After some fits and starts, I've finally finished laying down the basecoat and initial shades and highlights on the first Grot Tank:
Taking inspiration from Paul's fantastic Medium Panzer Walker over at the unrealistic artist, this tank is dark yellow with spot colors of blue, red, and various metallics.
As Grots are willing to pull scrap off of anything to help construct their rickety war machines, I attempted to evoke that ramshackle messiness without making the paint job too busy.
I started by airbrushing the basecoats:
The hull, turret, and a few road wheels got a coat of Vallejo Model Air (VMA) Dark Yellow (025). A big thanks to Paul at UA for helping sort out the yellow.
Then, the tracks, grotzooka ammo box, exhausts, and a few pieces of the hull and turret got a once over with Vallejo Game Color (VGC) Charred Brown.
Finally, the big shoota and its ammo box, the pintle-mounted shoota, a couple road wheels, and several hull pieces got shot with VMA Steel (065).
Noticing that the dark yellow had a tinge of green, I thought mixing in a dark green (VGC Cayman Green) to shade would be an interesting experiment:
It was interesting, just not that pleasing to the eye.
You'll notice that I added a bit too much airbrush thinner to the mix and also got too close with the airbrush when spraying, hence the small pooling effects.
Still, I hadn't made up my mind about color choices yet and went ahead with highlighting. I mixed in a touch of Vallejo Model Color (VMC) Ivory (918) to the dark yellow and went for a gradation effect:
I went a bit overboard with the highlights and killed any gradation.
At that point I decided green was the wrong shade color and elected to start over. I taped off the appropriate areas and reshot the dark yellow.
This time around, instead of a green-hued shade I chose VMA Camouflage Medium Brown (038):
The brown is more subtle and helps better unify the paint scheme.
Also, instead of ivory, I picked a less dramatic change in hue for the highlight and went with VMC Sand Yellow (916):
There's still some work left to be done before I can move on to weathering. I need to clean up some overspray, add drybrush highlights, and shade the metal painted areas with ink.
But, I'm finally satisfied with the tank's basic color scheme, which will help me move through the later stages a bit faster.
Up next: Finishing up the latest additions to my Cawdor gang.
So until next time, keep painting!
Taking inspiration from Paul's fantastic Medium Panzer Walker over at the unrealistic artist, this tank is dark yellow with spot colors of blue, red, and various metallics.
As Grots are willing to pull scrap off of anything to help construct their rickety war machines, I attempted to evoke that ramshackle messiness without making the paint job too busy.
I started by airbrushing the basecoats:
The hull, turret, and a few road wheels got a coat of Vallejo Model Air (VMA) Dark Yellow (025). A big thanks to Paul at UA for helping sort out the yellow.
Then, the tracks, grotzooka ammo box, exhausts, and a few pieces of the hull and turret got a once over with Vallejo Game Color (VGC) Charred Brown.
Finally, the big shoota and its ammo box, the pintle-mounted shoota, a couple road wheels, and several hull pieces got shot with VMA Steel (065).
Noticing that the dark yellow had a tinge of green, I thought mixing in a dark green (VGC Cayman Green) to shade would be an interesting experiment:
It was interesting, just not that pleasing to the eye.
You'll notice that I added a bit too much airbrush thinner to the mix and also got too close with the airbrush when spraying, hence the small pooling effects.
Still, I hadn't made up my mind about color choices yet and went ahead with highlighting. I mixed in a touch of Vallejo Model Color (VMC) Ivory (918) to the dark yellow and went for a gradation effect:
I went a bit overboard with the highlights and killed any gradation.
At that point I decided green was the wrong shade color and elected to start over. I taped off the appropriate areas and reshot the dark yellow.
This time around, instead of a green-hued shade I chose VMA Camouflage Medium Brown (038):
The brown is more subtle and helps better unify the paint scheme.
Also, instead of ivory, I picked a less dramatic change in hue for the highlight and went with VMC Sand Yellow (916):
There's still some work left to be done before I can move on to weathering. I need to clean up some overspray, add drybrush highlights, and shade the metal painted areas with ink.
But, I'm finally satisfied with the tank's basic color scheme, which will help me move through the later stages a bit faster.
Up next: Finishing up the latest additions to my Cawdor gang.
So until next time, keep painting!
