nightshiftmodeller

Early video

The magic of friendship and oil paints binds us all! 

Lower hull = done

My friends, it sometimes hurts a bit to see how little there's gonna be visible from that lower hull you've poured so much love into 🥲

But nah, seriously, it was actually rather simplified and kinda rushed because I knew this. I applied all 4 layers without waiting for them to dry,  so they kinda melted into one another during the process, which is fine in a place like this. 

On the rear plate for example, there I only applied the first layer (same with the glacis at ...

Let the desertification begin!

Ma frens, I'm finally back at the workbench, and to do some muscle stretching, I started with one side of the running gear. Sort of testing out which colors will work and what effects to use, you know. 

Well, turns out having the entire running gear as a sub-assembly is indeed awesome! Painting details isn't so fun, but weathering definitely is. 

The base-coated assembly (which you can still see on the other side of the tank in the background), received a generous wash o...

HD photos

T-55 is getting C R I S P Y 

Ready for dust and rubble!

My friends, the most time consuming part is finally done (at least I hope this was the most time consuming part 😁)

I tried something new on the tracks... as you can often observe in reference photos, tanks operating in the desert don't have polished tracks, not at all. I've done this effect already on the T-90 and the Crusader, but this time I wanted to try something else, so I painted all contact points with silver and then gave them some rusty oil paint washes. The result provides ...

Early video

Let's look at HS chipping and those shady Shaders! 

Stowage (well, most of it)

My friends, painting tarps and stowage must be the most relaxing thing in the world! 😁 Interesting plot twist when we consider a year or so ago it was all stowage phobia. 

The only downside is that it sometimes takes ridiculous amounts of time. As an example, the small red tarp on the fender took 40 minutes to paint... yeah, puts things into perspective! 

But it's a very liberating process because you can mess around with any paint mixture you can imagine - adding gre...

Rust effects

My friends, here are all metal and rusty surfaces finished. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do much work over the weekend as I was really slacking off. The weather is finally warm (about time 6 months in...) and it would be a shame to stay locked inside all day, so I only worked on small bits here and there. 

However, I found out an interesting thing. No matter how much I tried, I wasn't able to make rusty oil paints work for me. Either I'm used to enamels too much or they just ble...

HD pictures

My friends, I completely forgot to post these the last week! Enjoy the T-55 in its "clean" state 😊

Early video

"Let's gooo!" - Gandhi 

Pin wash

Mah frens, a chipped and post-shaded model + one round of pin wash can lead to some interesting results! Especially when it's done with an oil paint, because this allows you to quickly add further stains and grime passes. 

I used Sepia paint from 502 Abt. and I left it on a piece of cardboard for about 5 hours before starting. Pretty cool things happened during this time! The paint dries faster than enamel wash, so yeah, you need to work in smaller sections and proceed more swiftly...

Alright, I couldn't wait...

... so I brush-painted all the weird stuff! 😁 The airbrushed base colors were really... too much, even for me, okay 😁 I mean, sure it still looks unusual, but at least it looks more like the real thing. Those white sandbags were really fun to paint, I even spiced them up with color strips and some Arabic letters. Blue is something we don't work with every day so that was more hard to work with, but at least they now have that dirty and faded look. Once it's covered with dust effects, I ...

Pfizer hit me like...

... "psst, hey Martin, you should paint the rebar and all the stuff behind it first, weathering can come later, oh and paint the sandbags turquoise!" - at least that's what Bill Gates told me through my brand new 5G chip in my left arm! 

Well, my friends, I've decided to base coat the sandbags, cement bricks, and the rebar cage because this was going to be - and it truly was - the most soul-draining part of this project. Especially painting the rebar. You don't truly know how shaky...

Pretty wild camouflage

My frens, here's one of the uglier camouflages I did in my life 😆 I had a few options which you'll see in the camo profiles I did during the night, and one thing about Syrian paint schemes is that... they're really ugly! From paints being used to patterns and style of application. A lot of times it looks like they took regular household paints and just slapped them randomly over the entire tank, and in some cases it had to be done by more people, each having their own idea about the finish...

Re: early video

Frens, those of you who have problems playing the new video, try watching it on your browser  and/or computer. I'm getting an error message on my phone app too, but it plays fine on desktop :) (I presume it's a temporary error on Patreon or Youtube app). 

