Super Jerry Base Finished

So well the base for the Super Jerry is done, cutting the WIP a little short, but I was on a roll putting the paint, washes and pigments on the thing that I didn't want to pause to set the thing up for pics...

Anyway. I glued all the concrete debris on with white glue and gave it all a base coat of Tamiya Buff colour after the glue had dried. Also added some little rocks here and there.

Than I gave the cracks in the pavement a quick pin wash using the black ready made wash by Vallejo. Then I added some streaking and washes with a "European Dirt" of the same brand.
Also added some oil streaking particularly the rust effects and when that had dried a mix of light gray and light (very light) moss-green pigments.

After that I glued in the grass which I made from the hairs from an old paint brush (pig's hair I think). I used super glue to glue them into little tufts and then, after giving them a quick hint of drab green, used PVA (white) glue to stick then into the crack and holes in the pavement.

Than put the model on the base using copper rods, which were SG'ed into the feet and then gave the whole thing another treatment with pigments to blend  it all together a little...

Hope you like the result.

Cheers!

Super Jerry Base

A few months ago I finished work on a Super Jerry and it's been just standing there.. so I decided to build it a base.
I wanted it to be an urban environment as I think it suits the paint scheme. I also wanted to keep it kind of simple as the thing itself is busy looking enough...

Anyway here the breakdown so far:
First I build up the core by glueing polystyrene sheets on a piece of chipboard of 15cm square using wood glue.
The tiles on the sidewalk are 2mm thing pieces and the broken pillar is a piece of street chalk I stole from my 4 year old, snapped it in half and drilled some holes into them piece for the 1mm copper wire to go through. This is a dry-fit.

For the tarmac I used a piece of cracked and torn 80 grit sandpaper, also glued in place using wood glue (white glue basically).
I then built up the sides with 1.5 mm thick styrene plate (plaplate to some).

Sprayed it with gray Tamiya primer:

After then putting a few layers of Tamiya black on the sides and covering that with glossy clear coat, I masked the sides off.
I then put a coat of black primer on the top. Not that it needed more primer but I still have a can of Vallejo primer I'm using as paint because as primer I really don't like it... better use it I thought.

 Then I put a little dark gray on the tarmac from a can of Tamiya German grey I had left.. just a light dusting. Also airbrushed the sidewalk and the pillar and some debris.
After I painted the stripe on the tarmac I glued all the pieces in place with white glue and added some small rocks and a little sand here and there.

 Here's how the Jerry will stand on the thing.

Next up there's more painting of details. Some washes, streaking/water marks/dirt and some pigments... stay tuned.

Cheers!

Super Jerry finished

Well I guess this guy is done.

After the base paint and decals were done I put on two slurry washes. A technique explained to me (and in my opinion utterly perfected) by mister Klav at A1 Plastik. 

The technique is basically this:

Stir up a thick mix of oil paints and odorless turpenoid, the slop it all over the thing with a brush and let it sit for a little while. I let it sit for about 5 to 10 minute, but it kind of depends on the layer underneath it. I use acrylics for base paints with a clear coat over it. Let it sit a little longer on enamels (as per Klav's advice). 

Then use q-tips to remove all the excess paints. This takes time and resource (a ton of q-tips), but I like the process. I also used rolls and wads of tissue paper here and there.

The first wash on this guy was a mix of black and green. The second, a mix of burnt umber and black and a little bit of oxyde red.

The only pic I have of this process is one I took with me phone... and it's a little crappy. Sorry.

After this I added details like rust and some streaking etc. I will admit I kind of went overboard with the rust at this point. 

The thing started making the impression it had been out of commission for a while...

After this I gave it another wash of light sand/dust colour this kind of toned down the rustyness... but still. Anyway.

then all that was left was to put in/reveal the windows.... I painted the little window frame of the main canape. This of course didn't match the stained hull in no way what so ever. Sh*t. I tried to sort of add a little wash to it.. and I kind of got it somewhat closer. Not perfect though.

