One down, lots to go

Today did not start out like I was hoping. Had some technical issues with my daughter's bed that will result in a repair call going out tomorrow. Ugh. Thankfully though, I have a pretty cool wife who gave me time today to paint like I wanted to.

So, first up was the Type II 'Chi-Ri' Medium Tank of the Empire. This is boxy little tank with a nice turret up front. As I showed from the last post, I had primed these all red using Army Painter Pure Red primer spray. Looked a bit on the bright side, but I had hopes the washes would see that out.

Note to future Empire players. Glue on the turret last. There was some deck area I could have gotten to much easier if I had painted first, then put the darn thing on. All in all though, not too big of an issue.

Step 1: cleanup - needed to take the regular paint for Pure Red and hit spots the spray missed. Yay for color matching!

Step 2: base coats - I used platemail for the guns and ladder on the tank. Bronze for the central smoke stack, Gun metal for other metal bits, bone white for the deck, and then monster brown for the tracks. Now originally I used monster brown for the deck, but I didn't like how that looked. Far too muddy.

Step 3: dark tone wash - like it says on the tin. I just washed the whole model using AP's dark tone ink (not their dip).

As you can see, it really made the treads and deck pop out, as well as just provide some depth to the whole thing. I really like how it turned out. Now I did make a few goofs by not painting the inside of the wheels. I need to go back and do that and hit that area with ink again.

Step 4: dull coat - now at this time I haven't used the dull coat yet. I need to do the above first. But I have found that the dull coat (which works great with the dip), adds a subtle highlight to the whole model as well as protecting your paint job. Who could ask for more?

Step 5: basing - now all I gotta do is come up with a basing scheme for this group. I'll probably go with standard grasslands for the nice contrasting color.

I have to say, overall I'm really pleased with it so far. I have about an hours worth of work to do and then it should be all done. If I'm lucky I'll get to that piece tomorrow. I may even wait until I get a few more done before using dull coat so that I can do a group all at once.

Till next time...