Dragon Models Tiger II - Part II

Time for a long overdue update on Tiger II project. If I am to be earnest, there really isn't much to be said, except that once I dug myself out of 'paint those bloody wheels' quagmire, things started to move along at brisk tempo and without any further complications. That's the thing with 1/72 tanks - if you don't hit any major snags, the construction part is over before you know it.

Once the kit was assembled, the usual routine followed. Prime with grey, preshade with black and then it's time for some fun with the airbrush. In this particular case, the 'fun' didn't present itself though. Instead, I had a running battle with Lifecolor paints, which for some reason just refused to be of right consistency, making airbrushing a bit of a struggle. This affected the look of camo pattern, which in the end was decided more by mishaps with the airbrush than anything else. One thing is clear - painting German camouflage  freehand is a challenge I am yet to master.

Still, I was satisfied with the end result. Maybe not 100 percent as described in the instructions booklet, but it does look proper 'late war German tank'.

With pretty much everything assembled and painted, couple of days ago I proceeded to final stage - weathering. Here I decided to do something a bit different. You see, some time ago I've got hold of a DVD from AK Interactive called 'Weathering armour in 1 hour' or something to that effect. I've finally got around to watch it before I started working on weathering of the Tiger and I must say that I was quite impressed. The video itself doesn't show anything mindblowing, just the same familiar steps of washing, streaking, highlighting, chipping, applying pigments and rust effects. However, seeing it in real time how the 'pros' are doing it, is something of an eye-opener. If anything, this video shows that there really isn't anything magical about good looking weathering, just some brush work and a bit of patience. And yes, it does help if you have those weathering products from AK Interactive available to you, but that was only to be expected, wasn't it?

Anyway... the pics below show the model after basic paint job and then after the first stage of weathering process shown in that DVD (that would be enamel wash with Humbrol enamels). In the video, it took them 10 minutes to be done with it. I spent more than an hour on it before I was satisfied, but who's counting minutes? :-)