Today I've primed the figures and sprayed the interior. I just used white primer for that & it's a bit patchy but then you won't see much when the rear is all closed up.
I've also been working on the marksman vision blocks for the turret. I first sprayed them with tamiya clear blue then masked them with VMS liquid mask. This is a new product for me so we will see how it performs tomorrow when I remove the masks. Oh I also sprayed the blocks green and matt varnished them.
More on the ambulance now and I've sprayed the model with mr hobby H56 intermediate blue. It looks really good and as ever went down smooth as silk. I plan on depicting a relatively fresh in service vehicle so no lightening of the base colour will be done. I'll rely on washes & filters later to add depth and interest to the model instead.
A gloss coat of johnson's klear and decals have now been added to the model. Again not much to worry about here with only 6 decals to put on but these are possibly the weakest area of the whole kit. The Finnish roundels are pretty rubbish as the blue portions are off centre which makes the whole thing look odd.
In the end I punched out new white circles for the backs and trimmed up the decals. Not perfect but better than the originals. Also the rear hazard boards are smaller than the edgings cast onto the plastic so you need to remove the inner edgings and add new ones from plastic strip. Both are not massive problems but annoying nonetheless.
I also added a few data placards from spare decals here and there. So it's now ready for some weathering.
Most of the detail painting is now done. There's really not much to worry about here so I can now move onto a gloss coat and decals. Then I'll add some wear and sort the lights out and glazing.
After a few days careful masking and spraying the camo is now complete. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and really like the contrast between the colours. It was also a relatively easy scheme to mask being all straight lines. I can now progress to the detail painting next.
I've been plugging away at the camo on the hull and now have finished it minus a couple of small parts that need to be sprayed. Slow & steady wins the race here letting the paint dry properly before masking for the next colour is essential. Being the impatient bugger that I am I have had to sit on my hands a couple of times mind you!
I'm also very pleased with the colours which I think will tone down nicely with some weathering. So next will be the turret and here I've found takom have missed some areas so I will hopefully have a more accurate pattern on it when finished.
I've now done a little test to check the durability of the paint when it comes to masking and have masked and sprayed one of the fenders. The result is very good with only a tiny amount of bleed in places and a very small bit of paint lifting on the brass rod mudguard stay. All easily fixed with the base colour and fine brush.
I'm surprised the paint is so resilient having thinned it with water. The light green and black are also very nice and again have a slight satin sheen once sprayed on. I think the key here is to let the paint cure for at least 48 hours to ensure it's fully cured and adhered to the primer coat.
With a small window of opportunity last night I sprayed the ambulance in primer and also actually checked I have some of the main colour to hand! Lucky I have a nice new pot of intermediate blue in the paint stash.
Also keeping to the WW1 theme my mate Soapy has sent me some pictures of a Tommy's War RNAS petty officer he has just finished. I thought I'd post it up as it looks so bloody brilliant! Painted in vallejo acrylics I think he's done a stunning job and the base really sets the figure off beautifully.
Remember the Corolla I've been building? Well having finished the interior I moved onto the body shell to prepare it for decals. However the paintwork wasn't very good, (gloss work is not my thing), so I decided to use some micro mesh to smooth out the rough finish. Disaster ensued as I cut through the paint to the bare plastic!
After some swearing and head scratching I decided that the only way to save it was to strip the paint off and start again. But what to use? Various methods were investigated but in the end I went for dettol, the plain old disinfectant stuff. So into a sealed container the body went to soak for 24 hours. I didn't have much hope of this working so was delighted to find that it had actually worked last night!
Considering that I used a lacquer based main colour and gloss coat I was amazed at how easily the dettol stripped the paint off the parts. It even took the primer off and left no damage to them! The only downside was the house smelt like a bloody hospital last night but that's a small price to pay for a save on this build. I'm now going to spray the body with a rattle can this time around & use a different gloss coat and hopefully not fuck it up!
