Dragon Sherman M4A1(76)W VVSS - Part III

So the thing with these 1/72 armor kits is that when you put together your chassis, hull and turret, you're usually pretty much done with the construction phase. Then it's time for the fun part - the painting.

Since we're dealing dealing WWII Sherman here, there is plenty of paint scheme choices to pick from as long as you pick olive drab of some sort. And so, olive drab it had to be. First however, I put on the standard primer coat followed by black pre-shading. Once that default step was done, I applied couple of thin coats of Lifecolor UA220. For once, I managed to preserve the preshading around the panels and hatches.

Next, I started to experiment. I'm starting to realize that there are no rules set in stone when it comes to painting AFV:s, you can do pretty much whatever you want within reason.

At the same time, it pays off to take a moment and think about the subject matter for a moment. In this case, it's a Sherman during Normandy campaign - so it wasn't in the field for very long and the elements it would have been exposed to would mainly be summer sun and probably some rain. Raised areas would therefore be exposed to sunlight, which means bleaching. To simulate this, I airbrushed a light coat of base paint highlighted slightly with a beige paint on all large raised areas - top of the turret, engine deck, sides of the hull and so on... The result was a bit peculiar - a 'glowing' green tint. Even though it didn't look very natural, I let it be, counting on that it would be subdued by weathering steps that would follow.

It turned out I was correct. Next step - grime wash for green vehicles from AK Interactive dulled down the glowing effect and nicely brought forward all the details of the tank body. Another AK Interactive wash - dirt streaks - was applied next in vertical streaks, blended into the body with white spirits. Maybe I should have been a bit bolder when applying that effect, but I kept reminding myself that this tank has not seen much action yet.

Finally, the final touches - a bit of chipping here and there, drybrush of gun metal to exposed details such as hatch hinges and track edges and finally another try at filtering with oils. Remembering bad experience with white oils and the Tiger, I went for faded green this time around. Miniscule amounts of oil paint were dabbed onto large flat areas of the model and 'massaged' into the paint job. I then left the kit for 48 hours before applying first coat of matte varnish. Once it was try, I applied some brown pigments onto lower parts of the model, but as always, most of that effect was wiped out by final coat of matte varnish.

And so, here we are - another Sherman ready to be added to the collection. Very nice, detailed kit I had tremendous fun building. Highly recommended to all fans of allied tanks.