Suit painted and diorama finished!

My friends, I finished the diorama and started painting the Melusine. About time, too! 

There are only a few details in the diorama, but the larger scale meant they required more attention and care. I was especially pleased with the shovels, and luckily, I managed to hide the visible print layers on the metal parts with some mud. This also integrated them into the terrain, so it was an absolute win-win! I'm still considering the muddy bottom of the trench, but that will be easier to do once I'm ready to glue the Melusine in place.

Now for the suit. Let me tell you, these are not easy to paint! Everything is rounded, and the shape of the model/figure makes handling quite difficult. Especially when it comes to the camouflage. I can now understand why there's a consensus to paint these camouflages with a paintbrush! 

So the base coat of this thing is Dull Green, and I tried a different recipe than on my A7V. Everything will be shown on video, don't worry :) There wasn't much to post-shade, either, because again - rounded shapes, not too many surface details. The camouflage is ochre. I used Syrian Desert Yellow from AK RC, and highlighted it with Deck Tan. I duplicated the camouflage layout from the box art, just changed the colors to a WW1 German palette. Oh, yes, I painted the Panzerfaust in German Grey to add even more WTF to this project :D 

Markings really helped this model, although misfortune was on my side. I found the kit decals to be quite stiff and thick, not even the super-aggressive VMS softener was able to do its magic to its full potential. The large cross on his back is from Meng, and this one was much easier to adapt to the rough surface (although it doesn't show now on the pristine model). The worst part was the skull, but it was the most important decal here! It comes from Takom (Freikorps decals for their Whippet), and it's just as thick as you'd expect from this brand! I also hand-painted the name Nixe 2 as a reference to one of the A7V tanks. 

Note how the color palette of the suit and the trench is completely different, and they don't blend together AT ALL!!! This is a very interesting situation. Normally, I start by painting the model first, because sometimes you have to adjust the earth tones to its camouflage (greyish tones on German Yellow, yellowish dust on Panzer Grey), and then you can paint the groundwork accordingly. Here I'll have to reverse the process and use weathering techniques (all of them!) to add a warmer hue to the model, and finally use the same earth tones to effectively blend it into the scene. It's gonna be fun!