Tiger I 1/48 Winter camo "Part 5" THE END

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Finally the model is finished. After add the mud and other small effects, it is ready in case we want to make a small diorama.Is very important to see the nice effect made by the acumulated earth in the horizontal surface in the upper hull. It help to create contrast and bring down the excesive white brightness.

Ok, let's go to finish the model. Some steps before. use a graphite pencil to make the metal effect in the MG ring. This useful tool can help us to give a metal look to many details. Keep it sharp.

The different tools was painted using Vallejo colors. Paint some shadows and some highlights to create a volume in the tools and accesories. You can add some dust effects with pigments or washes to adapt the tools to the rest of the weathered vehicle.

The fire extinguiser is really small. But I was able to paint a mini label with a fine brush and vallejo colors. Also I painted it with Dark Yellow, like the old one was remplaced by a new one.

The general look of the tools is good enought for this scale.

now is time to make the dust, earth and mud. This time, I have return to my old technque of pigments, but this time with the new AK pigments, which is a bit different than my old ones. The colors is also differnet. I was tired of the same shades so, the new ones are more ...neutral, less bright. Here you can find the whole range, limited, which means that it is the whole collection, just the basic stuff to avoid get crazy looking among 1 million colors. Now than the actual techniques is not only based in pigments, could be a good alternative these colors if we want to something ocasional, like in my case right now.

You can use the Pigment fixer or just White Spirit to fix the pigments. if you are not sure how will be the look, try frist the White Spirit and later the Fixer Glue. Pigments fixed with White Spirit can be removed more or less easily. Apply the different shades of pigments and then, use a brush with Fixer to humidify the surface.

Try to concentrate the dust around the details and use dar colors for the most hiden areas, around the details or turret, etc...
When it is dry, the look will be like this one. You can repeat the process as much as you want to increase the effect of acumulated earth or dust.

And now we will amke the mud with the actual method, using the enamel products from AK and plaster. Even if the Fresh Mud color is a bit satin, we can add Wet Effect Fluid to the mix to get a more shiny effect in the mud. Use an old brush to make the mix.

Low density mix of mud, this means, with more Enamel color and less plaster, will provide us smaller dots of mud when we make of splashed mud. Use an airbrush to project air over the brush loaded of mud mix. It will generate a nice splash over the front hull.

Use the same mix to apply mud in the tracks.

And after it is dry, apply the Dark Steel pigment to create the metal effect in the external parts fo the links. If it is not enought shiny, you always can mix this powder with Humbrol 11 (silver) and apply the mix with dry brush over the surface.

Well, the model is finished. We can add stowage or more details if we want , but I prefer to leave it clean of stuff to allow see the effects over the model.

I hope you have enjoy this big step by step. remeber that you have another 4 chapters explaining the whole process since the begining. if you have any doubt or comment, please, feel free to post here. Thank you very much for watching!

Mig Jimenez

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Tiger I 1/48 Winter camo "Part 4" LINKS

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Let's go to paint the spare links today.
Use tape to keep the links in position to be painted with Airbrush. Use a dark brown color, Tamiya or Mr Hobby could be perfect. Then, using the range of Lifecolor to make rust, paint different shades in some links.


As soon as it is dry, apply a coat of Worn Effects to create small chips.

Now apply the white color, Tamiya one mixed with a 40% of Gaianaotes lacquer thinner. Don't apply a heavy coat, just a little soft. With heavy coats is more diffciult to create small chipping.

After you paint it, use water and a flat hard brush to remove part of the white paint. before, you made humidify the surface with a little water, and wait few seconds until the white paint get fragil and ready to work.

Now glue the links to the turret with Super Glue. the rest of the weathering will be done with them in place.

use differnet shades of washes and Streaking grime colors and repeat the same proces like in the rest of the tank, but less intense.

You can repaint some chips if you don't like too much the look. Also, you can add some Streaking Rust and finally some highlight with white oil to refoirce the contrast.

With few steps the look is very realistic. Not needed too much steps and could be more than anought for a scale like 1/48 or 1/35.

Compare the size of the spare links with my fingers....

...and see how effective can be this technique in a close view.

Do you like it? I hope. The next chapter will be the last one for sure. Just mud and dust and final touches. But I thought that this subject deserved a chapter for it self.

Thank you very much one more time for follow this blog.

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Tiger I 1/48 Winter camo "Part 3"

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HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012 to all of you!!

The best way to start a new year is making models, so, here my contribution to this new year. This is the 3th chapter of the whole painting process of a winter Tiger I in 1/48th scale. If you haven't see the other two, please, read first the chapter I and the chapter II.
Now is time for chipping and oil paint effects.


We start using the dark bromw 70922 from vallejo. It's a good color for paint dark metal chips. Use a very fine brush, new one and sharp.



Start doing small dots, and lines...very small, and keep gorwing it as much as you want.

Treat each detail in a different way. Example, more intense chipping in some parts, while others remain more new. That contrast will help to the model to give bigger realism.

The oil paints is always a important step in each weathering. This paint is very flexible, easy to blend and colorfull. The oils can help us to give contrast, deep, shadows, and much more effects to our models. In this case, we will use few basic colors to create a contrast effect in some mudguards and some horizontal areas. Maybe, in anotehr kind of subject we can use more oils, or less. We must adapt this technique to each model and evoirement.

Use the white color to reiforce the white camo. Use a medium round brush for this task.

Apply the color only in one side of the mudguard section.

Just in the next section, apply a grey-brown color.

Clean the brush or take a new one and with a litle White Spirit stump the color.

See the result. The transition is soft, but each color, both , the white and brown, are gradually more intense to the union of both mudguards sections. It create contrast, a subtile and nice visual effect to give volume to our model. You can use this technique not only in the mudguards, but in any other part of your model, like panels, hatches, engine compartiments and much more. Just selct the apropiated color for each subject. In this case I used white because the base color is winter camo.

Another example. This time we use a dirty grey to represent the acumulated dirt over the horizontal surfaces, like around the turret ring.

One more time, paint and stump with a clean brush and a little White Spirit.

Use the white Oil color to make the highlights in the winter camo. After the washes adn streaking effects, the look of our model will be a little dark, not as white as we can expect of a winter tank. Now is time to bring to the life the white camo adding small dots of white color in some areas. Don't over do it and be RANDOM with this process. And of course, stump or blend the color to make it softer and natural.

Ok, another step is already done. Very slowly, our model is getting contrast and tonal variation. This is very important in this kind of vehicles, to avoid the monotonie and boring surfaces. Note how you can see the original camo under the winter camo, faded and damage by the envoirements and elements. The chipping is adapted to the scale. These ones must be small and not excesive. And the new shades that we have give to our model will give volume and a rich surface. Now is time to paint all small details before we made the mud and dust and the final effects.
In the next chapter, I will explain how to give the final touches to the model. We will work with the spare links around the turret, painted also in winter camo. We will add the earth, mud, oils and grease and much more. Keep tunned and thank you very much for read this. I hope you like the progress of this small example of a winter tank. It is really easy and simple if you follow these steps.

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