Sd.Kfz 184 Ferdinand (Dragon 6495) Chapter 2: Paint

Continuing on from the build in Chapter 1 way back in 2020, it has since been primed with Tamiya’s rattle can red oxide fine surfacer. It's a perfect foundation for German armour, especially if you fancy employing the hairspray technique. 

 

After carefully washing the finished model in soapy water, then rinsing and letting it dry overnight, it took about three light passes of primer to get a good coverage over the entire model. This was then left for 24hrs to cure.

  

The whole model then received a couple of fine coats of Tresseme’s fine mist hairspray and allowed to completely dry. 

 

For the base coat I used Tamiya acrylics. I started with a mix of XF-90 and XF-60 for the lower hull and running gear. Moving upwards, neat XF-60 was sprayed over the lower hull. A mix of XF-60 and XF-88 was then applied higher up onto the casemate, and on the engine deck. Then a pure coat of XF-88 was airbrushed onto the very highest areas followed by a mix of XF-88 and X-2, sprayed from above to highlight the upper surfaces.

Letting the paint cure for an hour I set about carefully agitating the hairspray underneath with H20 and my selection of chipping tools. As most surfaces only received a light coating of the above mixes of paint I could still maintain a decent degree of control over the minor scratches, scuffs and scrapes that I applied.

 

The Tamiya primer held up fantastically well and at no place on the model did the primer lift down to the plastic, even after scratching the surface with cocktail sticks and airbrush needles. So far so good😀

Various raised detail components of the model such as outer hatch plates, handles, rivetsc and fixings, were brush painted with Vallejo Acrylic mixes of buff, yellow, and sand colours, to give some tonal variation to the surface detail.

 

I then moved onto the Masterclub metal tracks. These use resin track pins. Their size and shape appear accurate, and the detail is good, but as already mentioned above, the pins are not tapered so the majority of them simply fall out whilst handling! A thin coat of brushed on acrylic paint over the pin ends kept most in place, but I did have to resort to a dab of superglue on others!

Once fully assembled I cleaned the tracks carefully with a toothbrush and soapy water and after letting them dry overnight I used Solid Scale Solid Track burnishing fluid for the first time. 

 

 

 

It only took a 2–3-minute dip for the tracks to change to a nice dark, dirty grey colour. A perfect tone to start off with. After cleaning off any remaining fluid agent in soapy water, then rinsed and dried with a hair dryer, they were treated to various enamel washes. To start the next stage of weathering they were speckling with  acrylic and pigments mixes.  

Initial weathering steps on the tracks

The next step was one I hadn’t tried before. Adam Wilder painted a Ferdinand and on his blog stated that - after applying the colour modulation technique, although pleased with the contrast obtained, he felt that he no longer had the desired dark yellow hue he was aiming for. This he corrected by airbrushing a very thin clear coat of Tamiya X-24 over the model. This has the effect of re-establishing the yellow tone to the base coat. As I really liked the effect he acheived this was a perfect opportunity to see how this worked in practice.

The Balkenkreuz and tank number decals were added, then with a 50% mix of X-24 and Tamiya acrylic thinners, I proceeded to airbrush the whole model with a light covering. Once dry I was very pleased with the results.

A pin wash was then applied with a fine brush, This  consisted of various Abteilung 502 brown toned oil paints thinned with their odourless turpentine. 

 

After allowing the oils to partially dry overnight, an angled paintbrush dipped in Abteilung turpentine (with most of it wiped off) was used to carefully remove any overspill of the surrounding paintwork, blending in any remaining oil to create soft transitions. Any excess oil paint left on the brush can be utilised to create fine streaks and rain marks down verical surfaces. 

 

Excess oil wash blended out

 

 

The brush painted highlighted detail really pops out against the darker pinwash

 

 

Three images highlighting how the yellow clear coat can subtly alter the appearance of the finish under different lighting conditions.

 

The plan as of writing is to present the vehicle sitting on a heavy duty 6 axle 80ton rated railway platform wagon after an aerial bombardment, having arrived at the bridgehead before any field applied camo was added. I will upload a seperate build post of the Sabre Model SSyms just as soon as I am able.

 

Chapter 3