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Dry-brushing to the rescue!

There's still a few little bits that need attention (where I may have got a little carried away), but I'm happy with the contrast now.

*DAKKA GLITCH*

That looks much better to the eye, much more to catch. Well done.

Drybrushing is muh favorite!

Oh my god! Paint! How long have I been away? Still looking great, Dr H. Keep it up.

Looks great with a lick o' paint on it....not that it didn't before, but you know......

Get the paint done were almost to page 100.

nicely done, the paint shows how well the tank has been made.

The darkening of the greeen closer to the edge with the blue looks really effective.

cormadepanda wrote:That looks much better to the eye, much more to catch. Well done.

Thanks Comrade. I'm happy that I now have the effect I was after.

shasolenzabi wrote:Drybrushing is muh favorite!

I try not to do dry-brushing too often and will usually try other methods first. But sometimes, it does do what you need and it is easy.

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Oh my god! Paint! How long have I been away? Still looking great, Dr H. Keep it up.

Good to see you back around these parts. Thanks.

monkeytroll wrote:Looks great with a lick o' paint on it....not that it didn't before, but you know......

Ta MT.

Theophony wrote:Get the paint done were almost to page 100.

Ha. If we take out the 2-3 pages of fluff I added I've got more time... Or I could stop posting updates until it's finished

No major update today, I've cleaned up the parts I wasn't quite happy with and have given the whole tank a layer of matt varnish (just to help with cleaning up slips with the other colours to come). I've now got to look at what I want in other colours and what will stay as it is.



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 OneManNoodles wrote:
nicely done, the paint shows how well the tank has been made.

The darkening of the greeen closer to the edge with the blue looks really effective.

Thanks OMN. Good to hear.

Drybrushing is... well, I do it too. Shameful admission of Shame :( With Green and blue you really do need a good contrast for it to work. Make a B&W image of the tank to see how much you have, and adjust accordingly.

 Red Harvest wrote:
Drybrushing is... well, I do it too. Shameful admission of Shame :(

There's nothing wrong with dry-brushing, no shame needed. It's a very useful technique and is perfect for certain circumstances.
I'm just trying to improve my painting skills by trying new things and pushing what I know to it's limits. I've got dry-brushing down and do resort to it when other methods fail and use it exclusively for some things (metals usually).

I'm not knocking it or those who use it primarily, it's a good technique to know and use.
Like any technique it can be used well or badly, keep practising and you can do just as pretty a model and some manage with other techniques.
I think the trick is to be gentle and build the colour gradually. Like I did for the black on the Ravenwing bikers; two passes of shades of grey over black (just as an example, I'm not the best at painting or trying to show off ).


But it's very easy to go too far with dry-brushing and you get splodges of colour and not a gradual shading. You can see a bit of this on the biker above if you look closely.
Also, you have to make sure to remove any unwanted surface details on the model (mould-lines for example), as dry-brushing will find them and make them stand out.

With Green and blue you really do need a good contrast for it to work. Make a B&W image of the tank to see how much you have, and adjust accordingly.

The idea I had was to make the two colours fairly close in shade. While I am using a camouflage pattern, it's not meant as camouflage for the tank and so I didn't want them too contrasting as it would break up the shape of the tank (what camo' is designed to do) and I want the tank to retain it's shape.

B&W piccie just for you, Red.

Ah, are you familiar with Mach Bands?

I was joking about the drybrushing... I know a few, erm, hobby snobs. Me, I use whatever technique accomplishes my goals. Try drybrushing with oils sometimes. Quite interesting results, generally better than with acrylics.

My eyes say more contrast. A lighter blue (and more red to it) perhaps?

Drybrush for glory!

Red Harvest wrote:Ah, are you familiar with Mach Bands?

Again, I wasn't aware of the name. But that is the exact effect I was trying to achieve.

I was joking about the drybrushing... I know a few, erm, hobby snobs. Me, I use whatever technique accomplishes my goals. Try drybrushing with oils sometimes. Quite interesting results, generally better than with acrylics.

That's pretty much what I am doing, I use Humbrol enamel paint. No acrylics here... well except the interference paints and the few other I got to work with them.

My eyes say more contrast. A lighter blue (and more red to it) perhaps?

The blue bits do (well were intended to) have a lighter edge and darker middle. I may go back and emphasise that side of the effect at some point.

You and your "red", almost as if you have some kind of link to the colour...

inmygravenimage wrote:Drybrush for glory!

I wish I could think of some clever/funny remark to add here...
Good to see you popping in Graven.

In the mean time I've started on the "grey" metals.
Most are only base coated (gunmetal) and washed with black. They will soon get a dry-brushing of silver.

However, since I first tried the "rub 'n' buff" type paint I bought ages ago, I wanted to have something large to coat and see how it works...

...cue, dozer blade.

However, however, as the paint is based on a different solvent to all the other paint I have (smells like isopropanol... quite nice actually) it dries far quicker and it also requires you to keep it mixed (almost constantly) for it to work properly. This all meant that I ended up with not a smooth finish to the paint once it had dried, a less than ideal result.

So, I thought I'd try out the finest sand paper I had to hand (P600) and I ended up with a really nice scratched metal look, perfect for a dozer blade.

Check it out, yo...

Now you know the name It took me a while to recall it myself. My art classes were so long ago... But I still have some of the oils. That stuff never dries out when properly stored. I'll need to break them out at some time.

That plow blade... a perfect finish. Please, a tutorial on the metals, including all the details-- specfic paints used, etc, when you are done. I wantneed to know. It has so much potential.

I totally agree with Red H. on the Tutorial request, the blade is truly spot on, and deserves a full disclosure step-by-step.