Then I peeled off the latex mask from the side window and I put a 'sand/dust wash' on the windows. I didn't want the window all shiny and bright with the rest of the machine looking all old and tired. This wasn't as succesfull as I had hoped but I guess it was close enough.

From the beginning I had planned on adding some pigments to this guy. Just because I had never used them before and I thought the rocket tubes could use a bit of soot and the legs and feet could do with some sandy dirtyness. The soot worked well enough, but I'm not too sure about the legs and feet. Maybe its needs more of I might scrape some off...

I used Vallejo pigments and that pigment application fluid they've got. Couldn't really get the hang of the stuff really. 

Through-out this build I tried a lot of new things (some modding, the slurry washes and pigments for instance) I can't say I'm perfectly happy with all of my experiments, but overall I think it turned out quite nice.

Oh and the pics are a little weirdly lit (direct, low sunlight with a tinfoil reflection screen) I still don't have a decent set up for that.

Super Jerry, more paints...

I put the paints on. 

I settled on a paint scheme... not really happy with it, but I think I'll pull it together in washes and filters. The think I don't like is that I based the blue colour on WW2 germand tanks, but the white kind of makes it look more like a special units police vehicle, or military police or something... wasn't really going for that.

The contrast between the blue-grey and the white is too high and I don't like the big white nose. I should have gone with a more subtle use of white. Anyway as I said, washes and filters will save me, and I guess an MP unit is kind of cool too.

So anyway, after the red from the last post, I put on a coat of matt varnish. Then I put on several (transparent) layers of the blue-grey, the last one was a little lighter than the previous ones. Building up the colour. Then I put on the white. 

I then added chips and general wear of the top layer of paint using a knife, steel wool and a little copper wire brush from a soldering set.

After this I shot the whole thing with a coat of clear gloss varnish, readying it for decals. After that another quick coat of varnish to seal them in and it's ready for the dirt...

Thanks for looking!

Super Jerry paint

With the build finished, the time has come to primer this monkey up (and do some more sanding after all the still gaping gaps, seams and putty blobs became painfully obvious again).

I'm still contemplating the colour-scheme but I couldnt wait to get started on the paint.

After some deliberation I decided to brush paint it. One because I just like act of brush painting more that AB and I also like the texturing it brings to the piece.

So first some shading (pre-shading?).

Kept the the paint really thin and layered it on in a few passes. I used a pix of Tamiya Black and Flat Brown.

After this dried I put on a couple of layers of a base colour. A mix of Flat Brown and Flat Red. 

This was the first of a couple of layers, again keeping them all thin and translucent.

Of course, being a clump fisted goon, I broke a part out of the back of the thing. So I replaced it with wire... something I should have done in the first place.

So now to decide on a paint scheme...

I'm thinking of a more traditional combination of either a light olive drab with yellow bands or a more khaki / sand colour with white accents (following the colour card in the box).

I want to put it in an urban environment later on, so maybe a more dark and light grey camo (orange bands) might work too.

Anyway, that's all for now. 

Cheers!

Super Jerry further assembly

The build's done. As much it can be for now.

I left some panels off and most main parts aren't glued tight yet as I'm getting ready for paint.

There are already quite a few things I want to do very differently in my next build. Most notably the weld seams... they are waaaay to crude now. I'm just chalking it up to experience and learning. We'll see how they come out after paint and weathering, maybe they be won't as noticably crappy.

I rebuild the rocket launchers out of styrene, as I couldn't get them seamless and smooth looking (without just about sanding the entire rings off anyway). This was quite a learning experience in itself. First cutting the styrene tubing to size was a nightmare, before I found this neat little pipe cutter.

Getting the styrene strip glued onto the barrels was a bit of a b*ll ache too, but I learned that after I scraped the inside of the strip with a knife (making it curl and slightly thinner) and switching to a hotter glue (for the first 3 I used Tamiya Extra Thin, but switched to the hotter Plastruct glue), they went on ok.

