As I would like to represent this vehicle in a late 1944 ETO setting the wet and damp conditions will require a darker coloured pin wash to add to the muddy running gear and lift the contrast to the monochrome base coat. More vibrant colours will be added by way of the accessories in the load area.
I’ve never attempted a muddy finish on an AFV so this is going to be interesting. Watching a few videos and taking inspiration from the guys that like to build vehicles set in eastern European theatre it was clear that to pull this off I would have to step carefully.
My first choice was what materials to use. The AK acrylic textured weathering mud is a product I like and their dark mud in particular is a nice authentic tone, and would fit perfectly into my late Autumn 44 setting in Belgium. It is also easy to clean up if I take things a little too far! The first steps are to add some texture and looking at real muddy tank images the wheels at the rear seam to pick up most of the track dirt that is kicked up and propelled over the upper track run.With this in mind I would leave some wheels cleaner than others.
To get my eye in I started with the underside of the load bed. I could experiment with both quantities and the positioning of the products without worrying too much as only a fraction of these areas will be visible. I also added AK acrylic light mud to a few selected areas. I added this after the dark mud but soon realised this had to be the first layer upon which subsequent darker layers were to be added.
Once the acrylics had dried, I used AK dark mud enamels and blended them with white spirit. This product was a fair bit lighter that their acrylic mud colour, so I went back over selected areas with the Acrylic mud thinned with tap water. Much like with weathering tracks I then used the speckling technique, using AK enamels with a small amount of MIG dark mud pigments to add some texture. This all looks very messy, so I let it dry up and started work on the tracks and wheels.
The tracks were first primed with Tamiya Fine Surface and then base coated in MRP-034 tank grey. I then randomly washed on and then speckled my pre-mixed acrylic rain wash. Once dry an application of AK acrylic texture mud and sea grass was randomly added, smoothing over the cleats trapping the mud in between, so I didn’t get too much build up.
The
main
running wheels received far less overall mud texture and I favoured just
adding
it to select parts. Learning from my mistake on the underside of the
loadbed the effects were added in stages slowly building up the layers.
First a random application of light mud textured paste and
after it was allowed to dry dark mud texture was added. This was
followed by blending insome AK enamel dark mud thinned with white
spirit.
Early stages of mud application
The steering wheels received a slightly reserved first application.
The sprockets and idler with a heavier build up of AK textured acrylic
mud between the spokes.
The next steps involved adding speckling of mud to the wheels. A mixture of AK dark mud splatters and MIG dark mud pigments were mixed together and applied with a cocktail stick and brush. Keeping the speckling random and just to selected areas was my aim but it is tricky without masking so a fair amount of clean up is required to keep the effects in scale.
This is the first round with
two slight variations on the dark mud tone and one lighter one.
The sprockets and idlers with clumps of AK textured acrylic mud between the spokes.
The next round of both speckling and mapping will need to be more precise. I will also mix some oils to highlight raised detail and claw back some definition and add some grease and oil stains to the hubs.
Beginning where we left off, I first tidied up any rough areas on the chassis legs so the running gear could be fitted. Before any more weathering could begin the wheels and tracks had to be fitted. I had used the kit individual links, and they were a little tricky to build around the wheels and be kept separate for painting. In hindsight I think a set of Friuls would have been a better option. It would also have been easier to fix all the swing arms to the chassis minus just the outer wheels.
Before the tracks were fitted, I added graphite with a pencilto the inner portions of the tracks where the tyres and wheels made contact and also to the sprocket teeth. A silicone sculpting tool helps safely and smoothly spread the graphite along the runs and onto both sides of the track teeth. As my swing arms and wheels had still to be fixed, I had to both line these up straight on the chassis and ensure the tracks lined up as they had pre-paint. This is never guaranteed, and they both put up quite a fight. I ended up using CA glue on the tracks and the fit to one of the sprockets and over one of the idlers wasn’t ideal and I will likely look at improving these. On the plus side having so much mud around the running gear means it was much easier to blend over all the new attachment points.
The steering wheels received some enamel washes and pigments should round these off in a future step.
Now the running gear was all attached I could now begin adding further weathering effects. Each wheel was dealt with separately, tidying up any overscale effects and adding both rust, oil and grease effects with enamels. The AK texture mud was also used again but in minute quantities just to blend in areas that required a little improvement. As I was conscious of how fragile the track runs were I just used pigments and kept the washes to acrylics only.
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