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Progress screenshots: FGM Competition "1944" (Finished)2010

Good idea sticking the roadwheels on masking tape, hadn't thought of that but it's obvious once seen......how many things in life are like that!

Do you scrape the paint off the road wheel axles before gluing, or just throw it on as is? I can't imagine there would be much problem, paint or no...
 
Good stuff. You give us all something to aspire to, RazorBoy
 
The work continues.

I put in a large chunk of time today, happy with the progress. The first thing I did was apply some putty to the joints on all my figures. Been a while since I've worked with putty so the first figure is a little rough. However, as I progressed things came back to me and by the last figure I was able to apply it with relative ease. I used Squadron Green Putty and applied it with a toothpick and a small flat spatula. Besides using the point of the toothpick to initially apply the putty, I also used it as sort of a "rolling pin" to create a smooth application.

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The next step today was some work on the interior. On the dashboard I used some Flat White to drybush the instrument panel and make the guages stand out. I used some Steel to drybrush the latch and hinges on the glove compartment. Next came the floor board section. I drybrushed the foot pedals flat black and then washed the entire floor section with and alcohol and acrylic Grimy Black wash. On the seat I applied some straight Isopropyl alcohol to it. Once it was nearly dry I rubbed it with a large stiff bristle paintbrush on the portions that would get the most wear. The effect was a noticeable lightening that looked like the effect you get from continually dragging your body across a vinyl seat. I apologize for the blurry pictures, but you get the idea.

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The rear compartment parst wer next. On the real truck they are made primarily of wood. Having been in the military, I know that equipment takes a beating even in non-combat situations. To simulate this, I"roughed up" the simulated wood parts. I made some scratches, punched some holes, and shaved down the edges withan X-Acto knife and then used some sandpaper on the wood portions as well.

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The last project of the day was assembling the fuel drums and jerry cans. I was very pleased with the quality of these Tamiya parts. The drums have simulated dents in them and the parts went together perfectly leaving only some minor puttying to do.

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I removed all the body parts from the sprue in preparation for airbrushing. Still trying to work up the courage to break it out. I do have the canvas top to practice my painting skills on. The time is rapidly approaching when I'm just going to bite the bullet and do it.
 
No Runs, No Drips, No Errors

Finally worked up the courage and fired up the airbrush today. The airbrush is a Testor Aztec 470. I bought it with an entire kit that includes airbrush, supply hose, 6 different nozzles and assorted paint cups and jars. I found the set brand new on Ebay and got it for only $120. Considering the set lists for about $185, I was very pleased with the deal. Since I'm just starting back into the hobby, I do not have an air compressor so I'm forced to use canned air. Not the optimum setup as I really have no way to regulate the air pressure other than my trigger finger, but since I don't have an extra $200 kicking around to buy a compressor it will have to do. Here is the whole setup:

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I chose to make the base coat of my truck Testor Model Master Dark green. The nozzle I chose to use was a .40mm general purpose nozzle designed for medium coverage. I thinned the paint until it was roughly the consitency of milk and took the plunge. After a few practice strokes on some newspaper, I moved to some plastic. I took the canvas top for the back of the truck that I don't plan to use and shot a few strokes on it to guage the right distance and paint flow. Feeling pretty confident I moved to the exterior body parts of the truck. I must say that even with the canned air, it was easy to maintain the paintflow I desired. The airbrush performed flawlessly. It was very easy to get just the finish I wanted and I was super pleased with the result.

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All parts received a nice light, even base coat of paint. It looks like I might even know what I'm doing. I left everything to dry and set to cleaning the airbrush. Modern airbrush or not, the cleaning ritual is still the same and I'm pretty meticulous about it. Once that was done the "wooden" body parts were dry enough to flip over to paint the interior side. I also pulled the floor out of the box and set that in line as well. I stuck with the medium coverage nozzle and mixed up some Testor Model Master Wood paint. I didn't quite thin this batch as much as I should have and I had some problems with the nozzle plugging slightly at the beginning. I aimed at the newspaper and gave it a quick, heavy blast of air. This got the paint flowing and I kept it flowing and moved right onto the plastic. I had to back away from the parts a bit to compenste for the thicker paint flow, but once again I was able to put a nice, light coat on the parts.

