Ready for water!

And I have a disaster in the making! But first things first.

I finished the Panzer by painting all the details and adding some earth effects. Just as I said in the last post, it was real earth, some natural scatter and then dry tones on the turret + dark damp tones on the hull. 

The groundwork was painted partially! I primed the grass with mahogany brown primer and then airbrushed it as usual, but the earth was only post-shaded with Dark Yellow and Buff. This created some awesome texture on the eroded river bank and the result looked so convincing I left it like that, no enamels or anything else. 

The tank was blended into the fake bottom of the river with more earth and everything was sprayed with Khaki. That's what you see in the photos.

Immediately after I taped the sides and sealed the bottom with Still Water as usual. Nothing suspicious here, it only made a few cracks near the bank, but the same happened in the JS-2 diorama. 

So I proceeded to mix the resin, 60ml with 5 drops of Khaki Drab. Poured it in, this amount was just enough to flood the entire lower hull, with one extra very translucent layer remaining to go all the way up to the side turret hatches. That's gonna be done tomorrow. 

And now the problems and possible disaster in progress. As I'm typing this, there are still air bubbles coming out of the bottom in a few places. Mainly where the bank meets the fake bottom and from the radio operator's hatch. So I'm constantly hitting those areas with a blowtorch, but I'm now sure there will be bubbles there in the morning. Also, this is not the only first disaster with epoxy for me. The weathering on the lower hull changed its color from that dark brown into a rusty tone! Not a bad thing, it looks pretty neat, but it's a mistake and I don't know what went wrong, and it definitely shouldn't do that. 

Lastly, because I didn't prime and paint the ground, it absorbed a LOT of resin, turning a good third of the bank dark and glossy. Not a bad thing either as I would create that effect afterwards, but it clearly demonstrates how painting the groundwork can have its benefits. 

Well, keep me in your thoughts and prayers tonight, my friends, I think everything's gonna be alright in the end, I can always hide the bubbles with floating debris, large leaves and stuff, but there's still a chance we'll get our first "How I ruined a diorama with epoxy resin" video 🤣