Popski's Private Army - Part 2, Painting

So in surprisingly little time this thing is built, prepped and ready for the paint shop. It is my routine to leave as many parts loose for painting as I can, in hindsight not a great idea when you keep staring at a box of prepped pieces that doesn’t seem to get any smaller no matter how many parts you finish.

After mounting the endless pieces of stowage on cocktail sticks I primed these and the jeep with the excellent Badger Stynylrez black primer, sprayed out of the bottle at a fairly high PSI. This product is my go-to primer for pretty much anything nowadays, it dries quickly, shrinks down over detail well, can be sanded if necessary and is pretty much bulletproof once cured. I usually prime figures in grey but I like to mix their grey and white primers to give a lighter grey to start from. No real science here, the black is obviously more forgiving on a vehicle if you miss a bit with the base colour and I’ve pretty much always used a light grey primer for figure painting, it doesn’t mute the colours as much as a black base can.

I had a very clear picture in my mind of how I wanted the jeep to look; a light tan, almost ochre colour to represent maybe a very faded brown olive. For the base colour I laid down a coat of Tamiya Khaki XF-49 with a dollop of X-22 Clear Gloss added for a slight sheen. Adding XF-57 Buff to the mix I then highlighted some of the panels and edges to add some interest to the bodywork. Once this basecoat had dried I distressed the base finish using a Vallejo wash, in this case 76521 Oiled Earth. This colour is very similar in tone to the base Khaki when dry but just slightly darker, it looks awful when you are applying it but trust me, once dry it looks fine. Dabbed on with a sponge it represents surface imperfections and staining very well, it is a subtle effect but definitely a worthwhile one.

For the next few days I jumped backwards and forwards between chipping effects and various oil washes over several sessions, building up the effects and layering them over each other until I was happy with the result. Don’t try and do this in one session, from experience you will get bored, overdo the effect or worse, rush it. Weathering is a layering process; it needs to be considered at every step. Why is that area chipped? What caused that streak? Would that be rusty?  - There is a lot more to it than buying a jar of the latest wonder-product and slapping it on without consideration. Take your time, think it through.

I wanted a used canvas look to the seats and for this I started with a base of Vallejo 988 Khaki. I lightened this by adding 986 Deck Tan and stippling on the highlight areas, subsequent shading was done with washes adding 822 German Camo Black Brown into the base Khaki. In hindsight, although pleased at how the painting came out, I really should have physically distressed the cushions lightly by creating some indentations and creases. I’ll definitely do this for the next time (or maybe even sculpt the cushions) as I think it will certainly add something to the effect, hopefully making the seats look more realistic.

The stowage components were picked out in various acrylics, keeping the tones complimentary but just different enough to remain interesting. I also tried to account for a zenithal lighting effect, considering where each part would be on the vehicle and shading and highlighting to suit. The one essential caveat is that every part, and that includes the stowage, needs to be painted and weathered with the same care as everything else so it looks like it belongs, not just a badly placed afterthought.

So after what seemed like an eternity, all of the stowage was painted and the process of installing it all in-situ could begin. Looking back, yes it probably would seem easier to glue everything in place and just paint what was visible but I seem to have a unique knack for making a simple job more complicated. 

There are still a couple of things to paint, and one or two touch-ups to do, but I'm sure you will agree it is starting to look the part. Once I have added the dust layers it should hopefully tie everything together and make it look a lot more lived-in.

But before that I need to sort out a base and some figures and that will be coming up in the next part...here