Here are a few pics of my first "serious" bit of Armour - I'm normally a figure modeller...
This is the Emhar 1/35 Whippet. I've used selected parts from the Airwaves PE set, like the pistol ports, and handles. I decided not to replace the engine air intake with those provided in the PE set - reason being they looked alot smaller than the plastic molded ones... okay, and they are a dog to put together. Also, I used neither the kit track guard brackets or the PE ones as the Whippet I'm trying to model didn't have them fitted in the 1920's.
In terms of painting and weathering I'm following a method laid out by Mark Bannerman in an old edition of Military Modelling.
So far I've primed the vehicle with Tamiya white primer (from an aerosol). Next was dirt texturing, so once dry I applied liquid glue to selected areas and sprinkled some fine model ground cover (Mark used ground Sage - I'd rather cook with that ) onto said areas. I then liberally applied Tamiya Thinner 22A to selected areas around the lower tank and gently blew MIG pigments onto the wet area.
The next step will be to apply 2-3 thin coats of flat black to the vehicle, firstly to seal the dirt texturing, and secondly to apply a preshade.
One thing I can say, is that photographing a model certainly does give you a different view of it... suddenly I see a lot more things that need to be filed down...
Well? Is there hope for me yet as an armour modeller?
Yes, that's correct. I stand under correction, but I think at the time of the revolt it was operated by the Army, with the driver being a member of the SA Air Corps (later the SAAF).
And yes, the driver was eliminated by a Boer sniper.
Tarok wrote: Thanks, I'm attempting to model the HMLS Union - the Whippet used to suppress the 1922 Miners' Revolt (Rand Revolt) in South Africa.
Could you give us auslanders a capsule history of that event, if you haven't elsewhere? I'm not familiar with it.
BTW, I have a still-in-the-box Whippet, and see from your model that those wire-formed brackets make all the difference. I guess you've raised the bar for me already!
Steve - thanks for your kind comments. The handles are all from the Airwaves PE set, although I think they could easily be made from copper wire
I have since applied the first preshade coat of matt black, unfortunately the use of the compressed air can as an airbrush propellant doesn't appear to work for me - more than likely it the operator I should be borrowing a compressor over the weekend and have a few photo updates early next week.
I've managed to borrow a compressor to get over the horrible experience of using those compressed air cans... so here are the results:
These first 4 pics are of the Whippet preshaded using thinned Tamiya Flat Black. I went for a ratio of about 40 paint : 60 thinners.
These next 2 are after the basecoat of Vallejo Model Air Dark Earth has been applied. 2 coats were applied. This was my first experience with spraying AV Model Air, and I must say.... what a pleasure! Straight from the bottle to the AB's cup and onto the model. No mucking about with thinners.... my kinda paint!
Sorry about the dark pics...
National marking are next... the area was masked off last night and hopefully I'll get to spraying them tonight - SWMBO depending...
I'm actually following a method Mark Bannerman used in an old copy of Military Modelling. More pics soon... I sprayed the white for the nationality markings last night. It was generally successful, with only minor overspray (which I guess was due to the ninkimpoop who did the masking ). The red stripe will be sprayed on over the weekend... SWMBO is dragging me to the theatre tonight... for some reason she thinks I need more culture...
Well, it's not quite done... but here are a few more progress pics from the last week or so...
Pic 1: Here the national markings have been applied. They were sprayed on using Vallejo Model Air White and Red-Scarlet respectively. I decided to spray these on since the decals looked a bit fragile and difficult to apply these areas
Pics 2&3: Hmmmm. dusty! The dust coats were applied using various very thin layers of Tamiya Deck Tan, NATO Brown, and Brown (XF-10).
Pics 4&5: Next step was applying filters. I applied 2 filters. The first of Humbrol Dark Earth (29) to the entire vehicle. The second of Humbrol 84 to the lower portion of the vehicle.
The plan is still to finish by Wednesday... but we'll see how that goes