Over the past days I was also working on the Ka-Mi in parallel with the JSU, mostly adding weathering and balancing the contrast.

First I have airbrushed a very thin Flat Earth (Tamiya XF-52) along the bottom edge of the hull to simulate dusting. I have tried to keep the effect very muted and I think it looks quite good.

Afterwards I have realized that in the process of weathering I have a lot of the chipping I have done at the beginning, so decided to add bit more of the chips using both localized drybrushing and sponge technique.

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I was still thinking about how far to go with the weathering of Ka-Mi, when I decided to test AK interactive’s new products. One that I have picked up during my most recent visit at the Hornet Hobbies is Streaking Grime for Panzer Grey. I guess Ka-Mi’s finish is sort-of-panzer-grey-ish, so why not trying it out…

Application of this product is quite straightforward – 1.Shake, 2. Apply with fine brush, 3. Wait, 5. Blend with brush moistened with oil thinner.

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I am now in the final phases of this build – weathering. This usually means that things go extremely slowly, mostly because I use oil paints for lot of my weathering techniques and I usually let them dry for at least 24 hours before proceeding. At the same time the process is often iterative, such as with chipping – I add chips, let the paint dry, then add some more, then again and again after I feel I have the desired effect (though part of the excuse may as well be the fact that the weather is warmer outside and there is ton of work to be done in the garden and around the house, you know it…).

So I have spent last few evening adding chipping. I use my favourite mix of Winsor & Newton Ivory Black and Burnt Umber and apply the chips in very controlled, localized dry brushing. I think the effect you can achieve using this technique is by far more refined than by actually painting the chips with fine brush. This is partly because this technique actually replicates the process through which chipping occurs on real vehicles – abrasion of paint layers on places, which are exposed to the movement of the crews (e.g. edged of the hatches and turret) or to the environment and surrounding of the vehicle (e.g. edges of the main body of the vehicle).

Nevertheless, in this case, I am trying to keep chipping subtle. Ka-Mi most likely saw very limited action, so most of the weathering would be the regular “wear and tear”. Now given the fact that the punishments in the Imperial Army were rather draconian for even small infractions of the rules and discipline, one could assume that the tanks would be well maintained…

In the process I have also added last pieces that I kept separate to ease the painting of the model – second half of the turret upper hatch and exhaust grill.

I am now thinking where to go with this model, I still plan to add few more weathering effects, but I am becoming hesitant, as I quite like the vehicle with its current look. So let’s see…

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I have spent last few evenings adding few touches to the Ka-Mi.

To tone down the contrast created by preshading and highlighting I applied oil filter. I used my trusty Winsor & Newton Burnt Umber and to keep the wash in balance with the underlying colour I mixed it with Payne’s Grey. I kept the filter rather thin, trying to avoid darkening the resulting paint finish too much. You can always darken it afterwards, lightening is much more complicated. I applied thin layer over all the surfaces.

After letting the filter cure for 24 hours I drybrushed the raised details to make them stand out from the background. Again used the Payne’s Grey, this time mixed with White. After few refinements of getting the mix the correct leve of contrast vs. the underlying color I drybrushed all the rivets, hinges, raised weld lines and similar surface details.

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The last paint layer that I plan to apply is the second highlight, to increase the contrast and give the model little bit more “depth”.

For this layer I needed another shade of grey that would be lighter than the first highlight. I picked XF-19 Sky Grey as a base. To blend the colour with the previous paint layer I added bi of IJN Grey, so that at the end was mix approximately 5:1 Sky Grey: IJN Grey.

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Tamiya offers quite a wide range of grey colour paints in their acrylics range, so I had to choose which one to choose for the following painting steps.

I decided to use IJN Grey XF-75 as I liked the shade and it was sufficiently lighter compared to the base coat. From my own experience, It is always better to use paints with higher contrast for different layers, as the contrast is usually toned down during the application of filters. If the contrast is small, the colors of the model at the end blend too much and it loses much of its vibrancy.

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So, having added last few pieces to the vehicle I decided to give it some paint today (or rather yesterday as it is past midnight already).

To save time I decided to skip priming the model. I wanted to save 24 hours I usually let model stand to have the primer thoroughly dried. I think in the future I will follow my routine and start with the primer, as I noticed that without this, the paint rubbed off especially on the wheels quite easily.

The base coat in this case would act also as a preshading, so I wanted to use darker shade of Grey for this layer. My idea originally was to use Tamiya German Grey XF-63. However, after testing this at the bottom of the model, I found that this color is still too light for what I needed. So I have added Tamiya Nato Black XF-69, so that the mix was 5:2 of German Grey:Nato Black. I thinned the paint as usual with Tamiya lacquer thinner in a ratio 4:1 thinner to paint. To protect the interior of the turret, I masked the opening for the hatch with masking tape from inside. With the above mix I then gave the model thorough coat covering all the surfaces.

For the wheels I wanted to try the new Tamiya paint (as far as I know this is new, maybe not) - Rubber Black XF-82. I wanted to apply this at all the running gear as a base coat and preshading. This paint would also be my main coat on a rubber parts of the wheels, which I would mask when adding following paint layers.

I like this new paint quite, it is really very “rubbery” shade od dark grey/black, I think this paint will be quite often in my repertoire in the future. It is definitely the best choice for painting rubber wheels.

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(UPDATED on April 3, 2012 – added some more corrections)

Here comes another recent inspiration of mine.

Having seen this model built by two of my friends (and both very nice models) I decided to give it a try as well. I had planned to build some Japanese armor for some time now, and this kit is perhaps the best to start with.

As was already said few times, this kit might be the best Dragon’s kit yet. It is really lovely. No complicated construction, low parts count, amazing fit of the parts, beautiful details and quality of moulding, you name it. There is decent interior provided for the turret, so it would be a shame to have all the hatches closed.

As usual with the Dragon’s models, you will have to bite through the instructions, which are typical Dragon’s quality (or rather lack of it). To name just a few corrections:

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