I've been telling a few people about this little project for a while now, so I thought I would take a few quick photos of it. The kit is Model Victoria's resin 47/32 AT gun that comes with an Italian Paracadutisti (from the Folgore Division) crew. Model Victoria includes a bunch of accessories with it as well, but all I have shown here is the gun, which is completely built, painted, and weathered, and the figures, who have only received their base coat thus far. The pictures don't show the weathering job I did to the gun very well, so I added a slightly blown up picture at the end that is a bit better. Though there was a fair amount of clean-up involved (as with most resin kits), the build is quite simple and the few pieces that there are fit well.











I hope you like it.

Nic

Folgore,

That's a sweet looking AT gun. What kind of base (if any) are planning on putting under the thing?

Mika

Thanks Mika. Fortunately, Model Victoria also sells an AT gun emplacement separately to go with this model. The emplacement consists of sandbags piled on top of various boxes and crates. I will place this dug into the ground with the gun firing from behind that cover. It's supposed to represent the stand of the Folgore Division at El Alamein where they held out against the British as long as possible to give the Italian infantry (who were without motor transport) time to escape. The Division was pretty well destroyed in the process.

Just in case anyone is interested, I will go over the method of painting and weathering I used, as I tried a few new techniques (okay, actually I'm just bored and want to keep typing). After a coat of Testors grey primer, I applied a base coat of the same company's Italian Sand colour, followed by a lighter shade by mixing it with Sand. Basically, though the gun is very small, I did a cloud pattern with the airbrush, mainly just to give the gun some variation in colour. I then did the detail painting (the sight, etc.). The next thing I did was something new for me. I like to paint with watercolours, so I have some Winsor & Newtons already. I made a wash/filter out of these, adding a bit of detergent to deal with the surface tension. I wanted to see if watercolours would work, because they are much easier to use and I wouldn't need a sealing coat between basecoat and wash. I used a mixture of Payne's Grey and Burnt Umber and brushed it over the entire model lightly as what some would call a "filter". I found if too much water was used, it tended to puddle up and, when dry, leave ugly looking marks on the model. A relatively drybrush was better (in other words, you don't want to soak the thing). Then I made the wash a bit darker and applied it as a normal wash around certain details and in panel lines. Watercolours worked well for this small project, but I'm not sure that I can recommend them for larger tank models as they can be finicky with the marks they leave. Next, I lightly drybrushed with Armour Sand enamels and brushed some pastel dust on. Dark red-brown pastels were used basically as another wash to put in the nooks and crannies of the gun, as well as strenghten the demarcation lines where the gun tapers down. The muzzle was brushed with a mixture of black pastel dust and graphite from a pencil. Finally, I sprayed some Testors Dullcote and it was done. Quite simple, really.

Nic

Nice work Nic! I'm interested in the wash technique since I use acrylics exclusively. I've never been very successful though but I'll give it a try again.

Keep in mind that watercolours are different from acrylics. Watercolours are naturally transparent, rather than being opaque. I have tried a wash before with acrylics thinned with water and with a drop of detergent as stated above, however, and it seemed to work all right.

Nic

Nice job, Nic!

That gun carriage looks very fragile. Did you have much problem cleaning it up?

Also, about the watercolors -- did you attempt to work the offending "marks" with more water and/or detergent to blend them? I'm curious, because I've been thinking about trying watercolors for weathering.

Lord Nic,

This is very fine work again. I like your choice of modelling subject. they are very interesting. I wish one day I will do an Italian subject.

Them gun has no shield, must be hair rising to have a duel with a tank firing that gun.

Good work. Nic.

Meep. Meep. Meep!

nice work, looks great, thanks for the wash info too

Bender

Like it - man there's no question about that.

That technique is GREAT. You could drop that in a reference book and not think twice about it.

There's another technique to put on the 'gotta try it' list.

Yes, if you don't let them dry for too long, you can fix the marks just be going over them with a slightly moist brush. The key seems to be not to have too much paint/water in the brush. I think you might be able to apply the watercolours as a filter to a larger tank or something if you used a flat brush and took some of the moisture out of it first on a paper towel. A good watercolour brush will hold a lot of paint and last for a long time without drying out, so you should be able to do it without making any streaks. I'd practice this on an old model first, though. I wish I had a picture of my gun after the basecoat before applying the watercolours, because they totally changed the appearance from this light bright gun with little variation it it to a dirty dull little beast.




I guess. These guys are going to be crouched behind some sandbags, as I said before, so that's about their only protection. The wheels came off for firing as shown.

Thanks for the responses.

Nic

Hiya Nic very impressive ATG! Iwas so impressed with that technique you laid out that I printed it out to add to my book of tricks! Keep on modeling Nic I always enjoy looking at your work. :-)




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