Getting dirty!

The Italeri SU-100 assault gun moves on although without its tracks it won't be going far! First job today was to dust the tracks with some Track Brown weathering powder. You can see the difference this powder makes in this photo.

The tracks together with the tank, which had been dusted with European Dust yesterday, then received an airbrushed coat of matt varnish. This toned down the overall effect of the powders which was what I had hoped for as the two photos below show.

Leaving the varnish to harden for a few hours during which Mrs. Woody's desire for her car to be fully valeted was satisfied by me doing it, I returned to add some rust effect weathering powder. Adding rust is one of those forms of model making that is difficult to break down into an easy step approach. The application of the powder is simple enough, the difficult part is knowing where to add it to the model to achieve that realistic look. I don't profess to be an expert but I guess having lived in an era when cars rusted quicker then Mrs. W can place an Amazon order and having to try to repair them as well as an interest in machines of all types, usually rusty wreaks, gives me an awareness of where rust rears its head. Joints, edges and bolts in steel are the usual places but anywhere were paint is worn away will in damp conditions start rusting. You just have to look at the model and find those places. For a battle field tank there was no tank wash to clean it down after action or body shop to give a respray if it got scratched - they just got more worn and dirty by the day.

Anyway enough of all that! The photos below show my ideas as to where rust would be on this well worn tank.

 Having done my artistic bit it was time for some more varnish to seal the powders in and tone them down.

Tracks are steel so rust. However where steel rubs against something on a regular basis it can actually be polished and rust free. This is the case with the outer surface of tracks which run on gravel or tarmac and end up polished on the surface areas making direct contact. A dry brushing of metal paint saw this replicated. On the inside surfaces of the tracks the same effect happens where the tracks and drive/road wheels meet. Again I replicated this using the dry brush technique.

The tracks are ready to be put on the tank but I still need to dirty up the undersides of the tank so that is a job for another day! Its going to get even more dirty!