Converted Tank Destroyer

Afternoon everyone, and welcome back to Palladian Guard.  Well, as (long since) promised, I finally got my act together and finished my Tank Destroyer that I started a while back.  Click the link to see a bit about the construction and background.  After building and painting I've decided to redesignate it a 'Tank Destroyer' rather than a Laser Destroyer, since the breech and lack of any big cables or anything make it clear it's a shell-firing gun.

Finished!

You can see the high profile of the gun well here. It's designed for range
and accuracy rather than being a low-set, close combat SPG.

So I finally sat down and decided to crack this in one day.  Being part of my Palladian Guard army, this vehicle got the standard green/brown camo scheme, but I also took the opprtunity to do some weathering after my recent experiments on historical minis (incidentally, also started using weathering powders on infantry models as well as vehicles with some quite good results).

A bit of the tracks and the rear platform.

Painting

• Sprayed a Dark Green (Any will do, I used some basic craft spraypaint that was close to Dark Angels Green).
• Heavy drybrush with Catachan Green (Important to make sure that the final strokes of the brush are all in one uniform direction, as this texture can show through.

• Stripes and patterns painted on in Bestial Brown
• Then carefully drybrushed over with Steel Legion Drab, taking care not to go into the green areas too much.  If you do, just go back and correct it later with Catachan Green again.

• Tracks painted with Bestial Brown
• Highlighted with Boltgun Metal
• Rust weathering powder added

• Very light Drybrush with Knarlock Green and then Codex Grey to highlight.
• Some details added like glass vision blocks in the cupola, cables etc

• To weather, lots of Rust applied over the lower areas of the tank
• Vents and the area near the muzzle worn with some Black powder
• Then Stirland Mud (GW texture paint) added over the tracks

Some of the track work. As I say I think the mud
obscures the effort I went to on the weathering but
it looks okay.

I was pretty happy with the way the painting came out, especially the tracks which I sometimes have trouble with - but then the mud obscured it a bit too much I think.  I won't change it now, but probably a bit less mud next time.  I also have to add a few tiny bits of detail like glimmers on the cupola vision blocks and a few more wires and cables, as well as decals, but I'll save that for another day as I've got a lot on modelling-wise at the moment.

Anyway, thanks for reading and also thanks for waiting so long, this has been well over a month in the making.  But it's done now.  Back over to infantry models now, and I have two 'exchange squads' on the go so there'll be a sneak peek of those next time.  Until then, happy gaming!

The Colonel