nightshiftmodeller

Ready for paints!

My friends, the Sicaran tank is ready for painting. In fact, it's already broken down and covered with Mr. Mahogany primer at the moment :)

You might've noticed that it doesn't have a commander figure in the turret. As I was assembling him, I noticed it was just a torso with a large cork-stopper-like bottom that goes into the open hatch. But unfortunately, that feature would be painfully visible. I know that we can cheat a lot with paints, but I'll try to paint this model in a more rea...

It's beefy!

My friends, here's some progress I made until Friday. As it turned out, the tank is actually quite big! Assembling the hull was more fun than the track sponsons because there was much more variety in details and also, no repetitiveness.

You'll probably spot that at some point I said "Screw realism" and just went with the flow, adding interesting stuff where I found it suitable. After all, when you think about it, the tank would either have no room for the engine compartment or no room ...

Let's get this show on the road

My friends, yesterday I started working on the Warhammer 40K Sicaran Battle Tank. I did a full assembly on one of the sponsons where I tested ideas and approached it more like a concept. Then I duplicated each step on the second piece.

I had to figure out what to modify and how much should be changed. First of all, these tanks are made up just to look cool - that's the entire point. There's not much realism in them, and it can be hard to get over that fact when you're used to historica...

Early video

Just like the old days, my friends! Going to sleep at 4 AM just to finish it in time! :D

Sadly, I didn't manage to film the intro in time. But you're not missing much, just me making a couple of train puns :) I'm going to film it today in the afternoon.

Finished

My friends, here's the finished diorama. It was SO. MUCH. FUN. from start to finish! I'm hoping for more similar projects in the future!

But right now, it's time for the next project, the Warhammer tank built and painted in armor modelling style :) With more focus on the realistic look.

HD photos

Now you'll have a nice collection of BEFORE and AFTER shots, unpainted and painted :)

Almost there!

My friends, we're almost done, just the lamp post remains.

The most off-putting part was painting the rail ballast, but it wasn't that bad! I sprayed it with Deck Tan and gave the whole patch a generous black ink wash coupled with a few stains of enamel earth effects here and there. Then I just picked out some of the individual stones with different shades of grey and sand.

The small clutter was a bit tedious, especially the trash can. Here I started with a zinc-plated effect do...

Pancake ready, base underway

My friends, the loco is finished using the same methods as the cabin.

After the wash I proceeded with natural scatter in the corners fixed with Balladt Freeze, then some airbrushed dust with Buff, dry-brusing with a dark rusty color on every edge, some moss deposits on the undercarriage (enamel Slimy Grime) and finally, rust streaks with oil paints.

I started painting the base without the obligatory dark primer, starting with the concrete wall and then the foliage. The rails nee...

Chipping away at the exterior!

My friends, the outside of the pancake locomotive is coming along steadily. I'm using the same methods as on the inside, it's just a bigger area to work with :) As a result, I spent more time on some of the painting steps.

For example, the rusty base coat was post-shaded a little more, and I also added some extra texture with speckling and random application of Lifecolor rust acrylics. The worn green paint on the cabin also has another layer of worn white and olive green. I observed th...

That might do just fine!

My friends, the interior was a quick job and more of a testing ground for the ideal techniques.

The chipping was done with hairspray, and most of the rust effects are painted with an airbrush. Hull Red and Flat Yellow from Tamiya are the ideal rust combo!

Details were outlined with a dark enamel wash, worn edges and the floor plate were drybrushed with Rotbraun and Black, junk on the floor is a combo of real earth, leaf scatter and random leftover PE from a Tiger, and the rust s...

Off to the painting booth!

My friends, here's the completed scene ready for painting.

I included more animals from the Mantis Miniatures set - a rat, and a couple of pigeons. The dumpster with the cat had some casting flaws which had to be fixed with Green Stuff, and also the handles were easier to replace from scratch.

The lamp post is from RT Diorama, but it also comes with ceramic insulators! Now that is a nice detail, but where should I draw the electric lines? It looks odd when both ends are suddenly...

HD photos

It would be a crime not to photograph the entire scene in its raw state :)

This is becoming the most fun diorama ever

My friends, I've been working on the scene since Friday and it's close to being ready.

A circular base was the best option here because just like the VW Beetle, it allows you to observe the model from all directions and there's no front, sides, or back. I used a hot glue gun to secure the veneer, and although it led to some problems, it's a pretty good method. The only downside was the glue starting to cure too fast and the veneer not sitting perfectly on the styrofoam, which led to qu...

After som metal work

My friends, the pancake train is finished and ready for painting! But before that, I'm going to construct the diorama as well! Firstly because it's fun to get all the construction steps out of the way and then focus solely on painting, and secondly because I like how an entire scene can look in its raw, unpainted state.

IMO the metallic additions are what made this build truly interesting. The roof was a simple replacement, but I forgot to shoot the braces on the inner side that I meti...

