So are they ready to use with the AB aren't they?

That's is very useful indeed

Thanks for explanations and really congrats for the job

Cheers

Looking good so far Karl....Please keep posting here and good luck....

karl looking great are the ak paints ina satin finsh?
dave

Mauro- Thanks for the comments. And yes these paints are ready for the airbrush from the bottle.

Hakan- Thanks, much appreciated.

Dave-Cheers. Not sure what you mean by 'satin' exactly? These paints and Vallejo Model Air do produce a different finish to Tamiya paints or Lifecolor etc. Not sure if it could be described as 'satin' or not though.

The final paint to use is Shine:

















The vision ports on the turret, as you can see, were painted Royal Blue before the painting began and masked off using Vallejo Mask. But it isn't very good- it didn't come off very well. The vision ports on the hull were masked with pre-cut sticky ones that came with the Eduard PE set. Hopefully these will have performed better.

Another thing I noticed when I finished the 'Shine' coat was the contrast it provides for other parts of the model. Areas which should appear darker are easier to pick out when some parts are highlighted- thus you can go back and use some of the darker colors to fine-tune the contrast.

The next thing I'll be doing is some detail painting on various parts (tools, turret guns etc), some drybrushing and then a filter before using either the Satin Varnish in the kit or Future (I haven't decided yet). Then the serious weathering! Naturally there will be pictures of all this as I go along.

Thanks for reading,

-Karl187-

karl the reson that i ask is that mig said that to do the weathering with is stuff it works better if the finsh is done on a satin finsh and from hat i have done sofar he right on the money i hope to have the pic up to day so look for them on the geter done campaingn page
dave

I know what you are getting at now Dave- I believe when Mig says the weathering is best done over a satin finish he is recommending you seal the paint scheme of your vehicle with a satin varnish. You get a bottle in the Color Modulation sets. It creates a nice, smooth and kind of shiny surface which suits enamel and oil washes. Its not as shiny a finish as future, but the Vallejo Satin varnish is very nice.

I'll keep an eye out for your pics.

Cheers,

Karl187

Karl the pic are up hope you like them
Dave

Dave- fantastic work on that Centurion. You've painted and weathered it brilliantly. The washes, oil stains and grime are superb. Nice work.

As for this build, Mig has given me some advice on the finish and I'm going to go back and tweak some of the colors based on what he said. Hopefully I should get it done today.

Hey Karl thanks I did not think that it would come out so well, first try and all can't wait to see your changes
Dave

Ok, so I got the changes done, a little later than I planned but its done now.











Before I started making alterations I spent a while figuring out just what should go where and how I would make the contrast realistic.
One of the strange things I noticed was when I used the Dark Base to contrast against Shine in an area in which I'd used a paper mask. This actually didn't work- the contrast was totally flat and unrealistic. I then did away with the use of a paper mask because the demarcations were too harsh, making things much too flat. So those areas where the contrast was flat were lightened up lightly and gradually making sure not to overdo it so the high-light and shine would be sharp, but not overly so.

The whole time I was doing this I was keeping Mig's advice in mind:




So I'm happy with how the alterations have turned out (there's no pictures of the turret because I was already happy with how it looked), baring in mind there are still several steps of weathering to go, including dryrbrushing which should alter the contrast (again!) in some areas.

In any case I've been very impressed with the CM set and I am already planning to use it again (this time on a much simpler shape- a KV turret).

So, next up is some more detail painting, chipping, drybrushing, filter, satin varnish followed by more weathering!! I'll be posting some examples of weathering on real BTR-80A's and 80s pobably today.

Thanks for reading,

-Karl187-

As I said earlier today I thought I'd post some references dealing with the weathering of this vehicle (and hopefully these will come in useful to anyone else wanting to build an 80A).

Most sources I've consulted say that production of the 80A began in the early 1990s, with some supposedly entering service by 1994, allowing it to see service in various areas in the North Caucasus throughout the late 90s and beyond. As far as I know it has also seen some action in Sri Lanka and there are probably a few other places aswell.

None of the vehicles I've seen could be described as 'rust buckets'. The Russian ones get pretty dirty but they seem to be in fairly good condition. The Sri Lankan ones (I read they only have 5) less so but again, not to extremes.











The pictures above (taken by Vitaly Kuzmin- there is some great stuff on his blog http://vitalykuzmin.net/) are of a Russian ODON vehicle taken around a year ago. As you can see the vehicle is not all that badly beat up.

