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After much frustration, experimentation and effort, I present to you Grey Hunters pack Skagi's Rhino transport. It's the first tank I've ever painted and after all that time and effort, I'm quite pleased with the outcome despite a few unexpected problems and mistakes here and there. Comments and critique welcomed.

Skagi's Rhino.


Front view.


Side view with the Great Company's symbol displayed.


The other side view.


Rear view with the pack's marking displayed so that they don't board the wrong rhino!


Top view with the pack marking displayed with some additional detailing.

Looks good, but the snow around the rear of the tracks looks out of place. It would have been swirled around by the moving tracks, not left to settle.

I wanted to depict it while it's moving, so I imagine the tracks shovelling snow up with some falling back on the tank, but I've not seen a tank moving about in snow before, so it's purely imagination and guess work.

First off, I think you did a great job on the base vehicle. The colors are very clean and you did a really nice job with the chipped paint. Also, very nice job on the free hand icons. They turned our really nicely.

As the previous post said though, the snow looks off. Go to the toy store and buy yourself a small tonka tractor and go outside and run it around in the mud:

My comments, totally meant to be constructive
1. Mud will be on the entire length of the track
2. As you did, the mud/snow will be thrown up over the back tracks and the loop back around. The only way it would build up the way you have it, is if it snowed on it.
3. When tanks go over snow, it gets mixed in with mud, so it's really a mud-snow slurry that gets all over the vehicle ... yours is too pristine.
4. There should be snow/mud splash on the front glacis and track guards as the tank splashes in to puddles and snow banks.

Here's how I do my basic mud: http://www.kan.org/michael/mkp/weathering_mud.php

Thanks, Ifurita, for the comments, advice and tutorial. That's a great looking tank you have there on your site.

I want to depict my army to show it fighting on a frozen world of snow and ice so I can't imagine mud on the tracks as the ground would be in permafrost.

I have checked out a few clips on youtube of tanks moving in thick snow and that has given me a better idea of how snow is shoveled on the tracks and tank body. At the moment, I don't quite like the snow flock look on the tracks. A paste, like what you did might be better.

I'll experiment, incorporating some of your technique, and see if I can get a better result.

While Ill agree that the snow does seem a bit off. The paint job is awesome. Looks great!

Thanks, scotty khan! It's the first time I'm doing freehand artwork. Glad it turned out relatively well.

I'll continue to experiment and see how I can get more realistic looking snow. I showed the picture to my friend and he asked me how I did the mould...

Really, very nice. Outstanding for a first tank; far better than mine.

Thanks, Mannahnin, for the encouragement.

Highlighting the tank was tough, and I've still not gotten that down yet. Tried to do edge highlighting but it didn't seem to work, so I tried drybrushing. Hence the different highlighting on the left and right sides of the tank.

The freehand Great Company insignia was intimidating to paint at first, but once I tried it, I found it so fun I wanted to find more flat areas to paint more freehand. Hence the bone attempt on the top.

This is a really nice paintjob, very well done! One can see the work & time you invested!
However, in my opinion, the vehicle looks a little bit too clean...

Thanks, MadMaxMaxMuh! Painting is such hard work, but there's such a sense of satisfaction when I'm finally done with a model.

The idea behind my army is that it's newly deployed in a campaign on a frozen world. As such, all the tanks have been well maintained with paint work touched up, etc. And since it's a frozen world where the temperature is always below freezing, that slows any rust formation and there's hardly any water marks on the tank. Hence my choice in the amount of weathering so far.