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US Tractor Part Deux

Pieter started on this a while ago and the first half of his build was featured here: US Tractor. He has now completed the build and offers the following comments:

First a word of thanks to the replies, it encouraged me to change some things on the model (f.i. the defective “waterbottle” at the filter house) and to continue modelling with the goal of an old, abandoned tractor in mind! As usual I base painted the complete sprues with my slightly lightened Tamiya Hull red. I find this a good way to see any flash and it fits well with my goal: Rusted. After that it was to hairspray technique for several sub-assemblies and followed up by weathering with rust colors (see list).

After combining these sub-assemblies I used pigments to blend the colours and get a realistic look. The dozer blade was painted, and some paint removed using the hairspray technique and treated with the contents of an old bottle of AV Oxide primer I have, which color stands out well against the rest of the rust scheme.

After much debate I decided to install the “hood” above the engine. First it was treated with a Dremel tool and coarse sanding paper on the inside for a thinner appearance for more realistic denting and rust eaten portions. After this was painted with spots of several different rust colors a coat of hairspray followed by the gray color, then I used a, for me at least, new technique, Blue Tac. I took a small portion, stretched this and pushed the thin end against the line were the removed paint was. After this I hold it firm and pulled the rest away. This would give me a kind of rolled left over paint line. After some mistakes (blue tac can easily be removed) it looked like rolled up paint and after painting it in the light gray color. I hand painted the Blue-tac with gray and the rest was weathered.

The nice part comes when you, very precisely, put a very small line of Burnt umber/Burnt Sienna along this rolled up “paint” line. It will give much more dept onto the lines then painting the transition line with just paint.(

Used material: Tamiya XF-9 (several bottles lightened with f.i. XF-7, XF-2, XF-57) Artist pigment (redbrown) Tractor color: XF-25 AV Oxide primer (old bottle, paste like solution) Rust powder from Vallego (3 colors) Light and dark Rust Vallejo 301/302) Light green oil paint (dilluted as wash) Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna Several pastels (burnt Umber, green, burnt Sienna)

All there is left is to make a small diorama with Bamboo, tropical vegetation and the DEF figure of an old man with buffalo.