How about that

Painting has begun, and even though the mine rollers seemed like the least fun part, I decided to start with them. 

Everything was sprayed with black Mr. Surfacer, this was very important because it'll help to establish fake shadows in those tight places (and there's a lot of them!), and as a small test, I sprayed the metal tracks with mahogany primer. I think it's a pretty good base coat for subsequent mud weathering! 

So, paints. I only managed to lay down some sort of "shadowed" base coat on the BMR, this was done with AK Real Colors modern Russian green sprayed in a loose cloudy pattern. I kept it like that for now, I'll start lightening and post shading it tomorrow. Instead I focused on the mine rollers because I had a clear vision for them from the beginning (I'm still not totally sure how I want to shift the color of the BMR). 

One of my references show the rollers very faded and bleached to a dull yellow color on their ends. So I started with the same cloudy pattern of modern Russian green over a black primer, but then I added a discolored layer with another AK Real Color, modern Russian grey green. This was then lightened with Tamiya Dark Yellow, followed by dirt outlines with a mixture of black and brown (sort of universal grime and dirt color used for post shading around crevices and details), and then another lighter coat of the previous mixture with Yellow Green added. All sprayed tightly in small dots, streaks etc. Finally a coat of chipping fluid and pure Yellow Green as a faded gradient following the reference photo which I'm using as a loose inspiration. This was of course worn down with water and a paintbrush, and I also sprayed the rollers with German grey as a quick base coat for their exposed steel surfaces. 

Now I just need to paint the electromagnetic mine detonators in a more "fresh" color (another idea from another photo) and I'll move on to the BMR itself. 

As I said in the past, this time I want to try some different approaches to painting and weathering, so once all this post shading/distressing is done, I'm thinking about adding a layer of textured earth, some subtle pre-dusting, detail painting, a pinwash, and then I might actually jump straight into dust and mud weathering! This actually might be the legendary forgotten "no chipping project" which I mentioned in the ball tank series 😅

Oh and I also recently purchased a particle mask, damn it was helpful during the priming stage, my studio was like a gas chamber filled with lacquer vapors!