From the beginning I have wanted to focus heavily on the weathering for this Char B1 Bis build. So I wanted to keep the actual paint job to a simple minimum.
I started off by cleaning down the model, giving the parts a light bush with water and some mild detergent and then giving all of the brass parts a surface polish with a 2000 grit sanding sponge. This was essential to be able to achieve a smooth priming coat without beading.
For the primer, I used MMS-001 Black Primer. This also cuts down a step of pre-shading. It can be used straight from the bottle, but I added a little bit of thinner and flow improver just to give it less chance of clogging the airbrush. My air pressure was set quite high for this, at around 25 psi.
I gave the model steady passes to ensure even coverage, the primer had no trouble sticking to the surface and leveling out to make a nice smooth finish. The primer was left to cure for a day and then I moved on to the base coat.
The reason for using a black primer as I said before is to give me a good base for pre-shading. I used MMP-054 Dunkelgrun RLM 83 for my base coat, straight out of the bottle. This time running around 12 psi and changing to what Badger calls a "fine tip" which I am guessing is around a 0.2 mm nozzle. I started spraying in a tight random pattern, I wanted to give the surface a variation in tone and depth. My airbrush has a dial at the back end which lets you set how far back the trigger goes, sort of like turning it into a single action airbrush, which helped a lot with this step. I stayed away from edges and grooves to let the black primer show through as shadow.
To give more tonal variation I added a few drops of Tan Yellow from Vallejo and sprayed over the green in random areas. I repeated this process once more, this time adding a few drops of German Camo Green from Vallejo. The result was a very subtle mottled effect which all tied in together quite well.
Time for the camouflage. I made up some templates from some green card stock, mostly wavy lines. Masking tape would have taken chunks of paint off, and blu-tak is just a bit too messy. Plus having the card off the surface gave the edges a slight feathered effect.
OK...so I did opt to use blu-tak for the very top of the turret as it was a wrap around design and had lots of awkward angles.
The paint I chose to use was MMP-011 Dunkelgelb RAL 7028. Again, straight from the bottle and I used the same technique as last time. Adding a few drops of Tan Yellow and another pass to brighten up the tone.
The whole model was then treated to a filter to tie everything together, which consists of 5% base color and 95% thinner. I made a few passes with this mix until I was happy with the build up.
Moving on I will be tackling chipping, details and decals. Stay tuned!
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