Distressing!

Hey friends, finally back at the workbench! 

I did a couple of initial distressing layers... it took way longer than on the T-90 😁These are the first 2 layers - the lightest one at the bottom, and then the "medium" one on top. 

Now you might notice that the turret roof is a little softer. I made a few goofs there so I fixed them with a very light coat of the first light layer, which I then chipped like usual... and that's kind of the effect I'll be doing tomorrow on the rest of the tank (and also more on the turret roof)... to make the overall texture a bit "softer" and more detailed. I'll be also probably adding some darker tones around corners, again everything will be done over a layer of chipping fluid. I kinda want to make this distressing more involved as it feels like I'm starting to find a good workflow, not just with this technique, but also with the subsequent techniques - for example, what I learned on the T-90 is that you pretty much don't need any oil dots blended over the surface, in fact they can hide a lot of the effects if they're applied too heavily.

Also, I haven't touched the concrete yet, that will be done once the main body is finished, because I want to make it look like the extra armor was painted over, so it'll be a slightly darker "fresh" shade with chips revealing the concrete color, and again some texture and all that goodness.

I'll be also airbrushing some stars on the turret sides, but I'm a bit torn between two ideas, so help me out on this: chipped white stars, or oversprayed with olive drab? 🤔

Oh and also, I wanted to make the OD really worth it, so I had a call with my friend who's like the OD guru in our local modelling community, and he helped me to come up with the recipe, so here goes: Tamiya Olive Drab mixed with Flat Earth (because the new Tamiya OD is very green and doesn't look anything like OD, more like SCC15), this was then lightened with Dark Yellow (this is my go-to "dark" tone), that mixture was then poured into a separate cup and I added a lot of Deck Tan (that's the "mid" tone you're seeing on photos), and that was then poured into another cup and I mixed in pure white (that's the "light" tone). 

The stoke levels are high my friends, can't wait to continue tomorrow, and if everything goes as planned, this will be definitely getting its own episode!