¹⁄35

Building a B1 Centauro

Painting and decaling
If I enjoy quite a lot to detail and to scratchbuild I cannot say the same for what concerns painting my models. Believe it or not every single time I get to this stage I'm so depressed that I have to convince myself that I have to do it al least for two days! Once I managed to do so I primed the model with a general purpose acrylic primer I buy at my local art craft store; it's cheap, I can thin it with water, I can add to it any acryl paint to get the color I want (usually I add a couple of drops of black to have it gray insead of white)  and, most important feature I can airbrush it. Once dried I pre-shaded the model seams, crevices and inset details with Tamiya XF-1 (Flat Black). Then I gave a coat of Tamiya XF-1 (Flat Black) on the tires. Once dried I masked the tires with low tack masking tape leaving only the rims out. Then I applied all over the model and the other parts not yet glued (like the MG cradle) a coat of a mix of Tamiya XF-67 (NATO Green - 3 parts) Tamiya XF-2 (Flat White - 1 part) and Tamiya XA-20 (Thinner - 5 parts). The next step was to give a couple of coats of Future to the hull and the turret to prepare it for the decaling and a wash.
I wanted to depict a vehicle belonging to the "Cavalleggeri Guide" (19°) Regiment of the Italian Cavalry, one of the most active in the international peace keeping missions scenario. As usual all the decals I put on my models are printed by myself using an Alps MD5000 or an Oki DP5000 printer. Being the decal support so thin I don't need any other setting solution than... a drop of demineralized water that allows to move the decal in case of wrong positioning. I dip the decal in warm water for 15-20 seconds then I take it out and let it rest for another 30 seconds over a piece of kitchen roll then I slide it onto the model in the desired position. Once the decal is properly positioned i just roll over it a humid cotton dub just to be sure that the water left under the decal is removed and then I let them dry throughly. After this I give, only on the decals, another couple of coats of Future to properly seal them.
For what concerned the headlights two of them were ok so I painted them with Tamiya X-11 (Chrome Silver). The other two looked very ugly so I made them using the technique shown in this thread.