Bulldog Washes, Matt & Tracks

Lots done over the weekend with washes and pin washes going on the model. I used a mix of burnt umber & black oils for this. I also tried out some VMS universal weathering carrier to thin the oils. This is like white spirit and odourless thinner but it evaporates a lot faster and actually blends the oils much better. I found no grainy particles when mixing the oils and thinner and it flowed nicely around the details too. I used the standard version which is ideal for use over acrylics.

I then went back over the model with a very small amount of chipping and picked out a few more bolts using metallic colours. Once happy I sprayed the matt varnish, VMS HD varnish again, and left to cure for a day in my hot conservatory. Next was all the glazing and lights, the glazing on the commanders station was a tight fit due to painting so a light scrape with a scalpel was needed to pop the windows in. All the lights were little cars lenses with the brake & indicators being pre coloured. Much easier than mucking about with the fiddly kit lights.

The headlight guards where a devil to bend without distorting the frames. Lots of careful tweezer work was called for. I would suggest that you form the guards during construction for a much better fit later but leave them off for painting. Some punched bolts finished them off once I fixed them in place. Finally the tracks and wheels went on, no problems here and they look pretty good.