The good thing about these pictures is the camo scheme is bright enough to show the chips and scrapes up quite well. As you'd expect this is mostly around the hatches, the crew access areas and where they would walk on the vehicle, as well as expected scraping on the hull front.



As you can see on the Sri Lankan example the chipping is worse, although I suppose you have to bear in mind that the Russian example is recent and likely was not in any action (at least not right before the photos were taken) whereas the Sri Lankan one was taken at a time of fierce fighting between Tamils and the Government.

I’m planning on chipping my vehicle to an extent between these two examples.
At the moment I’m still going through sources for reference on the dirt of vehicles in Chechnya and I’ll post a bit about that before I do it.

Thanks for reading,

-Karl187-

Unfortunately some health problems kept me from doing the dryrbrushing and chipping until now. But its done now. Pics:



















The dryrbrushing was done with Vallejo USA Olive Drab for the dark areas and Pastel Green for the lighter bits. The chipping was done with Black Grey. At the moment the chipping and dryrbrushing appear sharp and harsh, especially in the lighter areas of the model but remember this is before any real weathering and the subsequent stages will tone it all down and bring it together.

The dryrbrushing and chipping were kept mostly to areas that would receive heavy foot traffic, entry and exit points, shrapnel scrapes, and general dings and dents. The drybrushing is done with a suitable old brush and the chips were added first with a sponge and then more defined chips were added with a brand new pointed brush (I use Tamiya HF but a 5/0 or so would suit).

As you can see some other bits were painted too including the vision ports (the pre-cut masks and Vallejo Liquid Mask didn't work too well!), tools, headlights at the rear and front etc. I always glaze the lights when a kit dooesn't come with clear parts- Deluxe Materials Glue and Glaze is good.

So the next stage is to add a filter before satin varnish and then the rest of the weathering.

Thanks for reading,

-Karl187-

For the filter I was thinking of using a mix of oils but I was reading an article by Mig recently where he used Streaking Grime, diluted with White Spirit, as a filter. So I thought I'd give this a try myself as I liked the color. I experimented on the bottom of the model with this and the result was pretty good.



The consistency of the two streaks on the left is roughly how diluted a filter should be. (The two streaks on the right are the normal consistency of this product.) I would say at this particular consistency two coats would be good and it worked for me.

Here's what part of the model looked like before the filter:



And here's what it looks like now after two coats:



As you can see its not as concentrated or heavy as a pin wash and it just subtly alters the color and brings everything together.















I'm doing the decals today and I'm getting a base sorted (more on this later).

Thanks for reading,

-Karl187-

karl looking good the chips are looking beter on my last build i tryed what mig did at the show he add this chips after he dose his washand he uses acrylic wile the model still oily and he gets some realy nice chip's hope you are felling better
dave

Dave- Thanks for the kind words. In relation to chips I have no real set-time or place to do them- it changes depending on the model. I find with darker colored vehicles its better to do chips after the wash but with brighter ones I tend to do them before. Whatever works for you, thats what I say!

I thought when I got this kit the decals looked a bit yellowed but they turned out to be fine. Most of the references I saw had the numbers in different places (and there were a few different styles as well) but I opted for the locations I'd seen on a couple of vehicles- namely the rear bottom left and side access door.
If I'm not using Johnson's Klear to seal the painted model I'll usually brush it on where the decals are going as they settle well on it. I always use Micro Sol and Set too followed by some more Klear once the decals have set. Then I airburhsed the satin varnish from the modulation set.







The base I've chosen for the BTR is a little gem from SB Scotia, their Urban Diorama Base. It could depict pretty much anywhere, comes in a single moulding and has plenty of detail.



I had begun to paint it up as a Baghdad/Iraq War base but the model for it got wrecked and binned ages ago and its just been sitting. I re-primed some parts and began to paint it up again.





The barrel has a coat of hairspray on it over the dark brown/rusty color and over that I'll be spraying Gold Yellow and then chipping it.

Thanks for reading,

-Karl187-

Too late now but there is one thing you did not notice. The BTR-80A does not have the front right firing port.

Quite right Tony, definetly too late to change aswell. A tricky fix too given the position and raised weld detail there.
Still, I said earlier I would try to get some references etc together for others wanting to build the 80A.
A few inaccuracies with the kit have also been pointed out earlier on this thread (there are a few more problems with the underside of the hull covered in an 80 build on here some time ago) so if I have time after the build I might do a list and bring them all together in one place for quick reference.

Cheers,

-Karl187-

karl quit right it was just a thought i like the bace this is realy comeing along nice
dave

Sometimes when we want to find a certain thing we actively go looking for it. Other times we just blunder across it. I just blundered into something weird.

