I started with the gun painting some little scratches. I figured I didn’t need too much chips so I didn’t go for the hairspray technique.
Here are the base colours finished. I painted the barrels and all the remaining details with a brush.
I started to build up the rust with a Cadmium Orange oil colour applied with an airbrush. The result looked a bit unrealistic to me, even though I followed the reference photo closely. Later I’ll add some more rust shades to make the thing look more convincing.
The ammo box gets an additional layers of rust. Here I’m working with a brush trying to trace the dark brown chips with subsequent layers of rust.
I decided to give a rusty look to one of the wheels as well. It’s the same procedure really. I start with the lightest tone and I gradually switch to darker shades covering smaller and smaller areas at each step.
You think I’m done with the rust? Not at all! I also painted the platform using similar colours. These are slightly darker shades though – I want to create more contrast with the yellow base.
I also made some orangey fresh rust marks around the smaller chips. Most of them are going to disappear below the camouflage, but still.. I couldn’t resist. There’s never enough rust on the model.
Next I painted the rear lights with my trusted Tamiya clear paints. I didn’t have orange colour so I just mixed red and yellow. The inside part was painted silver to give the lights some more sheen.
I decided to make the rear window cracked. I’ve already showed you how to make an ordinary broken glass. Now we’ll talk about the tempered glass, that doesn’t really create a spider web effect. It rather cracks into thousands little crystals that stay together if you don’t touch them.
The method is old and well-known, but I’ll remind you:
You need:
-a powder called ice sparkles or similar, I used a product by AK interactive.
-translucent PVA glue
Just put a sheet of plastic foil on your desk. Spread the glue into a thin layer. Then sprinkle it with the ice powder. After you let it dry for a while you end up with a firm, semi-transparent surface. Cut it to the size of your windshield and that’s it. You can also remove some of the glass or make some holes. I found out the best way to do it is not to cut the glass, but rather rip it with hobby knife.
I fixed the glass with just a little bit of white glue. And I mean just a little bit! This huge white blob on the picture is there just for illustration…
Ok, finally the model is ready for the camouflage. Before I use the colours, I cover the whole surface with chipping fluid. This will allow me to create some effects later but it also serves as an insurance – if I make a mistake, it will be very easy to clean it up.
I started with airbrushing small brown dots. But I soon realized it wouldn’t get me anywhere. Maybe it was my lack of skill, or maybe my airbrush, but I just couldn’t get the spots small and intensive enough.
I soon switched to the brush and I painted the spots free-hand. The Mission Model paints have some very good opacity, so I was able to finish it very quickly.
Here’s the model after this stage. I didn’t wipe off the airbrushed paint- it looks kind of cool anyway.
The next step is the red colour. I mixed Tamiya’s Flat Red and Clear Red in 50/50 ratio. It gave me both opacity and the glossiness that I was looking for.
I painted the camouflage basing on the original photo. It is really, really weird to work on this kind of lousy paintjob. Usually you’re trying to paint your models as neatly as possible. Here I need to screw this up intentionally. A good technique is to spray a little bit of paint and, when it’s still fresh, hit it with some more air. This will spread the paint around and create some spots and streaks.
I soon realized it would be too frustrating to reproduce every single little spot from the photo. I focused on the most prominent elements instead and I improvised the rest. I’m pretty satisfied with the result.
The right side of the vehicle is not depicted on the photo. This lets me work with much more creativity.
Also, notice I didn’t paint the camouflage on the right door. This is a way to give the model even more contrasts. But I also wanted to use this detail to create the vehicle’s story – the door was replaced after the application of the camouflage.
Following this idea, I decided to add another colour just to make the thing more interesting. The green will go mainly on the door. Again – creating a story… Imagine this situation: after replacing the door the guys wanted to cover it with camouflage as well. But this time they only had green paint at hand. Does it make any sense? I hope so.
I went even further into this imaginary plot. I assumed the guy was too lazy to go around the vehicle and to add green spots everywhere. So he focused on the door and the surrounding areas that could be easily reached. Am I going to far with this? Maybe. 🙂
I switched to the brush to recreate some paint streaks. It’s a very common effect with the spray can paint. If you hold the can in one place for too long the paint accumulates and soon it starts to go down in thin streaks.
I used a detailed brush and only Tamiya Clear Green this time. Make sure you add a little dot at the end of the streak- this is the ‘leading’ blob that is usually a bit larger than the streak itself.
Remember I started the airbrushing with a layer of chipping fluid? Here’s where I can finally take advantage of that. I remove some of the paint from the hood. Simple tap water is used to activate the fluid.
I also added some red paint on one of the wheels. As you can see I don’t care to stay within the borders of the rim.
I hand painted the tactical number with a mix of Tamiya Black and Smoke. I also added some paint streaks to fit the general clumsy vibe of the painjob.
When the camouflage was ready, I noticed it pretty much covered all the subtle colour variations I introduced earlier. I masked the hood and I traced the edges with a very diluted raw umber oil paint. This will make the hood stand out from the flat surface.
The same technique was used on other panels as well.
I also spend some time weathering the windshield. I’ll show you how to do it on a separate SBS.
Let’s move to the cargo area. I started with a yellowish wash that works great with the white colour. I paint all the edges of the structure and then I blend the paint with white spirit.
I also introduced some rust shades, especially around the tail gate, where the damage to the paint is the most severe.
The last step was to add some pigments to recreate desert dust. I used Sand, Europe Earth and North Africa Dust colours from the Ammo Mig palette. They are distributed mostly in the corners and fixed with white spirit.
Next I started to scatter empty shells along the cargo area. Because of the weight of the gun, the whole truck will be tilted backwards. It makes sense then to accumulate the shells close to the tailgate.
The shells come from Master Browning M2 set. This is the closest match I could get.
Then I masked the area around the gas cap and I created some fuel stains with Ammo’s Fresh Engine Fuel.
I came back to the cannon for some dust effects. This time I used Buff Oilbrusher blended with white spirit.
It’s time to prepare some accessories for the model. It’s very typical of the technicals to be cluttered with random stuff.
One the the accessories will be this AK-47 by Dragon. I added some strap details using tin foil, wire and some tiny PE parts.
And here’s some more accessories after painting. Besides the AK-47, I will also use RPG-7 by Pavla Models, some boxes by Matho Models and a plastic jerry can by Eureka XXL.
I used an ordinary packing tape cut into thin strips to upgrade the white box on the left.
The Coca Cola can was scratchbuilt from a plastic tube and some random PE parts.
Now I just need to place the accessories somewhere in the cargo area.
The last step was to place the cannon on the platform and polish the gun metal parts with a pigment.
And this is pretty much it. I really learned a lot during this project. Creating an improvised camouflage was definitely a new experience and a challenge that required some out of the box thinking.
I hope this SBS will be useful in your work. If so, please send me some photos of your models or put them in the comments below. I’d really like to see them!
See you on the next project – for most frequent updates visit my Facebook page.