Today the base has been repaired and sprayed with matt varnish. I've also made up various items of rubbish to add to it. Some bits came from the blast household rubbish set, some from the spares box and some I made up. Most notably the food tins and drinks cans. plastic tube and rod as well as punched out plastic discs added lids and tops to these. All painted up to resemble various soft drinks and water brands they are now ready to be added to the base. Rubbish bags are made from black nitrile gloves stuffed with kitchen foil and tied off with fine wire. They will get painted up later. All that's left to make are some empty food packets, cigarette packets and general detritus.
Moving onto the base and figure now and I've finished off the figure for the bulldog. Although he's not entirely correct He'll have to do I think, at least for now. The base building has progressed well and is now all done. I think it makes a very attractive backdrop to the scene. I had a slight problem when removing the masking tape from the base, it lifted off the lacquer and paint on the corners. This is probably due to the length of time the tape was on and also because I didn't use low tac tape. My own fault so once repaired the base will have a matt finish instead of a gloss one. I'll have to finish off the repair now before final pigment weathering, annoying but there you go.
Onto our special guest now and it's Brian's monster M75 again. Now in full colour he's almost ready for weathering. For the main colour he used tamiya XF 51 khaki drab which once sprayed on is a perfect match for the early Belgian colour. I must say it looks awesome and I'll certainly be using that colour on my next early Belgian subject.
Both models have now had all the detail painting done and the lights & indicators picked out with some liquid chrome. I've also fixed the leopards suspension arms to the, (hopefully) correct ride height. The AIFV has had the divison shield with the lions head removed to bring it in line with my references too. Next up will be filters and washes but first I want to get the Bulldog & dio all finished up as I'm well ahead of my schedule for these two now.
Busy today doing a lot of the detail painting on both models as well as adding decals and sorting out a crew for the leopard. The leopard first and most of the detail painting is now done. With just the rear mud flaps and lights to sort out. Decals are from the kit and they went down with no issues. Just a little out of register on the number plates on the national flag but nothing anyone is really going to notice. I've also built up two crew figures using the miniart Bundeswehr tank crew set. They are not too bad at all, with just some careful clean up needed in places. Most notably the faces which have a large amount of flash to clean up.
The AIFV has had a similar treatment and here I used my daco Belgian vehicle set which is an absolute god send. Especially as the kit decals are rubbish. Correct registration plates and numbers, unit designation and bridge markings all came from the daco sheet with only three white warning placards coming from the kit sheet. I've gone for a Chasseurs Ardennais vehicle for a change & all marked up it looks ace.
The leopard and AIFV are now in their gloss coat so I can now continue with detail painting and adding the decals. The figures for the AIFV have been very kindly donated by my friend Guy from modellers haven forum, top bloke is our Guy. Small improvements are now being made to them to bring them more closely to Belgian army spec. I should be starting the painting on these soon. I've also started the painting for the bulldog figure so only have the leopard crew to build and paint! Phew, there's a lot still to do but I'm enjoying it immensely.
More on the AIFV now and I started by spraying the camo netting using tamiya XF-26 with a few drops of XF-13. Next the brown went on using XF-52 with a few drops of XF-68. This was followed up by more lighter tones of the base colour which also helped hide any over spray from the netting. I think I used about 4 subsequent lighter shades here. Once complete the shading adds a bit of depth to the monotone colour and starts the weathering process by adding shadows and highlights.
Also as a special treat for you all here's Brian's Retrokits resin M75. This is also being built for Belgium and will be in Belgian colours. This is an amazing looking model although not without some testing and challenging aspects to construction as Brian's sanity can vouch for, (something I've been wondering about for years!). I did question him regarding the speed of the build, it's only taken him two weeks so far. Not his usual 6 to 12 months gestation period!! Most unlike him I must say. This will look ace in Belgian colours I think and is another fitting homage to our hosts at Plastic & Steel. I just can't believe he will have it finished by then, what's happened to him?
Yesterday afternoon was spent spraying the camo on the leopard. I used tamiya NATO black & NATO brown for this. Pleased with how it came out so there will be no paint fading with the airbrush on this one. Rather I'll rely on oils and weathering to add some fading to it.
The bulldog base building has also had some more paint and is coming along nicely.
Yesterday was a very productive day as I was able to get the base colours on the leopard and AIFV as well as return to the bulldog build. The leopard was the first to get some paint and a good solid coat of tamiya NATO green, XF-67 went on nicely. I'll be adding some paint fading to this next before the black and brown are sprayed on.
The AIFV was next and here I used mr hobby olive drab 2, H78 as the base colour before starting some fading using tamiya flat flesh, XF-15 added to this in small amounts. More fading will be added in due course.
And finally after the airbrush went away I started blocking in the main colours on the building for the bulldog base. The roller shutter was sprayed a metallic colour and the rest painted with vallejo colours.
