The Workbench
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Academy M113 "Fitter" Part III
Wow. This thing turned out better than I thought it would. I went a little overboard weathering the lower hull and wheels, but it's probably the most subtle job I've done so far. And the rubber tracks are just horrible -- I'd definitely invest the time to assemble the individual links next time. Heck, I may come back to this one some day and redo the tracks. But I'm still happy with the result.
As I said I'd do last time, I started with a pin wash of black/brown oils. I didn't have a lot of time, so I figured I'd clean up the wash a little better the next day. Well, one thing led to another, and three days later I finally got around to it. I did the best I could without stripping the paint, but it's still a little sloppy. Next time I'll factor cleanup into my schedule.
Then I used heavily thinned Tamiya Flat Earth in the airbrush to add some Rwandan road dust. Is it the right shade? Who knows. I wanted to be sure I got dirt on the hull behind the wheels and ended up spraying a couple of the wheels too heavily, so I gave the rest a heavier coat to even things out. Of course, that left the upper hull sides looking too light... But, it could have been worse, I suppose. Even so, the dirt washed out the wash on the undercarriage so I went back with the oils and did it again.
Then I got out the chalks and mixed up some brown, rust and tan to resemble Tamiya's Flat Earth and used a brush to get dirt behind the wheels. I should have done that in the first place. Next time...
To get some dirt on the tracks, I added some water and a small drop of dishwashing detergent (to break the surface tension) to the chalk mix to create a wash. That turned out pretty well. It was the end of the evening and I was tempted to declare the thing finished, but I was still unhappy with the chassis. It was too brown. So, the next day, I broke out the Tamiya Flat White and Buff and mixed an off-white with which I dry brushed the wheels. For some reason, it took off the Flat Earth paint, so I touched it up as best I could and left the rest well enough alone.
I also tried going back over the upper hull with a pure Flat White dry brush. I thought it might stand out against the sloppy wash, but you can't really tell.
The last step was to dry brush some silver on he tracks. I use a silver Gundam marker for the paint because the pigment is much denser than the Tamiya acrylics. Then I got my graphite stick out and went over the crane hook, the tracks and some of the edges on the upper hull. I used a cotton swab to paint the graphite on and wasn't happy with the result. Next time, I'll go back to using my finger to rub it on.
I added a couple streaks when I was doing the wash, but only a couple. I was trying to keep the model looking only slightly more used than my reference photos. That's why I was disappointed in my heavy weathering of the chassis.
Oh well. I still think -- with a big reservation over the tracks -- the Fitter is the best I've done so far. I've got a Dragon tank crew and I'm thinking about trying some figure painting. Maybe they've just found a track to call their own...