06.30.08 » Painting Begins

While waiting for the casts to come back I've started painting up my first copy. I'll be going for a winter white wash over a green basecoat for this. First up though I'll be doing more of the hairspray technique (as seen on my zeon jeep tutorial) to create the paint chips as well as the latter white wash chipping.

To begin I've primed all of my parts with Duplicolor self-etching primer. Why that? Mostly I wanted to test it on resing and it's pretty decent. Afterwards I gave it a coat of really dark gray-brown followed by a random coating of a rusty color. This will give me an uneven color base for chips and leave more rust-color variety in the end. After the paint I gave it a coating of Gloss FFA.

Next up will be hairspray and the green paint coats.

07.01.08 » Paint Chipping

Today I sprayed 1/2 the rusty parts with hair spray then with JGSDF Olive Drab as a base-coat and a lightening coat of JGSDF Dark Green over that. I cut a paper mask for a star and sprayed that onto the sides of the turret starting with a light gray then red over that. If I did straight red it wouldn't have showed up as well or as bright.

A little later I began wetting the parts and chipping away the green paint with pieces of styrene strip, brushes, and skewers. Tomorrow I'll do the other 1/2 of the parts. I took more paint off of the armor plate parts on the center as I want them to look like they were painted poorly as an afterthought and as such rusted out quicker. The later whitewash will tie it all together better.

07.02.08 » First Discoloration

Today I did the oil-discoloration on the first 1/2 of green chipped parts as well as chipping on the 2nd 1/2. It remains to be seen whether I wasted my time with this step, but it's better to add it just in case than wish I added it later. Before the discoloration I applied a satin coat of FFA. Here's some pics.

Pardon my "fuzz". ^

07.03.08 » White Wash Part 1 and 2

Next up I applied some liquid mask over the stars on the turret then gave the turret and chassis 2 thick coats of hairspray which is twice as much as I usually do, but I wanted easier chipping for this step. Afterwards I sprayed on thin transparent streaks of very thin Tamiya flat white. Following that I sprayed a little very thin Tamiya flat earth color for general grime.

After letting that sit for an hour or so I began using several soft and medium bristled brushes and water to remove the white wash in heavily worn areas. After a sealing satin clear-coat I'll apply some white oils and washes to create a splashed on and varied whitewashed surface. These oils will also whiten the look in spots since right now it's not very "white".

07.04.08 » White Wash Part 3 and Final Discoloration

Lastly for the whitewash I blended in white oil paint to lighten up the white in spots. A little thinner on an old ratty brush was then used to streak it to simulate paint brush strokes and rain-streaks. After that a satin coat was applied the discoloration and a thin pin-wash was applied to the KV parts.

07.07.08 » Legs, Figures and Base

Since the KV is almost done, just needs a flat-coat, pigments, mud, and hydraulic lines, I started on my base and figures. The figures are Trumpeters 'WWII Soviet Tank Crew Ammo Supplied Team' for use with WWII Russian tanks like the KV's. It comes with 4 figures a rooster and a chicken. I'm just using 2 of the figs and no poultry.

The base is a scrap of wood with green floral foam glued onto it for the masic slope. Plaster rocks from rock molds, celluclay, and rocks and grit were applied. A good trick when working with celluclay on groundwork is to "stipple" the surface with a round stiff bristled brush to press the grit/rocks into the surface, flatten peaks, and give the surface a rougher texture. I'll be doing this exact same base for any future mars bases. This one will have ammo crates, barrels, mud, grass and maybe a light dusting of snow.

Oh, and this is the first I'm showing the legs done too! They went together very easily and without any modifications fit the sloped surface quite nicely.

07.13.08 » Tutorials, Legs, Mud, and More!

This might be my last update for this project before final photos. I hope you've enjoyed the build-up and I can't wait to soo what you guys do with the conversion kit once it's released!

First up is the base-work. While doing this I created two tutorials in my blog. One on building the groundwork and the other on creating the grass. Pleae check them out for more info on these steps. I still haven't added the snow to the base as I want to finish my figures first. The crates were made from very thin birch plywood from the craft store.

Next up is the construction of the legs and the addition of the hydraulic cables. Note the thin wire D-Rings used to run the cables. The leg parts were painted individually until it was time for the whitewash where they were then assembled with their pins.

And finally, completed images of the KV without the base! I aquired the Mig DVD on pigments which really helped me to understand the use of them more. I actually waited till it arrived to do the mud and pigment effects and I'm glad that I did. It's a great flick and I highly recommend it! It helped me really up my game for the rusty panels, general dust and the mud effects. The mud basics (also based on a Mig tutorial from the FAQ book) are discussed on my Type-74 article. The only difference being the addition of Jute fibers (same stuff from my grass tutorial) mixed in for effect.

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