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In Over My Head

Painting and Weathering

Once construction was complete, the process to painting and deciding on weathering was at hand. I chose to paint the blade to this dozer as a separate sub-assembly allowing me to add some contrast with a different color than the M9 itself. The M9 model, minus the blade, was primed with Vallejo’s NATO Green (70.612) primer first. The blade was primed as well, but with Vallejo’s IDF Israeli Sand (73.614) primer. The blade itself was the quicker of the two paint jobs as IDF color is a perfect starting point to the desert coloring I was looking for. A couple of lightly applied coats of Model Air Sand (71.075) was all that was needed to jumpstart the blade. My thoughts for the final coloring to the M9 was that of the tri-color NATO camouflage scheme. It’s no small secret that I actually dislike doing camo schemes, but sometimes there is just no other option. After applying some highlights with Model Air Pale Green (71.095) it was time to layout my camo pattern. Not wanting to put too much thought into this, a little poster-tack molded into position covering all of the areas I wanted to remain green, the brown coloring position of the camo came next. As I did with the previous green colors, I laid a darker base of NATO Brown (71.249) followed by some highlighting with Burnt Umber (71.040) and a light dusting with the same Burnt Umber Mixed with a couple of drops of Antique White (71.132). With the next layer of poster-tack applied, it was onto the black color of this camo scheme. The first color to go down was NATO Black (71.251) which was followed up with a dusting of Panzer Dark Grey (71.056). The tonal changes in the colors is subtle; just enough to remove the paint job from looking too much like a factory finish yet also keeping it from looking too old and faded.

Still not sure what the end result of this project was going to look like, I wanted to at least add a bare metal surface to the front of the dozer blade. This was accomplished through the use of some of Vallejo’s new Metal Colors. I laid down some Gloss Black (77.660) primer. The gloss black helps bring out finish to most metal colors. Once the primer had dried, I hit the surface with the color Steel (712) followed closely with accenting from a little Chrome (707). Once all the metal finishes had a chance to cure fully, I used some Chipping Medium and layered some of the Sand color I originally used on the blade attachment to give a worn look to the paint edge.