1/35 Miniart AEC Mk.II blog - update 2

Here's the next update, sorry for not making an update earlier but I'm really busy with school.

Last Saturday I attended a local modelling show and won 3 medals for my 1/48 P-51D, 1/72 A6M2b Zero and Su-100 ( one gold and two bronze medals). I'll have to edit some pictures and they should be in the next blog update, now back to the 1/35 Miniart AEC Mk.II;

   I decided to paint what Iv'e constructed so far, usually I would wait until I have assembled all of the interior parts but with the little time for modelling I decided to go this way. First I masked of the glue mating areas so I don't have to scrape off paint later in order to glue them. I cleaned the surfaces with some alcohol ( especially the photo etched parts) and started to apply Vallejo white with my airbrush ( I decided to use no primer, since the one I had was darker than the original plastic and there won't be a lot of touching the paint so I hope it will stay on). After 5 hours of drying I decided to add the gloss coat so I can start with the weathering. My gloss coat of choice is the Alclad aqua gloss which is perfect for this. I let it dry overnight and started with the weathering.

  I'm not sure If this is only my problem, but I had hard time finding inspiration how to weather white surfaces. I went online and just searched for some old white vans and trucks. The process was started with a home made filter and AK Interactive's interior streaking. It was applied as a filter and then removed with a brush dampened in white spirit until I was happy with how it turned out. I didn't want to weather it too much, just as a vehicle that has been used by the crew for some time. Next came washes, I used AK Interactive's dark brown and interior wash ( first I applied interior wash to all details and later dark brown was applied to the parts I wanted to make more noticeable). After everything dried for around 10 hours I started with detail painting as per instructions. I chose Lifecolor US tank brown for the cushions and Vallejo black for the shells and steering wheel. In the end I drybrushed everything with a lighter tone of the color.

Thanks to AK Interactive and Miniart for the samples.

Kind regards, Sven.