Tall boi gets taller

My friends, most of the basic construction is now done. What remains are some details and parts made from copper foil - the roof and some improvised weather shields seen in the original photo.

I also solved the issue with access to the interior by making the entire rear wall easily removable. However, I’ll probably have to paint the interior first, then glue and fill the wall, and paint the exterior. But we’ll see!

Also, I love the improvised nature of these old civilian sub...

Let's go!

My friends, here are the initial construction steps on the rusty Breuer IV rail shunter.

The undercarriage needed a lot of filling and sanding, and also some tedious work due to the nature of the abandoned locomotive. I noticed that most components have been removed from the real machine, and that includes the four covers on top. These have to be cut out and the material needs to be thinned from the other side, so that took me a couple of hours. Other than that, this part has been buil...

Early video

Fresh off the press, enjoy!

HD pictures

The final dot after this project! :) Well, except for the diorama video that comes out for you tomorrow! :)

What's cooking?

Well, my friends, here's the next subject: a rusty pancake locomotive (an old rail shunter) from AK!

Here I want to have fun with the rust effects, faded paint, my first work with a railroad scenery, and most importantly, all those small weeds growing around it. I even bought some animals to accompany it, so I can't wait to crack the kit open! It'll most likely sit on a circular base, just like the rusty VW Beetle :)

Photo credit goes to the author signed at the bottom of the im...

Finished!

My friends, this long project is finally at its end. As a finishing touch to the diorama, I added a bunch of paper plants from AK and Model Scene, and, of course, two very important background characters! I finished the scene last evening because the Easter weekend turned out differently than planned.

The majority of this project has been plagued by some problems that were happening outside my modeling studio, but I think most of them have been sorted and I'll be able to approach the n...

After some brush treatment...

My friends, the vignette is almost ready. At this point, I just have to make some finishing touches, add a few more details, and paint the monkeys in the background. A baby monitor lizard is already chilling in the foreground. These animals come from Mantis Miniatures, but sadly, the set dedicated to Asia wasn't in stock, so I took the African one, and I'm just painting them as animals that live in Asia and the Pacific.

As for the rest, I did the obligatory enamel washes + drybrush on t...

After a few hours of airbrushing...

My friends, the scene is ready for detail painting and enamel washes. This time I experimented with a bunch of different green tones, and I gotta say, if you don't have the basic Flat Green from Tamiya, you're definitely missing out!

I used various combinations of this color with Yellow Green, Buff, and Sky. Even some diluted X-15 Light Green was applied on those tiny weeds made from static grass and Fine Turf.

The ground was simply airbrushed with Buff, just like the pre-dustin...

Vegetation

My friends, here's the vignette ready for painting! The additional palm leaves still didn't arrive (probably tomorrow) but in the meantime I can focus on airbrushing all the foliage on the ground!

There's the usual static grass of different lengths, but in some places I added a bit of Fine Turf on top of it to imitate all those short weeds growing on the ground. It's not very visible, but I hope paints will change that!

Probably the most important addition are two natural dried ...

Rumble in the jungle

My friends, this is a story all about how I ruined an entire diorama and had to make another one!

It's also a good tale about the importance of good composition! And even though both scenes are similar, it's the small differences that are truly important. An example - the hill behind the tank was too small in the first scene, and because I'm going to add a couple of monkeys in the diorama, there was no space for them. On the other side, the recessed area in front of us was too large an...

Early video

Happy Easter! Happy Spring! Happy, Happy Everything!

Easter eggs... a little bit too early, but just in time!

My friends, here's a quick fun project I've been planning each year, but never found the time because I was always behind schedule. 

I mean, it's just for laughs and giggles.... but I actually managed to learn something! For example, it was a good practice for OD, 4BO and German two-tone post-shading, I also had some more practice with the new AK inks (this time I even used white ink to highlight the German tactical number), and lastly, I managed to compare the quality of decals fr...

Early video

Enjoy and let me know your thoughts! 

This time I tried to implement a few "live entries" from the studio with my thoughts. As I found out, my studio has terrible acoustics so I had to mess around with equalizers in post. How do you like those segments? 

HD photos

My friends, the video is ready and although this must've been the most complex video edit (you should've seen the different audio/video channels in the project file 😂) I managed to finish it rather quickly considering its length!

So here are the studio photos I took on Monday. The video is uploaded and scheduled for tomorrow :) 

Sun’s out, guns out

My friends, the crew is ready, and boy, painting them long arms is the hardest job ever!

It’s hard to believe, but this concludes the Sherman and I can now put the video together and then build a vignette for it!

This is probably the first model where it’s clear the tank is on the move and the crew isn’t just chilling, but focused and rather concerned/stoic.

I mean, King Kong is mostly photographed in a mountaineous area, so let’s suppose the tank is climbing Moun...

Figure painting warm-up

My friends, the driver is ready and he doesn’t look stoked 😂

It seems that the goggles should’ve had a green tint but my bottle of clear green dried up, so I went with the next best thing.

And yes, I painted his entire torso just so no one would ever see it 💀