Chipping!

My friends, the scariest part of this paint job is turning out to be not scary at all! It's natural to expect that chipping a model like this would be an inhuman task... but if you break a large problem into many smaller ones, things won't be as daunting. 

So my thinking was that I don't wanna spend a week chipping this thing. It was also one of the most expensive and valuable devices in the German army, operating far away from the front lines. As such, it wouldn't be as beaten as a regular tank. So I started by focusing on the most exposed areas - ladders, the edges around them, handrails, etc. Because this was a rather quick job, I then expanded the chips on some of the less exposed, but still visible edges of various components. 

I was very hesitant to chip the perforated walkways. Here I'd definitely use the dry-brushing method to bring out the perforated pattern, but I was afraid it would make them significantly darker. The result might've become the same thing as if I applied a wash into this pattern - overly dark and unnatural. So here I'll have to rely on earth effects to bring out their texture. 

What I ended up with is a (in my opinion) reasonably chipped hull that took no longer than 4 hours! It definitely helped that I didn't start with a layer of light chips, of course. This is something I tested on the Toyota pickup and it proved to me that you don't always need a layer of light chips if the base coat is bright enough. Sure, the chipping will lose that 3-dimensional look, but on the other hand, apart from being a much more bearable task, the chips will have their own "gradient" of sorts. In other words, they'll be most visible on the lightest parts of the model, and more subdued in the shadowed regions. And this kinda works together with the whole post-shading thing, I think! 

Up next, chipping the cradle and the mortar, and this should be much quicker as these parts aren't walked over by the crew all the time!