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A Tale of Three Jeeps

Painting and Decals

For painting I attached all the separate small parts, including the wheels to toothpicks for easy painting. All parts were then painted in my usual method: First an overall coat of Tamiya XF-1 flat black which serves as a primer and at the same time as pre shading. Next came a coat of Olive Drab, consisting of a mix of Tamiya Olive Drab (XF-62) lightened with Dark Yellow (XF-60) at approximately a 60/40 mix (though I do not measure this exactly). Detail painting was done with various Tamiya, Humbrol and Vallejo paints.

Next was a coat of future as the base of the decals. I do not like Tamiya’s decals very much, but used them anyway. They are the thickest of the three and have an overly large carrier film. I chose the decals for the 814th TD Battalion. DML of course has only one option and the decals are the superb Cartograph decals we’ve come to expect from DML. Bronco’s decals are also first class, thin and with a very small carrier film. I chose the 82nd Airborne Division decals. I used decal-setting solution for all kits to get the decals to conform.

The decals were followed by another coat of Future to seal them for the washes.

Weathering

The first step was an overall wash of Windsor & Newton Raw Umber oil color and – once this was dry – a pin wash with the same color.

I tried to do individual weathering of each vehicle according to the unit and time it served.

For Tamiya’s I assumed a heavily weathered Jeep that had been in action for some time, placing it somewhere in the spring of 1945 in western Germany (though – granted – this does not conform to the instructions, which place it in January 1945 in Belgium). I added some heavy dirt from Mig pigments and fixed them with future. I wiped off the most excessive of this from the wheels and the body sides. Once this was dry, I added a lighter shade of Mig pigments (sand color) directly from the jar to give it a dusty look.

The DML kit is clearly placed in the Battle of the Bulge and therefore winter 1944/45. I assumed this to be a more muddy appearance and followed a similar pattern as with Tamiya – but without the dust.

Bronco’s, being from an airborne division, would have been in use only a short time and therefore I considered it not to be too dirty. Therefore I tried to limit weathering to a more dusty finish and a little dry mud along the wheels, to allow for some rain.