JGSDF Light Armored Vehicle Part III

Where was I... Oh, yes. I just finished ruining the decals and decided to use the LAV as practice for weathering. There was a great two-part series by Matthew Usher on weathering in the Oct/Nov 2004 issues of Fine Scale Modeler on applying a wash, dry brushing, and weathering with pastel chalks. There're lots of pictures and step-by-step instructions. What could possibly go wrong..?

Just on a philosophical note, I've come to the conclusion that washing and dry brushing aren't absolutely necessary for a good looking model. On the other hand, it's like stage makeup. In the 1960 debate between Nixon and Kennedy, Nixon without the makeup looked good, but Kennedy looked great. Washing and dry brushing dramatically highlight interesting detail that otherwise might get lost in a military paint job.

The first thing I wanted to try was a wash. The basic idea is to get some contrasting colors -- dark in my case -- into the cracks and crevasses of the model in order to add depth to the details. Following Usher's instructions, I went out and bought some artists oil paints (ivory black (huh?) and burnt umber), some thinner, and a plastic mixing palette. I put a dab of burnt umber and a little black on the edge of a palette well, filled the well with thinner, and mixed the paint in until I had something that looked like "strong black coffee" as per Usher's instructions. So far, so good.

Then -- also as per Usher's instructions -- I "covered the model thoroughly" with the wash. Don't do that. I'm not sure why -- maybe it was the mineral spirits I used as thinner, or some reaction with the decal solvent or the paint -- but where the wash pooled and dried, it left a sticky, gunky, ugly looking residue. I tried wiping it off with a soft paper towel, but that just rubbed the acrylic paint off. In the future, I'll just apply the wash directly to the nooks and crannies and wipe off the excess immediately.

Ugh. The decals look like crap, and the wash is a mess. Could this get any worse? Sure. I decided to skip the dry brushing and try the weathering chalks. I figured a nice thick coat of Iraqi dust was the only thing that could save this once beautiful model.

Once again, as per Usher's instructions, I went out and bought some sticks of artist's pastels: black, rust, brown, and a yellow that looked close to a sandy color. I rubbed the brown and yellow into a piece of sandpaper and mixed them until I had something I thought looked good, then took my biggest brush and started painting the LAV with the chalk dust.

I hadn't attached the wheels yet, and I gave special attention to the wheel wells and the bottom of the body where the wash gunk had pooled and I had wiped away the paint. It looked pretty good. I even added some black to the exhaust pipe. I didn't do any rust, because I figured my LAV was right off the assembly line and deployed straight to Iraq. It was just dirty, not decrepit.

The "sand" looked so good that I went ahead and gave the wheels and tires a wash with some water-thinned Tamiya buff paint. Oh, yeah. I got 'em good and dirty to match the chalk-weathered body.

At this point, I was ready to seal the chalk dust on the model to keep it from rubbing off every time I picked it up. I didn't have anything to mask the windows, but I figured it didn't matter because I was using clear paint to seal it. Flat clear paint.

After the paint dried, the chalk effects pretty much disappeared and you can't see through the windows anymore. Aiyaaah! Now I have a light armored vehicle with really dirty tires and a factory fresh paint job. Wah lan eh! I could go back and add a few more coats of weathering chalks -- and I found out later that's what you're supposed to do -- but I was so disgusted at that point, I just declared "mission accomplished" and put it on the display shelf.

BTW, I tried stretching some sprues for antenna wire, and failed (there's got to be a better way, surely somebody sells pre-stretched sprue or something). I may revisit this model at some point -- it really was a great looking model before I mucked it up -- but probably not. And if I ever meet Matthew Usher, I'm gonna punch him in the nose -- then buy him a beer for giving me the encouragement to try something new.

My new maD sKilLz
I scratch built a lift ring out of a sprue tab
Used acrylic paints
Tinted the windows with Tamiya clear paints
Super glued plastic parts to the metal chassis
Drilled holes with a pin vise drill
Painted a wash with thinned oil paints and acrylic paints
Weathered with pastels

Tools Used
Humbrol Precision Poly Cement
Super glue
Sprue clipper
X-Acto knife
Pin vise drill
Tamiya acrylic spray cans and paints
Gunze Sangyo's Mr. Mark Softer
Artists oil paints
Pastel chalk

References
Box art

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