My friends, here's the first attempt. Surprisingly, the leather was much more fun than painting trousers. It's the textured, high contrast nature of the material that makes it really enjoyable to work on 😁
I used the "stippling" method to paint the whole thing, which is essentially chipping, but on figures. You...
2021-08-24 08:56:40 +0000 UTC View Post
My friends, Alpine delivers once again with these beautiful French tankers. They had a few more casting imperfections than their previous figures, but still nothing serious. Just two small holes and some very obvious mold parting lines. I noticed some microscopic bubbles in these pictures, but they're very small. I'm sure the...
2021-08-22 09:15:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Mah frins, today I finished the tree video and I'm ready for figures. The final update on the tree wasn't much if I'm fully honest - I trimmed the excess static grass which really makes it look more authentic, and gave the foliage a random heavy wash of diluted Olive Green oil paint. I don't know if it shows at all in those p...
2021-08-20 22:04:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Trees, figures and epoxy water were always the most terrifying things in modeling. Well, now I'm not scared of trees and figures anymore, so there's only one more thing to try out! 😁 But let's not rush things, everything needs its time.
2021-08-20 21:39:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Ma friens, this was one of the slowest tasks I ever attempted. Brush painted chipping, step aside!
I didn't have much success with the AK foliage from a few posts ago. I simply wasn't able to stretch the twines and achieve a satisfying result, but my latest order of modelling supplies contained "Dense Shrubbery" w...
2021-08-18 20:44:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Here we go, this was so much fun!
I primed it with Mr. Surfacer Black, then sprayed Tamiya Deck Tan from above. What followed was a heavy Vallejo treatment with white, deck tan, old wood, light mud, and black brown applied wet on wet. After the acrylics were dry I gave it a nice thick wash with Industrial Earth an...
2021-08-17 20:53:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Mah friens,
looking for the ultimate modeling podcast episode? Look no further because this episode of the Plastic Posse Podcast features Adam Wilder, Mike Rinaldi, and yours truly. We had a great time, and if you want something to listen to during your modeling session, here's a link (you can also find them on any podc...
2021-08-17 17:07:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Muh frens, at first it was really terrifying, but now I could do this all day! But that's how it is with most things, right? You never know if you'll enjoy it, and if you have it in you, unless you try it. The green vegetation from AK makes me still worried though, but for now I'm gonna focus on painting the tree.
I thi...
2021-08-16 20:37:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Mah friens, I've never been more nervous than today morning when I was looking at that pile of dried up wood on my workbench in the last photo and thinking "how in the world am I gonna make a tree out of this". It was a weird feeling, because obviously every ingredient was there, just the vision and some sort of plan were sor...
2021-08-15 22:43:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Pictures taken when I was still able to move without crutches! 😁 I remembered the first photos as I was finishing the brick wall, so here they are. Some details are very interesting, such as the crumbled cinderblock and mortar sticking out of the wall on that garage.
2021-08-14 08:56:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Breaking news: French duck tank drives through mud, instantly regrets it!
2021-08-13 16:01:05 +0000 UTC View Post
The first one being the tank, obviously 😁
A small detail like this makes for a wonderful weekend project - I managed to do it all in one day. And here's the fun part - no airbrush, no enamels, no oils! All done with paintbrushes and acrylic paints.
You can see the base coat in the last photo, bricks painted in ...
2021-08-12 09:34:43 +0000 UTC View Post
It's finally done 😁 We all experience that feeling when we get excited for a model but the initial hype wears off after a while, right? Yeah, this was the exact same thing... but it's about building and finishing models, not just collecting them! 😁
2021-08-10 15:05:59 +0000 UTC View Post
My friends, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief after one of the most intense disciplines in modelling - composing a diorama. Since the T29 I'm trying to put a lot of effort into the composition, not just the basic layout of different components, but also rotation, "main viewing angle" and so on. For example, the T29 has a...
2021-08-10 15:00:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Ma frens, I added more earth effects on the upper hull, renewed some lost contrast around hatches with oil paints, speckled some grime on the engine deck and polished the worn edges with a pencil. With that, the Somua is done and we can move on to the most exciting part - vignette!
I also did another procrastinati...
2021-08-08 08:31:00 +0000 UTC View Post
... all that remains are some stains here and there and polished metal edges, and that means only one thing: PROCRASTINATION!
And what's the best way to procrastinate for me? Play with styrofoam, of course!
Well, I'm going to finish the tank tomorrow, I applied some extra earth tones on the upper hull ...
2021-08-06 20:12:43 +0000 UTC View Post
... today I'm back! Before I get into the modelling stuff, let's talk about the last two days. Yesterday I had an x-ray check-up. The day before I was getting so nervous about it that I couldn't even focus on modelling, so early in the afternoon I gave up and tried to distract myself with other activities. Yesterday, when I c...
2021-08-05 19:08:24 +0000 UTC View Post
My friends, today was a success because I might've finally gotten a hang of the AK acrylic mud. If you remember, my initial impressions were mixed - it has excellent texture, but it dries too fast and leaves visible tide marks. It also has high pigment content so when you're blending the stuff, it leaves a colored film. ...
2021-08-02 19:40:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Release the Quacken! Although most effects on these photos are rather subtle, if you compare some angles with the first batch of pictures, the difference is quite noticeable 😊
2021-08-02 19:31:19 +0000 UTC View Post
My friends, you all probably know that moment when you're about to get something done, there's just one more thing left to do and then it turns out looking like pure crap? That happened yesterday, the only thing I had left to do was apply some enamel rust washes on the exhaust and call it all ready for dust and mud weathering...
2021-07-31 12:55:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Ma frens, I'm just gonna drop this here real quick, I'll get back to you in a few hours with rust tones on the Somua :)
I found a nice idea for a factory diorama with the Ferdinand, but both models look so good I can't decide which one to do first!
But there's plenty of time to decide, after all, I nee...
2021-07-30 16:24:20 +0000 UTC View Post
My friends, oil dots are on and as usual, they nicely toned the pin wash down wherever it needed to be toned down. They also added some extra tones on the large cast surfaces. However, I wasn't able to add too much forced contrast with highlights and shadows because of one thing (which I should've anticipated from the get-go)...
2021-07-29 09:04:23 +0000 UTC View Post
My friends, the model is fully "washed" and ready for oil dots and fake shadows/highlights.
I ended up spending more time with it because I wanted to bring out the cast texture on the hull and turret, especially the casting imperfections which I originally created with a rotary tool following reference pictures of...
2021-07-28 10:24:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Ma frens, I present to you the first round of pin washes! The process on a model with lots of bolts and rivets tends to be rather slow, so I decided to start on the lower hull to get most of the time consuming stuff out of the way. Tomorrow I'll finish the upper surfaces.
For this paint job I chose three oil paints: raw...
2021-07-26 20:06:22 +0000 UTC View Post
How to make the least menacing looking tank more serious - just shoot it from the ground level 😁Still not overly bad ass, but hey, poor Somua is doing her best!
2021-07-26 10:13:51 +0000 UTC View Post
My friends, after a 2 week break we're back to our weekly schedule, enjoy!
2021-07-23 16:01:38 +0000 UTC View Post
