Rolls Royce Armoured Car

[Bullbasket]

Great progress Andy. This seems to be a very good kit (when compared to the Roden effort).

 

John.

[Redcoat2966]

Liking the progress on this Andy.......picking up many tips here and there......nice paint job and really like the fixes and amendments to kit itself......all good to follow along on.

 

Cheers

Simon.

[Andy Moore]

On 05/04/2019 at 08:31, Bullbasket said:

This seems to be a very good kit (when compared to the Roden effort).

It's got the odd fault John, but it's a decent kit in general and certainly better than the Roden one.

 

Okay, so we're on to the Caunter now. As you can see from the previous post, I used Iraqi Sand for the base coat rather than the official Caunter shade, although I did give a light over-spray of the AK Portland Stone to the areas that would remain sand. I felt the Portland was a little too pale and yellowy to use on its own as the base.

For the Silver Grey and Slate though, I was intending to use the AK shades straight from the jar. That was, at least, until I opened the SG and looked inside. At first, I thought they'd put the wrong paint in there, as it looked almost indistinguishable from the Portland Stone.

These days, when I use a new colour for the first time, I always spray a plastic teaspoon first so I've got an accurate colour chip for future reference, and doing so gave me a look at how the three AK Caunter shades would look together.

 

 

Straight onto the white plastic of the teaspoon, the SG did look way too pale and with too much of a yellow hint to my eye. However, I thought it may not be as bad if sprayed over a sand base rather than white plastic. I dug a part-finished T-55 hull from the stash and sprayed the whole underside with the Portland Stone, then masked off sections and sprayed on the SG and Slate. That seemed better as far as the contrast between the PS and SG were concerned, but the SG still seemed too yellow (and the Slate is maybe a little too green?).

 

 

 

Since I'd got the turret already masked up, I decided to spray the AK SG on to see how it looked on the model. The problem with that, of course, is that to see the effect I had to remove the masking, at which point I can't re-spray it without re-masking the whole thing. That's why I only did the turret for now. With the masking removed, the SG looked, if anything, more minty green now. It's hard to see the full effect without the Slate on too, but it didn't look right to me.

 

 

As an experiment, I thought I'd try Mike Starmer's SG mix for Tamiya colours to see how it compared to AK's interpretation (I know Mike was involved with the Real Color research, and that he wasn't that happy with some of the results). His mix for Tamiya is 7parts XF-21 Sky, 1 part XF-19 Grey, and 1 part XF-4 Yellow Green. I didn't have the Tamiya Sky, so I substituted the equivalent shade from Gunze Aqueous which, as far as I know, is almost identical. On a teaspoon again, that mix looked a lot better, and more how I think of SG than the AK version. I should point out that both may still look a little yellow in the photo, but that's down to the colour balance in the shot being a little out. In person. the Starmer mix looks more neutral.

 

 

So, what I think I'm going to do now is re-mask the turret and spray that, and the rest of the vehicle, with the Starmer mix SG. Hopefully, that should look okay, and I'll be able to move on to the Slate.

 

Andy

[Soeren]

Hey Andy. To me that looks very ok.  When I remember correctly, AK has a scale effect correction in the paints. So this might result in that difference. Still this is up to personal preference.

[Portaler]

Looking good Andy ! Nice idea with the spoons to get a better feeling for the colour once applied to plastic.

 

Can't wait to see the mud and dirt !

[colin]

Very hard to tell with the spoons about the colour, on my monitor they look to have shades of each others colour in them, as someone as said AK say they add scale effect, don't know how darker it will go when the weathering etc go's down on top.

[Andy Moore]

21 hours ago, Soeren said:

When I remember correctly, AK has a scale effect correction in the paints. So this might result in that difference.

11 hours ago, colin said:

as someone as said AK say they add scale effect, don't know how darker it will go when the weathering etc go's down on top.

Yes, AK do lighten their colours for scale effect. I think the issue here is that they've lightened the SG more than the other colours which has resulted in it being tonally too close to the Portland Stone.

 

In the end, I went with the Starmer mix for the SG, although I added in a dollop of the AK colour for good measure. At least I can say I've used it then. The masking was fairly straight forward with the exception of the area around the radiator doors. Spraying those without getting any over-spray on the headlights wasn't easy. The doors would be better left off the model and sprayed separately but, given the delicate nature of their attachment points, I don't think that would be a practical option.

 

 

I've also added the Slate to the turret. That was done with the AK colour, but I did add a little pale grey to the Slate afterwards to add some fading. That doesn't show up that well in the photo as it was pretty subtle. I might add some more fading once the Slate's on the rest of the model.

 

 

Andy

 

[Soeren]

Your choice looks great. Although I am sure the ak choice, according to your turret, would have been usable as well. 

