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Building the Dragon 251/17 w Schwebelafette

Painting & Weathering

The road wheels were mounted on wooden cocktail sticks and sprayed with a pre-shade coat of black, as was the vehicle, gun and tracks. Dark yellow was then misted over, but as earlier when painting the inside, this was concentrated in the middle of panels and around details. Dark yellow paint ‘overspray’ onto the tyres and other parts would be addressed next, by brush painting with Vallejo acrylics. The vehicle was then given a gloss acrylic coat, before again using a thin wash of burnt umber oil paint in white spirit to accentuate detail. This is quite a time consuming process, but the gloss acrylic coat stops the wash from spreading too far from where it’s applied, and allows mistakes to be cleaned up with a clean brush and some white spirit.
When I was happy with the effect I selectively dry-brushed areas with an enamel matt black. Although matt, when used to dry-brush, it gives a subtle sheen that represents worn metal quite well. Next it was the dry pigments again, allowing it to build up around rivets and detail. I then applied tiny touches of raw burnt umber oil underneath external detail so that they could be ‘dragged’ down with a clean brush to simulate rust run. Again, this is an effect that is easily overdone, and is used sparingly. The tracks simply had pigment powder ground in over the black basecoat using an old brush, as did the two front wheels.
When fully assembled, a very fine coat of matt varnish was misted over the entire outside of the vehicle.

Additions

Aside from the base kit, I intend putting the 251 into a diorama later, so I had decided to ‘dress’ it up with various bits and pieces. Along with a rack for storing MG42 ammunition drums, there is a belt ammunition container on the rear bench, a belt of ammunition in the gun itself, an Eduard MG42 strap on the MG42. Two magazines were hollowed out to represent empty magazines and placed on the rear bench, along with an MP40 pistol. There is a newspaper hanging over the sidewall, and a mess tin open with spoon, scavenged from one of Dragons’2nd Gen figure sets. The left over track links were attached to the front of the vehicle with fine wire. In the rear open storage box above the left fender, there is a toolbox, oily rag and various spanners and tools. Hope you like it, it certainly turned out to be one of my most enjoyable builds for a while!