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I really can't say enough about this Aztec airbrush. It was a joy to use and for the relatively small investment I made it is going to serve me well. I'm going to let the base coat dry at least 24 hours before I put on the fine nozzle and try my hand at camoflauging. Depending on how confident I feel, I may try to free hand this instead of masking everything.
 
When I first got back into modelling again (after a rather lengthy hiatus) I found that my old badger compressor had seized up and wouldn't run. I took off the regulator and moisture trap assembly and attached them to one of these (- Wal-mart has these for around 40 bucks):
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Buy a moisture trap and regulator assembly-
moisturetrapandregulator.jpg

- at your hobby shop, get any brass adapter fittings you need at your local auto parts store and there you go!

I know that there is a slight price difference between your region and mine AC but you might be able to set the whole thing up for under a 100 bucks until you get that compressor.You can't buy that many cans of what you're using for that. No noise, no electricity, the gas station down the road let me fill it for free and 100 lbs. of air lasted a long time. It is still on standby should my current compressor fail.
rb
 
razorboy,

What a great idea, I never even thought of that, yet now it seems so obvious. I have my own large compressor in my garage so I wouldn't even have to take the time to go to a gas station or repair shop to get the tank filled. I payed $12 for the canned air, not too hard to figure out that for the same price of a few more cans I could build this set up.

Thanks for the suggestion, it has moved to the top of my list.
 
I can sympathize. I had to buy a pair of cheaters myself. Never worn glasses in my life, but I was trying to do some fine work with the X-Acto knife and up close I couldn't see a thing. So goes the uninterruptable march of time.
 
More progress.

Applied camo to the truck body. Testor's Model Master Sand Yellow paint and a .30mm fineline nozzle. The combination of the line not being as fine as I thought and my rustiness at fine airbrush work led to a finish that was not as good as I wanted. There was some splatter and the lines between the colors were not as sharp as I would have liked. After letting the paint dry for 24 hours I thinned some Testor's Medium Green and applied it lightly to the edges of the colors. It did a fair job of blending the colors and cleaning up the spatter. Final weathering will help as well.

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Some work on the figures followed. Initial application of putty was sanded. The two German figures will be left as is. They will be partially obstructed from view inside the cab so minor imperfections were tolerated. All three of the other figures got another application of putty after initial sanding. The grenade thrower need a little more extensive puttying to make the pullover he was wearing fit the time period.

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The truck cargo was next. Fuel drums were puttied on the seams and the Jerry Cans were painted Testor's Flat Grey.

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Finally, the truck bed got some attention. All interior wooden parts received a wash of Polly S Acrylic Dark Building Brown and then Oily Black. The box was then assembled.

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I have a few more things to assemble on the truck bed and then I will jump into finishing all the figures.
 
Thanks, I am pleased with them but I am seriously considering repainting the camo pattern. Another light base coat and then applying masking to make the camo pattern sharper and neater.
 
Coming along nicely AC - and I wouldn't sharpen the edge of the pattern with tape, I would play with the airbrush adjusment and paint/thinner mix first on a piece of scrap. You should be able to "Tighten" that spray up a bit doing either or perhaps both.
rb
 
razorboy said:
Coming along nicely AC - and I wouldn't sharpen the edge of the pattern with tape, I would play with the airbrush adjusment and paint/thinner mix first on a piece of scrap. You should be able to "Tighten" that spray up a bit doing either or perhaps both.
rb
Click to expand...

After debating it for a while, that is exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to mix the paint just a touch thicker then mess with the adjustment. I'll back the paint flow off to zero and then open it in tiny increments until I can get the fine line I'm looking for. I'll post pictures of the results when I get done. I'm in the midst of my three workdays this week so I probably won't get much model building done unti the middle of the week.
 
Good, taped camo may as well be done with a brush. I think that through experimentation, you'll find the right combo.
rb
 
How about Razorboy roping in some of his mates from other sites to swell our number of entrants if need be?
 
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