[Plasto]

Looking good crisp masking... When are you adding the blue stripes 😉

 

I’ve used MS’s mixes before on a couple of builds and I also have the ‘old’ AK Caunter colour set this IIRC was very similar to the MS Tamiya mixes...

 Not sure what going on with the ‘Real Colours’ they seem to be a bit hit n miss..

[Andy Moore]

8 hours ago, Plasto said:

Looking good crisp masking... When are you adding the blue stripes 😉

Ah well, not being a vehicle restorer at Bovington, I think I'll skip the blue stripe on this build 😜

It looks like Meng think differently though, since the colours they list for the caunter scheme (from their own, AK produced, brand) are light yellow, blue grey, and light turquoise.

 

9 hours ago, Plasto said:

I’ve used MS’s mixes before on a couple of builds and I also have the ‘old’ AK Caunter colour set this IIRC was very similar to the MS Tamiya mixes...

 Not sure what going on with the ‘Real Colours’ they seem to be a bit hit n miss.

I've not got the original AK acrylic caunter colours but, from seeing them used on other builds, they do look like a good match. certainly better than the Real Color shades. I'm in two minds about the RC range. I like them as paints -  they're easy to spray and very resilient, but the colours are, as you say, a little hit and miss.

 

With the main colours on, I've started on a spot of weathering. I've added some chipping with the base colour (using Vallejo rather than AK RC) over the caunter stripes. I've just done the turret for now, but I'll be doing the same over the rest of the model.

 

 

 

I've also added some chipping to the rear decking using a wood tone, again from Vallejo.

 

 

Once the rest of the chipping is done I'll give the whole thing a gloss coat to seal the paint, then start on the washes.

 

Andy

[Plasto]

Looks good... The old AK set comes with a Mauve colour not sure what that was used for???

 

Ive also heard the AK real colour is nice to spray and paint with. TBH I think as soon as you get a Lacquer paint that’s pretty much true of most lacquers. Standard Tamiya  / Gunze acrylic thinned with self levelling thinners or the new tamiya retarder thinner sprays really nicely drys fast and is hard wearing.  So personally the ‘paintability’ aspect of the AK colours isn’t a big draw card for me.. 

 

 

[Andy Moore]

44 minutes ago, Plasto said:

TBH I think as soon as you get a Lacquer paint that’s pretty much true of most lacquers. Standard Tamiya  / Gunze acrylic thinned with self levelling thinners or the new tamiya retarder thinner sprays really nicely drys fast and is hard wearing.  So personally the ‘paintability’ aspect of the AK colours isn’t a big draw card for me.

Yes, that's true. I think a lot of people, myself included, were hoping that Real Color would be the magic paint range - lacquer paints with authentic military shades. They've turned out to be not all that they promised. I'll still use them, but Gunze and Tamiya will remain my main paint ranges.

 

Just realised I forgot to post the shots of the finished caunter scheme. These were from before I started the chipping seen above.

 

 

 

Andy

[Plasto]

Thats looking really nice...

[stevehnz]

6 hours ago, Plasto said:

Thats looking really nice...

What he said. 

Steve.

[Bullbasket]

Nice work with the paint Andy. The chipping and scratches look very realistic.

 

John.

[TristanR]

This is fantastic, Choice of colours are lovely, I'm looking forward to seeing it weathered.

[vaoinas]

Love this build. The choice of colors and paint scheme looks fantastic.

[Andy Moore]

The rest of the car's now been chipped in the same manner as the turret, again using the base sand colour over the SG and Slate areas. There's a bit of restrained metal chipping on the sand areas using a dark brown on sections that would likely get some wear.

The whole model got a gloss clear coat after the chipping to seal the matt finish Real Color paints, followed by a few enamel washes over the bolts and panel lines. The washes were also used to add some general dirt and staining over the model.

 

 

 

 

The next step will be to add some fading to the paintwork, and some sand/dust washees to give more of a North African feel.

 

Andy

[vaoinas]

It's getting better and better. Chipping really catches the eye, especially on dark green areas.

[robgizlu]

11 hours ago, vaoinas said:

It's getting better and better. Chipping really catches the eye, especially on dark green areas.

Said it all for me .  Masterful - as always

Rob

[Plasto]

Looking good....

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Wow  Love the way this is turning out, absolutely beautiful !

[bigfoot]

Lovely stuff Andy, masterful work as always.

[Andy Moore]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

 

As mentioned above, I've added some fading to the paintwork using white and pale grey oils. It's also had a dust wash over the bolts and other raised details, along with more staining and discolouration on the chassis.

The tyres have had a dry brush over the tread with an acrylic mixed with a little pigment, then the sidewalls were weathered with the same enamel dust wash I used on the hull.

 

 

 

 

 

Andy

[M_Sinclair]

As always, it's a real treat to watch you work Andy. The chipping on the wood in particular is just lovely.

-matt