Finishing a Late War T34/76 obr. 1943

Part 2 of 4

Next day, and with some additional source material and experimentation, I think I’ve made some progress.

I’ve completed what I believe is called a ‘pin-wash’ on all the recesses of each vehicle using MIG Dark Wash. I was planning on using Army Painter’s Dark Tone, but changed my mind after seeing the effect of the wash.

MIG’s Dark Wash is a pre-mixed enamel type wash and runs very easily into all the nooks and cranies deeping the contrast and highlighting the detail.

I’ve used MIG thinner for washes to remove the unsightly tide lines this wash tends to leave behind (a technique I picked up from the ISU-152 article in Military in Scale):

I think the T34s are now looking a lot better:

Right, so I’m nearly back to where I started yesterday. Will post again after I’ve re-touched the detail, black washed the tracks and towing cables, added rust effects to the exhausts, cleaned up the tidal marks… P.S. don’t forget that enamels take longer to dry than acryllics!

Rust effects applied, MGs done and engine louvres washed.

With a few hours extra work, I’ve repainted all the stowage items. This involved painting successive layers of the base colours (e.g. Vallejo 113 Khaki Grey, 094 Russian Uniform) mixed with white over each item.

I kept the consistency of the paint very watery to ensure the colours blended easily. Interesting, I found it easier to blend darker colours than lighter colours (I’m pleased with the blue tarp). To achieve the rust effects over the fuel tanks, I liberally applied very watered down Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust to the underside and, once dry, ran MIG Standard Rust Effects over the surface concentrating on the nozzle and mounts.

The lamps were done by painting small ‘drops’ of very watered down 169 Neutral Grey and 105 Luftwaffe Uniform mixed with greater or lesser quantities of white. Finally, the impact mark on the front of 1 of the T34s was repainted dark grey, highlighted light grey and washed black. I used a cut up piece of sponge from a blister pack dipped in dark grey to create a random pattern of dots around the impact mark to simulate chipped paint, etc. Now to gloss varnish the turrets for decals…