Hanomag Halftrack Complete
I think this is turning into an all-WW2 month. Sorry to my Palladian followers - promise there will be an update at the end of the month, as I'm still working on the squads in tandem with the Army of Freedom. But I'm caught up now in the planning and enjoying the change of pace that painting something new brings. And also, it seems to have made the blog more exciting - of my six posts so far this month, the titles of three have ended in exclamation marks (!).
As for the painting, I tried to make the camo netting look like zeltbahn camouflauge tents rolled together, ready to be pulled over the top of the vehicle in case of air attack ... or rain. This sort of works, but you can't tell it's a zeltbahn from a distance so I may do more shading. The colour scheme is standard German field grey, common for early-war vehicles, but augmented with some roughly-painted whitewash. This is my dilemma: does it look like I've recreated the sloppy effect of roughly-painted whitewash, or does it just look like I've made a rush job of it? Thoughts?
Anyway, the weathering was much less controversial. Using FW powders, followed by a hefty application of GW texture paint, gives it a very nice look. Doesn't obscure the detail as much as my old combination of household filler and Dark Flesh paint, and much easier to apply!
I used mainly brown and dust powders along the side of the hull, where most of the mud and grit would be thrown up. I also used a pencil to edge some of the detail and make it look like some had been worn away. The next photo is good - there are four wheels left to right, and the first one shows the mud (extreme left), the third one (partly hidden behind the other two) shows the rust, and the last one (extreme right) you can see the pencil line. I picked this tip up from the Forgeworld Imperial Armour Masterclass, Book 1.
A post or two ago, I looked at creating vehicle stowage on the cheap. Now I've painted the model, it's time to see the results ...
I won't go hugely into the research I did for this model in terms of painting, but briefly - it's a SdKfz 251/1D, which is the common 'Panzergrenadier' halftrack. This precludes it from serving in my Handschar units (because they're mountain troops, mostly on foot or horseback, they didn't use halftracks. But they served with the Latvian Legion, so in my platoon of three squads I'll probably have three of these, with another 3.7cm Stummel or 7.5cm PaKwagen for the command section.
As for the painting, I tried to make the camo netting look like zeltbahn camouflauge tents rolled together, ready to be pulled over the top of the vehicle in case of air attack ... or rain. This sort of works, but you can't tell it's a zeltbahn from a distance so I may do more shading. The colour scheme is standard German field grey, common for early-war vehicles, but augmented with some roughly-painted whitewash. This is my dilemma: does it look like I've recreated the sloppy effect of roughly-painted whitewash, or does it just look like I've made a rush job of it? Thoughts?
Anyway, the weathering was much less controversial. Using FW powders, followed by a hefty application of GW texture paint, gives it a very nice look. Doesn't obscure the detail as much as my old combination of household filler and Dark Flesh paint, and much easier to apply!
And that's it! As I said, not to sure about the whitewashed colour scheme. It looked a lot worse when 'factory fresh', but once the weathering had gone on it took the edge off it and didn't look so bad.
Thanks again for stopping by to read, and for all your continued commantage - my next update will probably be infantry-themed, with a step-by-step on painting WW2 SAS camouflage.
Until next time, happy gaming!
The Colonel
More good stuff matey.
ReplyDeleteThe whitewashing looks the part - I wouldn't worry about it looking rough shod - it captures the look perfect to my eyes.
I picked up that little pencil trick myself on another read through of the Masterclass books - full of little tricks throughout. I've used the edge of a pencil, plus some steel coloured powder on my finger tip to achieve a nice metallic edge on parts of the Baneblade.
The mud is convincing on the tyres too - I'll have to remember the idea of textured paint and powders together - saves mixing my own mud mix and brings its own texture - win all round.
As I said previously, the whitewashing and the whole effect is spot on. I've tried the pencil edge technique for metallic weathering and it works a treat
ReplyDelete@Pom: Thanks - from the master weatherer, that's high praise :) good, I can tell the roughshod thing is just me being paranoid I think. Ah yes, I haven't tried the finger one. I suppose that's just like a free 'Boltgun Metal' weathering powder in itself. If you do the mud thing, one thing I learned the hard way was do the mud last - otherwise you end up with rusted mud lol ...
Delete@Headologist: Cheers mate - yeah happy with it now I've slept on it. It does - and most important, it's free!
Ha ha ha! "RUSTED MUD" that sounds like a rockabilly band. These look great and the bits of stowage are very nice after painting.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've tried some more advanced sculpting for Hanomag No. 2 ... results in the next few days!
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