regions, and even "frozen snow" where they were in thicker concentrations on the top and sides of the Hellcat.

If I can recreate this effect on some old models later today I'll post the snaps to show exactly what I mean. If it wasn't just a happy accident and I can make it work again, then it might be a useful effect to include on the base of any diorama set during a bitter November such as Western Europe 1944. 

Thanks for your feedback

Some improvement on both models. Still need to pick out the steel color on the drive wheels, but that's about it, I think.

Time to get on with the diorama base now.

Nice work, I do think your improvements look better than what you had before. 

Gamera

Nice work, I do think your improvements look better than what you had before. 

 

Yeah the initial weathering on the Hellcat was a real mess....