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WhiteOut: Winterizing an M4 Sherman

Winter Wonderland

This brings me to the final build of the M4. I decided the best route was to go with the airbrush for the white wash. Not to cover the whole upper hull this time around but, leave some of the base color to show through.

After the white wash dried, I used the wood pick again to make chips in the white wash from wear and tear. The wooden pick I use is of several types. A toothpick, a thin wooden dowel, and a coffee stir stick. With varying pressures I was able to replicate differing sized scratches and chips in the white wash.

In order for me to duplicate the look that the decals were masked, like the crews would have before they painted the white wash on, (some, not all crews) I followed a trick I learned awhile ago by mistake. The model needed a wash too, so I killed two birds with one stone. If you do not seal the model with a clear coat before doing a wash, the decal’s carrier film will show through, looking like a mask’s outline. Look at the picture above, it was taken before the wash. No mask over decal. The one below was taken after the wash, now the decal looks like it was masked.

Next I added the rust. My recipe for rust is very simple; it’s real rust. By finding a rusty piece of metal from outside and using 400 grit sandpaper, I sanded the rusty metal over a piece of white paper to collect the rust’s dust. From there I poured it into an old paint jar for all future rust jobs. To add the rust to the model I made a “paint” or paste with the “rust dust” and water. Using a small tipped brush I applied the paste in tiny splotches over the previously made chips and scratches. Let this dry for a few minuets and with a soft dry brush, lightly brush the dried paste downward to create the effect of rust stains. Bear in mind the effects of gravity when doing this. Water runs downhill. By adjusting the pressure and time spent on the dried rust paste areas, you can achieve varying effects of the color and or amount of rust. If you take too much off just reapply. I finished the upper hull by dirtying it up a little with a couple of pastels to mimic dried mud and a several light mists of Model Master’s Flat Acrylic.

A Place in the Mud

I next finished painting the road wheels as usual and began applying the mud. The mud is again the Dap’s minuet spackle, brown acrylic paint and plenty of water. I let this dry and gave it several light coats of various brown shades going from dark to lighter. When this was dry I painted on Future straight from the bottle over sections of the bogies, tracks, and lower hull to make the mud appear wet.

Onto the dio…if that’s what I could call it. It’s small but, conveys the location of the model in reference to it’s appearance. This was a last minuet idea as I was not going to include one into the final model. I simply mixed up a good sized batch of Amaco’s Sculptamold. Which really is just a fine grade paper-mache. I plopped this down on a piece of wood and pressed a few sets of rubber-band tracks from the spares box into the blob. Using an oven at warm setting I attempted a speedy dry. It worked. The following morning I airbrushed the track paths and immediate area with a dark brown followed by a couple light coats of increasing lighter shades. This dried quickly and I literally poured Future into the tread’s tracks and brushed it around a little. Again, going after that “wet mud” look.

I fashioned the grasses from twine, taped at the bottom and inserted into drill holes.

I placed the model in the dio and with an old make-up brush, dipped into a 50/50 mix of Woodland Scenic’s Snow and cornstarch, I tapped the brush repeatedly to force it to “snow” onto the scene. This was the best method I could come up with for applying the snow mix. All other attempts seemed to make the snow fall in an unnatural manner. I think it worked nicely.

I had lots of fun in this adventure, even with all the pitfalls and restarts. I’ll certainly build another in the near future.