Early video

Aight, from now on I want to see everyone photoshopping the crap out of their models! 😂

S H E E P S

Mah frens, here's a way to get the chipping done in one day 😁

Doing the "real" hairspray chipping after so many years was helluva refreshing, and it eased my fear of losing control over the effect. Overdoing it with distressing is alright, but going too heavy with actual chips can be kinda unpleasant. Luckily, Syrian armor is great for such practice. I'll put a camouflage on top of this tomorrow, I already have a color profile ready. 

The most important and quite game-chan...

HD photos

Here's a batch of proper pictures from Monday, enjoy! 

Filming the latest video was tough, but...

... I survived it! 😂And in the meantime, my order has arrived. 

Tomorrow I'll finally start painting the T-55, and it's gonna be all done with hairspray chipping, including the actual chips! Then I'm very stoked to try out those Ammo shaders. After checking out Mig's video with them, I'm really curious to see how they perform compared to DIY post-shading mixtures.

As for the video, I filmed that detailed guide about photography and editing. It was more complex than the usu...

Some fresh 3D details for your printing pleasure

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1Qz8uvCPM9AihsbJxO_t19NvahY4SEPAn

My friends, here are some simple bricks in 1/35th scale but more importantly, T-55/T-62 fuel line connectors! I modelled those in 1/48th scale so keep that in mind while printing, you'll have to make them slightly larger in the slicer software for 1/35th models. They're designed to fit a 0.3mm wi...

And we're ready for paints

Mah frens, after much deliberation I decided this is gonna be good enough. I added the fuel lines, some wires and cables here and there, and a bunch of missing bolts punched from pewter foil. 

Stowage is completely 3D printed, because as you might've noticed, accessories in 1/48th scale are quite scarce! It's all stuff which is available for free on Thingiverse. Except that one blanket on the front mudguard which comes from Eureka XXL, although it's not in the same scale, but who w...

Early video

Oh my, forgot to schedule this post! Here you go, grande finale of this project! 😁

REBAAAR

My friends, this part was a real rollercoaster! So first I obviously finished the turret with remaining details from the kit and handlebars from wires, nothing special, right?

Then it was time for the rebar cage. Having done this already in the past, I knew how to proceed. However, this being 1/48th scale, using a 0.2mm wire for the rebar would be a bit out of scale, so alright, where do I get thinner wires? So I ended up dissecting an old electrical cable full of roughly 0.1mm wires, e...

Let there be texture!

My friends, some progress has been made. The tank seems empty but I'm actually running out of parts on the sprues! 😁 Partially because there's not too many of them and partially because some are gonna be missing, such as all external fuel tanks except one, all storage boxes except one, also the wading stack on the turret will be missing, etc. 

At this first stage I kinda want to assemble the whole model out of the box and then focus on the handmade stuff. I'll probably start wit...

Let the new project begin!

My friends, the next model will be a Syrian T-55 in 1/48 scale from Tamiya, because it felt like the best choice - a simple slammer build of a modern subject with loads of weathering possibilities. It's gonna have that rebar cage armor which I mentioned, and some other nice details as well 😊 I'm also gonna try a different approach to running gear. Instead of keeping the tracks and wheels separate, I glued them together as a removable sub-assembly. We'll see if it makes things easier! ...

Some photoshopping fun

Couldn't decide which background to use for the thumbnail, so I made two pictures (in the end I'll use the second photo which is clearer in a miniature picture). 

So this is probably the last post about the T29E3, onwards to a new project! :) 

So guys we did it

My friends, this journey has reached its end. It was a long one and I'm thankful to all of you for sticking with me thorough the entire process! 

There were several details which I think would improve the diorama, but in all honesty I just wanted it to be finished. I thought about adding some bricks and roof tiles on the ground, but at the end of the day, they wouldn't turn the scene into something completely new and different. Having it all done, I'm very happy with it. So much ha...

HD photos (loads of 'em)

My friends, this colossal project is finally at its end. As a thank you for sticking with me thorough the entire build here's a ton of pictures from all kinds of angles 😊

Early video

Barn painting! Pure, endless fun! 

Detail painting and enamel weathering

My friends, the groundwork is almost finished! I still need to outline some textures and details with subtle shadows, but for that I need oil paints and they're currently draining on a piece of cardboard 😁 

I'll also probably make some of the grass tufts more dry because when combined with colorful plants and weeds, the whole vegetation is TOO happy! 

Also, the ground was painted the usual way - using the same earth colors like on the tank. These will have to be appli...