I've now finished off the last two signs and the one for the front cab. I first sprayed a piece of plastic card with NATO green then glossed before adding the decals. Once dry these were carefully cut out and then added to the model. The front sign had a small frame built up behind it using plastic strip.
Next will be quite a few layers of filters and washes as well as some oil work on the cargo bed.
A gloss coat has now gone on followed by the kit decals. These are OK although the registration plates are a little on the big side. The addition of decals to the fuel tanks really adds a bit more colour and interest to the model as well. Final decals need to go onto some mounting boards so I will use plastic card for this and add them later.
I've now got the camo colours on the model after adding a slight bit of fading to the green. I started with XF 69 NATO black with a drop or two of white added then used XF 68 NATO brown again with white added. Once the pattern was on I then started to tighten the pattern and get rid of any overspray. I then finally added more white to the brown and added this as a highlight.
Some of the detail painting has also been done, mostly the wheels, cab and the anti slip patches on the fuel tanks. Before any more painting goes on I'll give everything a gloss coat as the model needs a lot of handling, this will stop any or accidental wear of the paintwork.
With the primer curing much faster than expected tonight I've just put down the initial base colours for the camo scheme. First was a coat of tamiya XF 78 wooden deck tan on the truck cargo bed. Once that is dry I'll mask then finish off painting the rest of it.
Next I mixed tamiya XF 67 NATO green with a good slug of XF 71 cockpit green for a nice faded shade of NATO green. Finally straight XF 71 was used for the fuel tanks, pump assembly and assorted other small parts.
I've now given the model a blast of mr finishing surfacer 1500 black which has really popped the details. This will cure for a day or two now before I start the painting.
With the last small pieces added to the model and a quick scan through the instructions to make sure I've not missed anything it's now ready for a good wash before primer goes on. I thought this build would take me longer due to the many small parts and complexity of some stages. However I really got into the kit so have knocked it out in record time!
Now working on the cargo bed and sides for this. A fair bit of cleanup is needed here and the inner faces of the cargo sides need a bit of filler to correct some very funny depressions. Once all cleaned up they all fit as they should so I'm now adding the smaller parts to them. As you can see the plan is to display this with three sides lowered which looks to be the standard practice in reference pictures I've seen.
This also shows off the very nice details of the fuel tanks and the pump assembly as well as allowing me to show the fuel nozzle hooked into one of the rear grab handles. Only a bit more work now and some cleaning up of smaller parts so I might get this washed and ready for primer at some point this weekend.
