It's gotten a bit dusty! (Patreon)

My friends, I finished painting the details (and tracks!), and added some dust... with acrylics!

Now, there's the obvious question - why would a factory fresh tank awaiting a layer of paint get dusty? Well, the reference photos show that the tank was really filthy. You can see spots of dust all over it (pretty thick in some places) and it's also covered in stains of oil and grease. But I didn't get that far yet! :)

My theory is this: it's possible that they drove each vehicle for a short distance to test if everything worked correctly. It's also very possible that some components were stored outside for a while. And lastly, a factory hall is not a dentist's office, and there's dirt and oil everywhere.

So why did I decide to simulate the dust with acrylics? I kind of missed those nicely defined streaks of dust on vertical surfaces. And it's quite hard to replicate that look with enamels. So I went back to the good old acrylic rain marks, but this time I didn't use a Tamiya paint + water + soap mixture like in the old days, but instead AK 3rd Gen acrylics mixed on a wet palette. Their super matt texture is perfect for the effect!

So as I said, I'll finish the model with stains of oil and grease and attach the tracks tomorrow. Speaking of which, they were blackened with VMS Black Track, then I airbrushed my Tamiya Hull Red + Flat Yellow rusty mixture on some of the links, and generally in very thin layers over the entire track, added some speckling with rusty oil paints, and finished them off with an acrylic dust wash. Here I found it easier to pre-moisten the tracks with water and an airbrush, and after that, the diluted acrylic paint was absorbed around details just like an enamel wash would do!