AaronKSJ

Thanks @vytautas! It's been my favourite and most successful armour build to date so far

Also missed this first time round, glad to see it resurrected! Great work with scratch building.

Afternoon Folks! Think this one is done. Edit. maybe not Please throw any feedback about the mud / weathering my way! For the tracks just opted for some pigment brushed into the recesses and along the edges. Liked how the textured mud deposits turned out around the hull. I don't feel like I got the colour quite right for the dry and wet mud, not enough contrast between the two... Didn't help that I also splashed around some dark earth pigment which had a much greener look compared to the orangy / red mud shades I'd used earlier. Here's how it's looking at the minute. The MG is precariously glued in place! Unlike the other metal work on the Stug, for the MG went with metallic gun metal dry brushed over black and have left it looking shinny. The fit of the top section over the compartment is great, so I've left it unglued so I can pop it off. Really like the interior being viewable through the open hatches. Oh blast. Antenna wires... Hmm I should probably have a bash at those given the work I've put into this build! I've got a nagging feeling that the top of the hull needs something else?? Maybe a slight dust wash in a few places? Thanks for swinging by Aaron and just spotted that the track needs gluing down to the return rolls again on one side!

Morning Folks I think I'm calling it done (well apart from an antenna wire) With the gun staining and another crack at using pasteltle chalk, worked better this time. Still used the silicon pointed brush but wiped off excess pigment so it was more like drybrushing and built up the effect with a few passes. In hindsight with the exhaust I used the brush with too much pigment on it so it caked it on. Finished of the spinner, tidied up around the frame and here we are. I've got a couple of shelves to display my finished kits on, which had filled up so I've relegated some old builds to the attic. But freed up some space to plonk it next to the Spitfire. I'll get the antenna sorted out and then some more snaps for the gallery. As always, great GB! Although I think the only other GB I'll be joining this year is the Bristol Gb with a Tamiya Beaufighter. Need to make dent in the small stash! Thanks for stopping by Aaron

Nice work on the chipping. There's an impressive amount of detail on that kit!

I might follow suit unless I get any other input. Think black might blend in a bit to much with the sights / periscope bits (its to late in the day to figure out the correct terminology)

Morning Folks I've been chipping away at this one on and off. Mix of brush and sponge. Should the padded bit on the commanders hatch be a black leather colour? Been mucking around with the rust colour set on the exhausts, hard to make it out from the phone but think it came out well. Was a bit of faff painting it with everything else glued around it so had to crack out the masking tape. With the exhaust it was initially painted a dark grey, follow by sponging on some off white and then and sponging with dark rust, in both cases used a fine brush to reach some places and neaten up the edges. Couple of random rust washes and splodges. And the tips of the exhaust had a tiny amount of neat black oil paint added before feathering slightly with some thinners. It's all been given a flat coat now as well. All the contact points on the tracks have been polished up with a chunky artist dark graphite pencil. And the teeth on the drive wheels have been chipped with a bit of metallic paint. Don't think I can put it off any longer... next for the mud! Thanks for swinging by Aaron

Thanks @fmichelsen ! Realised I've not post an update in a few weeks, so grabbed the camera this morning for some progress shots. Done a spot of light chipping and scratches with some brushed on silver. Flat coated and then used some ground up pastel chalk for the exhaust stains. Used a silicon brush to apply the pigments and they'd ended up a bit to dense but not bad. Incidentally I found a set of assorted silicon brushes meant for nail art or such but a lot cheaper than the ones marketed for model making malarkey! Been throwing various rust shade washes at the exhausts, final step (hopefully) will be to lightly paint some black oil paint around the square exhaust nozzle bits and lightly feather it with some thinner. Needs some touching up around the canopy frames with the interior colour. And still planning on adding some African dust pigment to the wheels and walkway areas. Oh and gun stains, might try very very water thinned Tamiya paint with a spot of dishing washing soap.... The end is almost insight Thanks for swinging by!

Been a bit more productive with trying to suss out applying mud! The LifeColor mud set arrived and first attempt at just using that set had me here... which is ok, but not quite what I had in mind. So next up, was doing the side. Watched a whole range of vids on YouTube for ideas over the weekend... Started with some Vallejo thick European mud following the suggestions from the others earlier. next I mixed a bit of vallejo dark earth pigment with lifecolor north Europe dry mud along with some Lifecolor south Europe mud paint - the idea of getting a shade for dried out mud. This applied over all the thick earth and blended a bit in places to try a get a thin dried mud effect. Lastly, mixed some Vallejo splashes European mud with lifecolor north Europe dark mud paint and added that to larger areas of mud build up to try and show lumps of wet large mud. The splashes seems to have a gloss finish to works well for the wet effect. Thinned that mix down and added a few splashes with a cocktail stick to blend it together a bit which left me here... Pretty pleased with so far! Thanks for the input so far folks, please keep it up! Remembered that I should get round to the chipping on the Stug before adding mud to it, so that's next on the cards. Aaron

Very nicely done

I have ages ago, can't remember how successful I was. I have recently just picked up a few silicon brushes for pigments on tanks, but could be a good shout for the exhaust stains. I have a feeling last time I tried with them I was a little heavy handed with them! Good idea, thanks 😊

Cheers @PlaStix ! I caved in the end and ordered the LifeColor sets for Mud and Rust. The mud set has arrived so need to grab another other victim kit out and have a bash with it. The rust kit hasn't arrived yet, hopefully it'll turn up tomorrow when I'm not in work so I crack straight on with the tracks. The only vaguely productive thing I've done this week is started to poke a brush around the exhausts with so gray paint in prep for some rust. Aaron

Decals are on now along with panel line washes. Used oils, payne's gray for the blue sections and burnt umber everywhere else. I need to practice mixing different oil colours as the burnt umber looks a tad dark. Do plan on adding a dusty oil wash around the wing roots and underside at some point. Probably another daft question - paynes gray always ends up with a blue hue after diluting (using Winsor Newton) Do I just need to mix a dab of black in with the grey with get the gray to look well gray and not blue gray? The Tamiya decals went on fine. I read a tip somewhere that mentioned in part the thickness issue is due to a think glue layer under the decal and that using very hot water helps. Not sure how accurate that is, but used plenty of hot water and micro set / sol and after the first coat gently prodded decals into panel lines with a cocktail stick. Just been painting up the prop hub then to assemble the spinner and mark it up for the red and white combo. Trying to decide how to tackle the weathering on this. Thinking: small amount of chipping around engine hatches. I have some Mig North Africa dust pigment which I'd bought for some armour kits but figure it can be well used around the wheels and wing root. With the exhaust stains, whenever I've tried to airbrush them on I always stuff it up. I might just try heavy thinning nato black to within an inch of it's life and slowly brush painting the stains on. Aaron

Cheers @thorfinn @Col. ! Few days ago had another stab at the green, decided to go with the airbrush again. I did spend a while playing around with spraying some card and was able to get some nice fine spray lines. When it came to the model again it wasn't quite as successful. Better than last time for sure, but still had the odd paint flood and some splattering / overspray effect around the edges, particularly on the fuselage. All good practice I guess! Should get a coat of Klear on later today and can make a start on painting up some of the remaining bits.

I'm still debating trying with airbrush. Will need to do a lot of practicing first, this time! I usually just use Klear to varnish, think I've got some tamiya acrylic gloss and some Mig Ammo varnish - but not sure if any of them would hold up to me brush painting mr hobby diluted with Self levelling thinner.