THE reference book about Model Building, Painting and Weathering

(versión en Español)

Some people asked me where I did learn all the techniques I shown in the Painting and Weathering Tutorial. There is also some interest about good written material on the subject (AKA: books on paper).

Well, those people are lucky because in fact, there is THE perfect book for them. I mean, I have learn a lot browsing the Internet and reading modelling magazines during years. By doing this, you'll finish learning a lot of tricks and techniques that slowly add to you trick bag, but... What if someone just did all that work for you? Even more, what if this particular guy belongs to this very exclusive handful of people we call "The best modellers of the World"?

This guy is Miguel "MIG" Jimenez, one of the artists that daily contribute to push military modelling toward goals not seen before (just check some of his work below and you'll undoubtely agree with me).

gallery 1 gallery 2 gallery 3 gallery 4

"F.A.Q.: Frecuently Asked Questions on AFV Painting Techniques", is a somewhat particular book. You won't find many text there, you'll "just" find 250 pages literally filled by hundreds and hundreds of colour photos depicting detailed step by step tutorials. Those pages cover in a very efficient way, all the tecniques the author uses to create his wondrous works.

I have bought mine about six months ago, and I can say that there is not a day that I do not open it, and read some chapter at random :)

You can find it at Amazon and other online libraries:

Truly recommended for any serious threadhead around!

Painting and Weathering Tutorial: Part III

(versión en Español)

PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV

Now we are going to complete rust effects using pigments (you also have a more detailed rust tutorial here). I first select some suitable rust colours: P230 Old Rust, P25 Standard Rust and P24 Light Rust.

I do a pigment mix and add turpentine to make a wash. If the base colour were enamels instead of acrylics I would have used alcohol instead of turpentine.

This is the surface I pre-rusted with the airbrush in Part II.

I now apply the pigment wash and let it dry.

I'll start working on the tracks while the "rust" dries. I will go for a dry mud finish with leaves shiny metal on the exposed areas. There are many different techniques, but I'll cover them on further tutorials.

I start applying dry earth-coloured pigments (P28 Europe Dust) with an old brush.

I then carefully add some turpentine drops to fix the pigments.

I let now everything dry.

This is the aspect once the pigment is dry. This will serve only as a base for the dry mud that comes next.

I will prepare a dry mud mixture. I select some earth-coloured pigments (P28 Europe Dust, P38 African Earth and P31 Vietman Earth), plaster and a special acrylic resin for making mud adding some water.

I made some test and trial before finding the amount of plaster/resin to obtain dry mud. The more resin you add gives the mixture a gloss wet finish, as you can see in both mud samples over the tissue (both are completely dry, but the one on the right has more acrylic resin added).

I liberally apply the dilluted mix over the tracks.

I remove the excess "mud" with a tissue before it is dry.

This is how the tracks look once the "mud" is dry.

Now I will drybrush the tracks using metallic colours in order to give the impression that the bare metal is showing due to the friction with the terrain.

As usual, I drybrush using a flat ox hair brush and enamels.

This is the final effect. I am not fully satisfied with it yet, so I will complete it later using more graphite.

Next time we'l move on finishing small details and dusting the tank.

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