I also added some extra nuts/bolts that I cut off the sprue, here and there. Most notably on the back cover, which I couldn't get to fit exactly. I didn't mind the bad fit as I liked the idea of this thing having been taken off and put on a few times, by the field mechanics, and to accentuate this idea I added the bolts there (some rust and chips will be added later too).

There were also some holes in the legs I didn't really like (in the hydraulics and in the gear-looking thing through which the screw goes to attach the leg...if you opted for that construction route) (I didn't). I put another bolt in the hole in the hydraulics part and just filled the hole in the gear looking thing with putty.

That's all for now. 

Next up; deciding on a paint scheme and method… undecided between, AB / HS or all brushes.

Thanks for looking!

Super Jerry construction

With the pilot neatly tucked away in the cockpit, it was time to hide him away in the hull forever.

I glued in the side window and covered them with a couple of layers of Winsor&Newton liquid latex... it's colorless (not very handy) zo I added a couple of extra layers to be sure I got all the whole thing. Left the main canape of for now. Filled up the cockpit with packaging foam and cover that with masking tape.

The hull when together well enough.

Then I grinded off the axle-flange-things to glue in an extra part. In the instructions this is the 'pro' assembly option (the novice option being to glue in the torpedo shaped part in which the bolt go onto which the legs can be screwed later)...
Regrettably I didn't take any pictures of this stage of the build.

I assembled the rest of the hull. Apart from the usual filling and sanding of seams and gaps I replaced all the handles other thin bits with copper wire. Also added weld seems with green stuff.... Some of them are quite crude I will admit, not exactly to scale, I guess. Still learning there.

I filled in the spotlight armature on the front with green stuff as well as I thought it'd be more logical to that thing be a solid part... not hollow. I will sand off the top of the light before glueing it onto it (after paint).

Than it came time to start assembly on the legs... and I ran into a little bit of a problem.

The hull required two of the 8 supplied PE Sleeves. Then the legs required another two each... but when I wanted to attached the hydraulics to the legs I noticed I came up 2 sleeves short. 

Assuming this was a mistake in putting together the kit (maybe they just made a mistake counting the ones they put in the box), I wrote Wave an email. They promptly replied with an answer. 

Apparently mine is part of an older release of the kit, containing an old set of instructions. A corrected version is added to newer releases (probably the one coming in March).

Anyway, the solution is to cut the remaining 2 sleeves in two and use the halves for attaching the hydraulics to the legs....

BUILDER'S TIP:

When you're reading this and you're building this thing please note the following. These sleeves have been known to react to paints or thinners thereof (even the odorless turpenoids), by swelling up. This has in some cases been bad enough to split the legs (and when this happens it will happen after painting).

The solution to this is to cut a thin strip out, down the of length of the sleeve, giving it room to expand  into.

Super Jerry

This is my second Ma. K. build and I thought this time I'd do a full WIP. The other build was such a educational journey, I thought it'd be good to log and share my next one... so here goes!

The Gigant Floh/Super Jerry kit by Wave is step up from the Ketzer for me. Bigger, more complex, bigger challenge.

But as with any build it starts with the first step.. assembling and painting the little dude that goes inside.

The guy was made up of arms, legs, torso, head... you know, the usual parts. And then there was also the visor... In this particular set, this thing came out of the mold really bad. It was all wonky and lopsided.

So I decided to give him an upgrade. Some kind of night vision thing... using green stuff, Vallejo filler,  and some little  bits of sprue and other styrene debris.
I also added some detail to his suit and a seat belt.

Building the cockpit to this thing was pretty simple; a chair, glued to a floor with a from panel and back firewall thing attached to it... all after I slapped on a bit of paint of course.

And here's our little friend trying out his new home... never to be seen again after we assemble the rest of the hull.
Bye, mate.