I have plenty of experience painting real world 1/1 vehicles and other machines and overall second Jesse's (melonhead's) comments above. These factors especially do not favor paint that has low adhesion and durability to begin with.

Forgot to ask, are u going to blacken the muzzle break?

Regards,

thanks for the info on the cables as it seems from reference pics they are mostly free of paint.

i will be adding a touch of soot to the inside of the muzzle break but, again with the pics i've seen, it seems the Tiger crews kept the barrels in tip top shape. lots of pics show the muzzle break dust cover in place during transport but i think a touch of black is needed to show it has recently been fired.

i also need to add the antenna which i made and painted last night out of 0.20" styrene rod. cheers for now, bd.

hi everyone,
here's some quick pics i took of the King Tiger with a bit more whitewash on the cables, more dut on the track armour and the antenna added on:



next up, the second model for this diorama... the OT34:


cheers, bd.

Way cool Bruce, really looking forward to what you will be doing with that OT34

Bruce: Nice King. Looking forward to the OT34 as well.

Happy Modelling, -zon

hey bruce, great work you've done there on the king tiger. will the OT34 be getting a whitewash? and also what is the difference between a T34 and a OT34?
stan

...King Tiger is stunning, Ot 34 will must be the same

Winter camo also on it?

Hi Stanley

Look there:

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_OT-34_flamethrower_tank.html

Difference was the flamethrower (...hideous weapon)

Cheers

hi guys,
yes the OT34/76 has the bow gun machinegun replaced with a flamethrower. other than having the antenna relocated to the rear of the turret it is built like a normal T34.

i will be doing it in whitewash as well but with a combo of hairspray and sponge application to make it look different from the King Tiger. got the build well underway this weekend. cheers, bd.

OT34/76 CONSTRUCTION COMPLETED

hi everyone,
i finished the build of the Dragon OT34/76 over the weekend and it's ready for painting:








now i will paint it with some preshading and highlighting done by airbrush to get a russian green base colour in preparation for the whitewashing.

cheers for now, bd.

Hi Bruce

You've done the t34 in a great way, as usual.

I'd like to know how do you apply the pre-shading technique

I've never used it and I used to think that is effective just on aircraft models, but I've seen that many skilled modellers give pre-shading strokes on their models after the primer coat.
So I'd like to know more about

Thanks in advance

I'm waiting for your russian tank finished

Cheers

thanks for the kind words Mauro, the kit of the OT34 is not that user-friendly as there are some errors in the instructions as per Dragon's standards.

i prime with Tamiya primer light grey and then i usually preshade the lower sides of panels, around the turret ring, along panel lines, the lower hull, underside of the barrel, etc... and then spray the base colour very thinly building up the colour as to not cover the preshading completely. i just barely leave the preshading visible so it doesn't look to noticeable, it just gives the base colour a shift in tone.

here's a link to a youtube video that can explain it better than my words. the modeler in the video uses black paint but i prefer to use raw umber as it the dark brown is more natural in colouring.

cheers, bd.

Thanks a lot Bruce, a very useful video
I'll try pre shading technique on my next build

cheers

OT34/76 BASE PAINT COMPLETED

hi everyone,
the first stage of painting is finished with a bit of preshading and highlighting of the russian green colour on the OT34 and is ready for whitewashing:




for fun i added a touch of rusty colouring using acrylic washes to practice this a bit as i have no experience using any washes other than oils. not much of the rust colouring will show once whitewashed so i figured i could try it out and see how it works without committing any permanent errors.

as always comments are welcomed. happy modeling.

cheers for now, bd.

Bruce, your OT34 is looking good per your usual standards. I'm not sure if it's the lighting, but the green seems very subdued and I'm wondering if it will be prominent enough to stand out when the whitewash is applied?

hi Jeremy, the lighting was not the best when i took the pics but i am trying a new experiment (yet again). i was reading an article in Military In Scale magazine about doing a high contrast base painting. the idea i have is to create the appearance that the worn whitewash has left a whitish tint behind on the exposed green.

by having a high contrast base i will eliminate the need to tone down the green once the whitewash is applied... in theory. the plan is not to have a stark dark green where the whitewash is removed but rather a faded green that is peeking through eroded white paint.

this may work out or it may not but i going to give it a try. i'd rather explore the unknown and perhaps be pleasantly surprised than stay on the path i've trod many a time.

fingers crossed. cheers, bd.

Well, me too i'll cross the fingers for you Bruce

But in my opinion could be a very great idea

I've often seen " white washed tanks" which had a too deep contrast between white and the underneath tone. The result was a little bit inconsistent because it looked like the white paint was stripped away rather than it was dissolved in the rain

So now,I'm very curious to see the effect


cheers

OT34/76 HAIRSPRAY WHITEWASH

hi fellows,
here is the OT34 with the whitewash completed. i used the hairspray technique for this stage to be different from the King Tiger. the first two pics show the Vallejo White acrylic airbrushed over two light coats of hairspray, each hairspray coat was laid down 20 minutes apart:







the pics again seem a bit light coloured, once finished i will take some proper pics in my poor man's photo booth. the faded green showing through the whitewash came out quite satisfactory and the whole vehicle will of course get a shade darker after washes are applied. i have decided that i need to use the same oil washes i used on the King Tiger to keep a consistency in my painting so that the two vehicles look similar and under the same light source for the diorama.

while i was removing the white paint i had quite a bit of acrylic building up on my brushes so i used this to do some acrylic washes to achieve some streaking and variation.

cheers for now and happy modeling, bd.

Well done!

I hope to see soon your dio Bruce

Awesome Bruce. Thanks for the explanation and it looks like you achieved your goal quite nicely.

You have me really itching to start my two winter projects, but I will have to hold off on them while I get caught up with life and other campaigns...

Good progress Bruce. You´ve got the winter weathering down.

thanks guys for kind words, whitewashing these two models has taught me a lot and i can now appreciate so much better the works of those who tackle this finish. started on the two german figures for the diorama, they're Dragon Gen2 figures so they are little project builds onto themselves. cheers for now, bd.

Excellent as usual Bruce, and the step by step posts are very helpful and I have learned a lot from your techniques.

Thanks,

OT34/76 READY FOR DEPLOYMENT

hi everyone,
i finished the OT34 this weekend, here are some pics of the final model ready for the diorama:






below is a comparison with the King Tiger both for size difference between the two machines and the different whitewash applications:



now i will need to assemble and paint the figures as i like to have them made when i start working out the composition and size of the diorama base. comments are welcomed as always. happy modeling.

cheers, bd.