The beast is looking amazing, Camo really working for me.

That blade is beautiful, love it.

Funny how the painted tank now shrinks the dozer blade a bit, before it loked a bit big, but great, now it looks perfect.

Red Harvest wrote:Now you know the name It took me a while to recall it myself. My art classes were so long ago... But I still have some of the oils. That stuff never dries out when properly stored. I'll need to break them out at some time.

That plow blade... a perfect finish. Please, a tutorial on the metals, including all the details-- specfic paints used, etc, when you are done. I wantneed to know. It has so much potential.

Littletower wrote:I totally agree with Red H. on the Tutorial request, the blade is truly spot on, and deserves a full disclosure step-by-step.

I'm glad you both like it so much.
Here is, quite possibly the simplest tutorial... in the WORLD (insert your own J. Clarkson voice).
Buy paint,
Paint the paint on the thing you want painted,
Polish the painted thing that you have just painted with the paint once the paint has dried,
Apply gentle sanding with fine sandpaper...
Done!

There may be other brands out there that do the same thing, but it really is that simple, no tricks, just paint (a special paint, but just paint).

Camkierhi wrote:The beast is looking amazing, Camo really working for me.

That blade is beautiful, love it.

Funny how the painted tank now shrinks the dozer blade a bit, before it loked a bit big, but great, now it looks perfect.

Thanks Cam.
Yeah, it's quite possible, that if the tank had been painted a light colour and the blade a dark colour, it would have looked bigger.

There will be a bit more done to the dozer. Dust, dirt, blood (maybe), more specific scratches, and maybe some painted on teeth as discussed previously.

Yup. Going to use this one. Would you mind if I linked to it from another forum? Had some talk about using aluminum foil to get the right look. This is much, much better.

I have 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper instead of P600 (380 grit?). Now to get some of that Humbrol. Apparently, like Milliput, it is hard to get over here, so I may settle for an equivalent.

Thank you very much good sir

 Red Harvest wrote:
Yup. Going to use this one. Would you mind if I linked to it from another forum? Had some talk about using aluminum foil to get the right look. This is much, much better.

I have 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper instead of P600 (380 grit?). Now to get some of that Humbrol. Apparently, like Milliput, it is hard to get over here, so I may settle for an equivalent.

Thank you very much good sir

Link away, not a problem.
Yeah, about 380 grit. A coarser paper may also work, but would give a different result.. better, worse, I don't know, I tried this one to avoid leaving scratches... one of those moments of serendipity. (get in, I even spelt that right on the first attempt. sorry, I got stuck on that word for a while, you nearly got a lengthy description in it's place) 400 grit and finer should also be fine.

I'm sure there must be equivalents. Look for rub 'n' buff, or some similar phrase.

Glad to be of help.

That looks nice indeed!

 shasolenzabi wrote:
That looks nice indeed!

Thanks Shas.

Progress report: There hasn't been much, or at least much that is visible.
I've finished (for now) the grey metals,
I've tidied the edges where the inside meets outside (I did consider doing these in red, like museum cutaways, but thought that it would distract in the end),
The pistons have gone from metal to matt black to gloss black (via considerations of green, yellow and red),
The ejectable, black-box camera thing has been painted in the typical black-box red/orange colour (so that it can be found if the tank is destroyed).


I have an idea for the (rather plain) metalwork of the dozer's support structure, I just had to get the metal finish...erm... finished.
I have also noticed today that the outside of tanks are generally devoid of markings/signs/etc... Coming from an aircraft modeller, this was surprising. But it makes sense. So that will save time and transfers (although there will be a few notices added together with the tank's number).
I've also found some areas for hazard stripes, so that will be nice.
The list of things to do is getting noticeably shorter.

In other news...
The League of extraordinary riveters terrain competition has entered the next round. Congratulations to Red Harvest for winning the "Throne" round.
This round it will be Roads.
Make a piece of terrain that involves a road. Anything that could be considered a road. What could be simpler? Anyone can do that. Give it a go, have fun, learn new things. Fabulous prizes to be won...

I will definitely keep this technique in mind. Thanks for sharing it!

Lookin' good good good dude! :-)

GamesEtc wrote:I will definitely keep this technique in mind. Thanks for sharing it!

Share and Enjoy.

nerdfest09 wrote:Lookin' good good good dude! :-)

Thanks Nerdy.

Here's the idea I had for the support structure.
Green stripes and bare metal (in place of the "blue").
May need another coat before highlighting, but you get the idea.

Yes, it does go all the way around and underneath...


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And the hazard striping. You've got to be careful round the back of this dozer blade, you could hurt yourself...

May need a few little touch-ups once the yellow has dried.

Sneaky hazard stripes

Hazard stripes were unexpected. But nice.

I like them stripes, sir.

inmygravenimage wrote:Sneaky hazard stripes

Yeah, I quite like how they are hidden away behind the dozer and just peek out when you look from the right angle.

Red Harvest wrote:Hazard stripes were unexpected. But nice.

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:I like them stripes, sir.

Glad you both like them.

While I work up the motivation to start the highlighting (just thinking about all the hard edges makes me feel tired), I have attacked the roll (of whatever material and purpose you can imagine) with some paint.

In the grim-darkness of the far future, leather straps are still leather straps and blue nylon rope is still blue nylon rope...
I decided to do the material in a light colour to contrast with the dark colour of the tank.
I used a metallic blue on the rope to give it that sheen that nylon rope has.
The leather is just a gloss brown with some lighter matt brown dry-brushed over the edges.

I'll see you all again, when I've done the highlights...

Liking the rolled and strapped cloth