This is another salvage piece from my old IG army. After a bath in 99% alcohol, most of the original paint came off. What I was left with was the original badly weapon arms. Despite that, I really enjoyed painting this piece. If the details had been sharper I would have tried adding some green camo, but as it stands I think it came out pretty nicely. The stowage, spreader bars, and oil barrel are not completed yet, but with their base coats on, I wanted to share what an old school FW hydra could look like.
I am still getting the hang of painting battle damage on with a brush rather than with a sponge or with real chipping. I quite like the process. The total control coupled with tedium makes it sort of like meditating.
Achtung Panzergelb!
ReplyDeleteVery nice shading/blending, and it doesn't seem to have been made with an airbrush...
Two questions:
ReplyDelete1) What are spreader bars?
and
2) Once you'd finished the 99% alcohol bath, how did you strip the paint?
Looks smashing!
I see you are painting centaurs on your blog. That is one of my favorite units! Show us more.
DeleteThanks for the comments! I am struggling with the remaining tanks. I really want to break up the colors with some variety, but I don't think it would work very well on the battle field. I think a few green camo guys are ok though. I purchased some gauze which should help me make sand bags to go on them. The model masterclass has a neat section on spare track links, so those are being mass produced as well.
ReplyDeleteThe spreader bars are the weird tube looking things on the side of the hydra. I have no idea what they are for, or what they really are!
I used a toothbrush after the alcohol bath. If you don't use varnish the alcohol works like magic, and all of the paint comes off. A couple of the tanks date back to the era when IG had rhinos, so those may need a simple green bath next.
Spreader bars are the poles that hold up the camo net spreaders, usually a Y- or X-looking folding assembly that goes on the poles and spreads the camo out, breaking up the outline of the vehicle.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteWhat is your paint recipe for this tank? It's pretty dead on to what I want to do with my Steel Legion vehicles. Thanks!
Vallejo dark yellow over a black base coat. It is shaded such that the front of each panel is lighter than the rest. Afterwards the front of each panel is shaded with vallejo sand mixed into a bit of dark yellow. The brown pin wash is AK Interactive Afrika Korps
Delete