whats the best way to simulate mud on armored vehicles

Go get some dirt, and mix it with wat... sorry, I couldn't resist. I like mixing talcum powder with thinned brown paint, preferably enamel. Something to keep in mind is that if the tank is not actually in the mud or rain, some of it will be in the process of drying, so upper parts of the mud will have dried a more yellowish brown, whil some parts will still be a wet reddish brown. Click on my selected link below and go into the Bradley folder to see how I did the partially dried mud on that. I don't think it looked good, but others said they liked it. Make sure you coat the running gear and tracks thouroughly. Again, if the tank is not actually in the mud, most of the rubber on the road wheels will be showing through as it will throw the mud of when it starts to dry just the slightest bit. Add rain and water streaks, for effect.

This reply was very unorganized.

Rob

Just joinning to the topic....
What about a tank in the end of the winter, the mud must be all fresh and wet, or, it could be fresh, wet, frozen, dry, etc....????????
Just a question, but I´m finishing Panzer IV in this very condition, any tips?

I was just experimenting with some Liquitex high viscosity artist's acrylic paint - it's pretty thick so you can gob it around like mud. Looks promising, though I haven't actually tried it on a tank yet. I imagine you could mix pretty much anything into it you wanted. Even put it on a toothbrush and run your thumb over the bristles to splatter it around.

You can try to use household spakle. You can either apply it as is and paint it or add color to the spackle then apply it. I honestly don't recommend this for big smeared areas, it's more for clumping and clodding up running wheels etc. You can use gloss or semi gloss paint to keep a 'wet' look to it.

Here is a way to simulate wet mud (this actually looks better on a base than on the vehicle):
Mix white glue with crunched instant cofee powder. You can also add some water to make it more "muddy". Too me it haves the right color and it kinda flows like mud, and it smells good too.

Cheers,

CDT Reimund Manneck
U.S. Army ROTC

Ah, my favorite thing, Mud!
I have to agree with CSM Rob... baby powder (ok, TALCUM powder ) mixed with brown enamel paint works best for me; I prefer to use MM 1736 "Leather" because of the favorable results... Also you can substitute gloss brown for fresh wet mud and drybrush the high spots with something like Armor Sand to simulate the surface of the mud drying.

Paulo, if the mud is frozen, it will look different than if it is wet or dry. Instead of being a rich reddish brown it will be a darker choclate brown with a grey-white hue or cast to it. I would use something close to Shokoladenbraun and then dry brush a grey-brown color over it, to simulate frost. The rest of the tank would probably be a little frosty too, and I am not sure I can explain what a frost covered car looks like to a Brazilian. Does it ever get that cold down there? Maybe it does, I don't know. It would also have developed icicles of a muddy nature, where the mud had dripped down a little before it froze.

Wet would be semi-glossy, and dry would be flat. Frozen water is glossy unless it has frost on top of it. Frost would be a flat white layer of condensed water that has frozen, but it is sparkly, too, and I don't know how to make it sparkly. Micro-balls, maybe.

All this would apply to frozen spring conditions where it thatwed a little then froze again. If it has just barely thawed and not re-frozen, then it would be the reddish brown type mud, with only a little of the grey-white hue. This isn't so much to be accurate, but to give the impression of temperature. TV commercial makers will give their commercials a blue white tint to make them "feel" cold, and this is what you are trying to simulate.

I hope I have helped.

Rob

To add to what gunner said, leather already has a semi-gloss finnish, so that is useful.

I haven't done it yet, but I intend to try mixing brown oils with pastel chalk dust and perhaps some static grass to create mud.

Nic

I used old testor filler putty and mixed it around then air brush some brown over it. it turned out to look like mud and all my friends agreed with me . (:-) any other sugestions?

well this is the way I do it too, if the tank went real deep in the mud on a field the mud could contain some gras or leaves and roots of plants.
So i add a little static gras when the paint is still wet. Than i take off gras until it looks realistic. So the brown gras are the roots and the gras with almost no paint is the gras.

anyway for the color make sure the color is that of mud found in the region the tank is operating, look for those wonderfull nature books.... just joking.

Wish I had some esoteric home-brew to offer here - but that's been covered (no pun intended)

I simply use Hudson & Allen's MUD mixture. It comes ready to use, just mix with a bit of warm water. It already has a powdered adhesive compound in it - so it'll stay where you put it. It's thin enough to look like mud in 1:35 or even braille scale - without looking like 6" thick gobs of glue. You can spatter it by flicking it off the ends of a toothbrush. And, best of all, when dry it looks like dried mud. I acheive the "wet mud" look by simply spraying Dull Cote on the areas where I want variation. The lacquer returns the product to it's wet appearance, and it stays that way. If you chip at it gently, you can uncover "dry mud" underneath again.

I've also had success mixing in pastel scrapings to change the basic color of the mud too.

Gunnie

How about celluclay? Would this work if mixed with a little water, a drop or two of dish washing liquid and the brown paint of an appropriate color, then adding the static grass to it while it's still wet? Or would the Cellulcay be somewhat out of scale for 1/35 vehicles?

Just wondering as I would like to do some mud as well and this above has been bouncing around the old brain box for a while.

Take care, sgrity.

Hi
You've just described (almost) a mud mixture Bob Tavis showed me.
The base of my knight in the figure campaign was made from this, and I have a Churchill in progress in one of the galleries with the mix on it.

I use celluclay, brown paint, acrylic matt medium (instead of white glue), tea leaves (optional), static grass (optional), dirt and sand. You can add kitty litter for small rocks.

It works great, and doesn't look out of scale.

Cheers
Andy

how does this look, I plan to airbrush it but mines not working it won't suck up the paint

There are a lot of thecniques. I think each modeler has one. You can try diferent ways of making a good lookink mud but make it simple! Mix some Tamiya putty or similar with a little of fine sand or dirt that you can pick up in your garden an add some cetone, when all well mixed appliy it with a brush where you want the mud to be. When the mix gets well dry, paint it whith earth-siena oils colours, then after a couple of days to let the oils dry, then airbrush whith some dark earth to obtain the dust looking, this is an aimportant step you have to obtain a subtle efect. Then some drybrushing with a clerared mix af dark earth and that´s all.