Let me explain:

Remember this:



After I posted these pictures I hit this with hairspray and then sprayed Vallejo Gold Yellow over it, planning to use the technique to make the barrel look good and rusty.

The thing is, this happend:







The hairspray stripped away all three coats of Vallejo acrylic, including the blue coat that had been on there almost a year!! It stripped everything down to the Tamiya Primer. The weird thing is it stripped it away as if it was Maskol (liquid mask)- i.e. you could control it. The brand of hairspray was Bristows Conditioning Hold:



Was it a fluke or a random mistake? I wanted to find out. So...

I flipped the base over and sprayed some Vallejo Primer onto it. Then I painted on some dark brown Andrea acrylic (similar, if not identical to Vallejo) and then some of the Bristows hairspray. Once dry I sprayed some Vallejo Yellow Gold over it and waited for that to dry. What happend?

Same thing- all the acrylics came off right down to the base- and very easily too with a little water added. You could basically rub it off with your finger, like maskol or liquid mask.

I then bought another can of hairspray (a different make) and tried out the same thing over Tamiya primer and some rust colored Andrea Acrylic. This brand (like other brands I've used) performed in the normal way in which the hairspray technique works- i.e. leaving the acrylic underneath the hairspray untarnished:



Weird right? Anyone else ever have this happen?

I reckon this may prove useful somewhere so I'm going to try and get a new can of this Bristows Hairspray (none left) and experiment a bit more!!

I hope this has been an interesting diversion from the build !!

On the build front I'm currently doing a wash and should have some photos later.

Thanks for reading,

-Karl187-

The wash is now done. I also applied it to the colored part of the wheels. I used Mig Productions Dark Wash and some thinner.













Next up is fading with oils.

Thanks for reading,

-Karl187-

Comes along nicely. Thanks for the detailed posting of the process, one can really see how everything works together...

Thanks Marian, much appreciated.

karl your right the chips are loking a lot better another great build
dave

Dave- thanks again mate!

For some reason or other I really enjoy fading. I love weathering models but fading is a particular 'like' of mine. I first tried it a good while ago now and totally messed it up. We'll chalk it up to 'experience'! The good thing about fading is that it is very forgiving. You can wipe everything off and start again if you mess up.

The first step is what colors to choose. To be honest, you could choose pretty much anything you want, it's always good to experiment. For me it depends on what color the model is. If its green I'll usually go for a white/very light brown, field or dark grey and a muddy color. (If its yellow or camouflaged I would alter these choices again, although I usually end up sticking with fairly similar colors, just applied differently.) Then I always add a brighter color, for this it was an orange color.



As you can see I used Abtielung oils for this but any good quality artists oils will do. Before this build I would usually put the paint out on paper but I recently read cardboard absorbed the oil better and speeded up drying times, and it does. I also use three brushes- a small fine brush to add the dots of paint, a rounded brush for horizontal/flat areas and a flat brush for vertical/angled surfaces.

There are some basic guidelines for fading that it is good to follow but they are not set in stone and variations work well, like I said- experiment and see what happens! Basically put the lighter colors near edges or raised areas that would naturally catch the light and place darker colors closer to details etc. Its always best to do a small area at a time- this way the paint doesn't sit on the model for too long (as it can cause stubborn stains). Some moisten the surface of the model with thinner before placing their color dots but you don't have to. I didn't in this example.

You should aim to place small dots in the required areas- not too much paint (but you can always wipe off or blend in any excess) and then blend it in with a thinner moistened brush. Don't have the brush dripping with thinner- just moistened with it (gently dip it onto a paper towel after placing it in thinner to take off any excess fluid). For horizontal/flat areas you should blend with a round brush in a circular motion. For angled/vertical areas you should blend in an up and down motion with a flat brush. But remember not to blend too much as it will take the color off completely. The paint shouldn't obscure anything beneath it but it should make a visible difference.

Here is a panel before fading:



Here's the color dots ready to blend:



And here is the finished result:



As you can see the difference is not garish- it is a subtle change in the panel.

You can also use fading to play about with the contrast of the model. If you think an area is too dark you can add just light colors for fading and vice versa in a dark area. You don't have to use loads of colors either- one or two can do the trick.

So here's all the fading done:


















I also got the chipping done on the barrel on the base:



So next up is to add some streaking grime. I'm currently waiting on AK Interactive's new mud effects set- I'm planning to use this on the lower hull and on some of the groundwork.

Thanks for reading,

-Karl187-

Great job Karl!

I like it a lot!