Snake Eye Mars Mission

Quick update on the paint.
As promised less words, more pics...

Base paints are done apart from white banding and some details. Than decals.
Also did the cockpit but forgot to take pics sorry.

Over and out.

Martijn

ps: I used Tamiya Desert Yellow, Flat Red and Orange for the main body. Gunmetal Black (for thrusters), Rubber Black and Nato Black for hands and joints.

Snake Eye

It's been a while since I've posted anything and I do apologise to both of my readers, but it's because of my most recent build really...
The title being the big fat spoiler; I'm working on a Snake Eye.

Now I bought this kit quite a while ago (at least a year ago), and it had sat on my shelf all this while. After finishing my last build I wanted something quick and simple to build. I had already ordered a couple of new kits (most notably a couple of Sea Pigs), my hand were itching for so i thought I'd just do thing in wait for the to arrive from Japan.

And well when I started it the build went well enough, but as the build progressed I realised I found it a little boring. The white "NASA" design the modest gun. I wanted to make a bit more bad-ass.
So to make my point most of this time was lost on trying to think of a way to make this guy a little less clean-cut.
In the meantime the Seapigs had arrived (plus an Oskar and a MK44 White Knight), but my bench isn't big enough to handle two build at the same time... especially not with my propensity for chaos.

Anyway I assembled the guy and scratched him a more hefty piece of weaponry.
I'll let you guess what I used for the gun.

I shot the whole thing with Vallejo dark grey primer.... and I wish I hadn't. Again.
I know I've complained about it myself and there is a Dutch saying that not even a donkey is generally not stupid enough to hit its head against the same rock twice... but I got this tip (about using a blowdryer to cure it after applying it) and I still had almost a whole bottle of the stuff plus I'm cheap so I didnt' want ot chuck it... so I sprayed it on.
Anyway this shit can't take the lightest of hits without coming clean off. It's got no teeth at all. Hate it, will never ever use it again (really this time).

Anyway After the primer I decided I would send this thing to mars instead of the moon. So the ground work was layed for paint scheme befitting said planet...

Anyway here are some pics. Sorry for the text to pic ratio being so utterly boring.

More pics next time.

Cheers,
Martijn.

Küster & Friedrich Finished

Well that's a wrap!

I ended up giving it two sludge washes, one brown/black and one dark green.

With a layer of green spatters, a brown-black pin wash and a second layer of light brown spatters in between
I finished it off with a wash of the Vallejo ready made "desert sand wash". First time I used it, and it worked quite well.

When applying the washes and the dirt I tried to approximate a more natural distribution, so the lower half of the Kuster and lower 2 thirds of the Friedrich have more dirt then the top parts. Trying to keep the dirt line at the same hight off the ground on both...

Then I put on the final matt clear coat after which I added some gloss varnish details (to mimic oils spills) and put some graphite on the the bare metal parts and the engine...

Here's an overkill of pictures.

Hope you like it, feel free to leave a comment either way.

Küster & Friedrich at 99%

Well most of the dirt is on...
I used a couple of sludge washes with some spatter effects in between.
The spatters were done by loading a brush with thinned oil paint, holding it near the model and hitting it with little bursts from the airbrush.

The dirt gets thicker towards the lower parts of the models. I wanted to simulate the dirt accumulation of a mission that included a long trek across swampy and sandy terrain.

It needs some final touches; some pigments here and there, oil stains (basically high gloss accents around the engines and gas caps and a thin layer of sand/dust).

I think these will just get a simple base, nothing too elaborate.

Thanks for looking.

Martijn

K&F the Washing has Begun

Ok goop wash time!
I've done this a couple of times before, but always kept the end result quite tidy. This time I want to go as dirty as I can push myself... It's a mental thing (fear of ruining the thing I guess), and I'm not sure if I'll get to level of layered gunky dirt that guys like Klav often get to, but damn it, I'm going to try.

So the goop wash, different people do it in different ways, but here as some process shots and an explanation of how I do it.

Wat you need is:
The model
Oil paints (this first of many layers will be a mix of lamp black and burnt umber)
Odorless Terpenoid (not really odorless)
Cotton buds (lot's of them)
Kitchen roll.
Big brush for application
And a good beer... I'm using an Punk IPA by Brew Dog. Red wine has been also recommended, but I prefer beer for this.

So you mix the paints and the terpenoid and slather it all over the model (make sure a good coat of varnish is applied and dry to protect pains and decals). I'm doing the Kuster first and do the engine/legs and the turret separately. It's just easier, less chance of breaking stuff off... which is a constant threat for me.

With the model covered in goop, sit back and enjoy a sip of your beer.
And another one.
Wait for about 10 to 15 minutes give the paint a chance to get a bit of a grip on the model.
Then take your cotton buds and start cleaning all the excess gunk off again.
This takes a while. If the paint dries in to far you could wet the buds with terpenoid, but be careful you don't want to clean it all off.

The half way mark look like this...

And below is the point I decided to call it 'clean' enough... or dirty enough.

It's not really very visible on these picture so I put the still Friedrich next to the Kuster for comparison.

Like I said this will be the first of many layers. The legs and lower body will get more dirty than the top of the turret but I'll do at least one more all over wash. A greenish one.

Anyway that's it for now.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,
Martijn

Kuster and Friedrich Decals and Chipping

It's been a while but the build has come along nicely in the meantime.

In the painting department I still had to add the white banding. And well.. I didn't.
After trying to decide how to do the banding for about 2 weeks I opted for no banding at all. I still like the white accent, that's quite characteristic for the Ma.K universe, so they still needed something... Plus I wanted them to be similar on both kits. So went for the single hip joint cover. Which also made a nice spot for the number.

Then all the decals went on. Nothing really special there, apart from that I opted to not put on any personalized graphics that come with most decal sheets. Decals went on using MicroSet and MicroSol.

After the decals were on and safely protected by a couple of layers of clear coat I added some chipping effects.

I tried to do them, like I've done them before, by just taking a knife and steal wool to the paint, but the clear coat I'm (still) using is just not hard enough (it's Vallejo... don't use it. It's crap) and I ended up going right to the plastic every time I tried to scratch the paint. However carefully I tried to do it.

Anyway I painted them on. Not as natural looking as some techniques but good enough. As I've mention a couple time before, I plan of getting these guys dirty as hell in washes and weathering.

The way I did was the bog standard way I guess. Paint a scratch with pain a shade light that the top coat, then for deeper scratches put a dark (color of the base coat) mark inside that... for the really deep scratches I added bit of gun metal. Simple but effective (enough).

Have a look!