Some colors (Patreon)

My friends, I finished the airbrushing! This was my first experience with the new lacquer AK Real Colors on a camouflage. So far, I have only used them for some base coating, and I really like how well they flow. There's almost no dry paint build-up on the needle. Just the oxide primer areas were sprayed with a mixture of Tamiya paints.

The process was like this: apply all the base colors including the camouflage, then add shadows and dirt stains with AK black brown ink, then add highlights in 1 or 2 layers, and seal it with varnish. Something curious happened as I was varnishing the model - I added more acrylic thinner than I usually do, and the thinner reacted with the ink! The dark spots you see on the lower hull, especially the streaks, were extremely subtle after I toned them down with dark yellow highlights, but the thinner brought them back. At first I considered going over them once again with paint, but then I realized there will be even more dirt added here later, so why make my life more complicated?

Also, I tried breaking up the monotony of the surface with two varnishes - satin on the smooth metal parts, and matt on the oxide primer and Zimmerit.

You can see that the dark ink combined with highlights can lead to some pretty exciting contrasts such as on the sides of the turret or the sides of the upper hull. I wonder how it'll all tie together once the weathering is done!