Camouflage, decals, and... wood!

My friends, where to begin.... my plan was to get the model ready for pin washes, and just look where it took me! 

I started with the camouflage on the turret. This pattern is nicely visible in two photos, but only on the right side. I went with a dark sandy color, highlighted with Light Earth and Deck Tan. Yup, all of that with a brush! (I guess figure painting has some benefits). Then I gave the entire model a subtle post-post-shade with AK's Black Brown ink applied with an airbrush which also helped to add some shadows to the camouflage. After that, I applied a couple of decals on the rear and sealed the model with satin varnish.

It should've been clear at this point that the Star Decals set for King Kong is utter trash. Yes, the lettering is reproduced quite faithfully, but the quality is just... bad. The decal paper is thick, and the print is even thicker. I should've seen that the moment I applied the name on the vent stack... but nope! Stubborn I thought "I already paid for those, so I better make the most out of them!" 

And with that, I proceeded to test-paint the right side of the wooden armor. I used the same approach as on my previous facade, but it wasn't working quite right. I spent way too many hours tinkering with it to no avail, so I finally decided to screw it and apply the decals. And this is where things got really nasty. Somehow I thought I'd be able to adapt the extremely stiff and thick decals to the woodgrain texture. Nope! I couldn't even get them to sit in between the individual planks! So I decided to peel them off, but of course, this damaged the paint job because a decal softener was involved. Oh well, I repainted the damaged areas and decided to hand-write the names with a brush. After that was done, I decided the whole thing looked like crap. I mean, this greyish-wood finish works on an old barn, but not on a Marine tank. You can see what I mean in the last photo. 

So I proceeded with the rest and adjusted my approach. I didn't rely so heavily on the black ink and dry brush with pale colors, instead, I left the base coat to show through. My goal was to get some tonal variation between each plank and to make them look fresher. Well, some rather fresh, others a bit older, but definitely not greyish-white. The results looked WAY better, so today I repainted the right side as well. The lettering took me a few good hours as well, but I was already tired, so one side is painted too high, the other too low, but damn it... I think it looks okay! :D 

I mean, the lettering is up to interpretation. We can only see the front-right name in one photo, and a small portion of the rear-right name. The left side is a complete mystery, and a photo from the front shows only the letters KO on the plywood, so we can assume the name was painted there as well, but the shape of the letters is unknown. In hindsight, I could've painted everything (including the vent stack and the water canister) by hand and saved myself some nerves and around 10 euros. 

And yes, all of this madness happened just because I wanted to get the decals out of the way and start playing around with pin washes :D The finished wood looks kinda odd on a freshly airbrushed tank, but I'm sure things will start clicking together with the upcoming techniques :) 

Also, this was one of those situations where I thought about letting it be the way it is - the damaged and front side very presentable, the other side the way it was. After all, that side will be facing the forested vignette, so not much of it will be visible (probably). But it was also an opportunity to get some really good practice and memorize this approach so that next time I'm faced with a similar finish I'll be more confident. It reminded me of mountain biking - if you hit a scary feature, don't be satisfied with hitting it just once. Do it 4-5 more times during that session until it's a piece of cake. The next time you'll be on the trail, you'll be much more confident. This was kinda similar :)