KENNY X HAS A TANK

[Stikpusher]

Consistency in appearance is one of those “little” big things. Bright decals over a heavily weathered finish, or the beat up muffler on a lightly used vehicle don’t make sense.

[Stuart]

Yeah I agree fully. Funny I was thinking the same about my mk.II. I was going to paint the whole exhaust up in a nice coat of rust but then as I'm not going to go too far into the weathering I decided against it.

I'm really liking what you're doing with this one Kenny - it's looking great. I love seeing tanks that have been weathered to hell, but then it's really nice to see some that haven't as well.

[KennyX]

Thanks boys!

Yeah. This exhaust stuff is a sticky wicket. I ended up wiping the exhaust clean and starting over. It looked powdercoated to me. Which, actually I guess it was- I mean I did dust it with pastel dust.

I ended up painting over the exhaust with heavily thinned dark earth mixed with hull red. The went over it with thinned hull red. Then some dust. I think it definitely looks like an exhaust that’s been in the field a while, and is showing the effects of heat and the elements, but I don’t think it looks over-done, not that deep reddish dark brown that it turns as it goes brittle:



I am 100% good with this, but I’m going to pay more attention to that next time. This ended up being an afterthought which it shouldn’t have been.

I also did my oil paint streaking on the vertical surfaces this afternoon during lunch. I used Windsor & Newton Raw Unber thinned with mineral spirits. My iPhone camera doesn’t show it off too well, but hopefully you can see the effect:









Now *THIS* I like! And I like working with that oil paint. That was fun to do. Got a nice filter on top of the color there. A subtle effect that takes this thing from looking like a toy to looking more real. I also picked out some stuff in there with my Mig panel line accent, dark red brown. You can see it in the hatch there.

I’m pretty happy with how these next steps have turned out.

[Thomas_M]

Very cool! I like your subtle approach on the fading and the exhaust! Good to see one that´s not bright orange... You even could add some light sand-coloured pastels on the exhaust, but that is just a thought.

[KennyX]

Thank you Thomas! And I’ll consider that!

[KSaarni]

I like the wash, oh yes I do!

Isn't actually quite fantastic, how easy the washing process is, with some thinned oilpaint!
Besides that, I just love the special smell coming from the oilpaints!

- Kari

[KennyX]

It really is! And at least when sealed with lacquer, it wipes up easy with mineral spirits anyplace where you don’t want it. I like this quite a lot and am going to invest in more oils soon, I’d like to do panel line washes with this stuff. I can make my own color combinations and everything. I like this quite a lot.

I am putting the Panzer down for the rest of the evening. I did another layer of streaking with burnt umber, and I’m liking it. I’ll throw a thin wash of that on the horizontal planes tomorrow.

[Stuart]

Superb Kenny - I wish I could weather like that. I really need to invest in some oils.

[KennyX]

Thank you Stuart!

I like these oils a lot. I bough some cheap mineral spirit to go with them and I was off to the races. They thinned down real well, and it wasn’t so bad determining how much was too much. Pretty easy to work with. Definitely gonna use them on my Corsair too!

[speedgraflex]

I'll join the chorus of 'Looks great, Mister X!' It does. Although I liked the pastel V1 too because of the contrast between a dry, flakey finish and a stressed oily one because that is the most extreme set of contrasts, how-so-ever the V2 version strikes a completely different note in a much more satisfying way! Rock on.