Highlights

After applying the base coat I needed to the lighten the overall color of the tractor and also wanted to created some vertical gradation of the green shades on the vehicle. To achieve this I have added Tamiya XF-3 Flat Yellow, XF-21 Sky and XF-2 Flat White to the base of XF-13 J.A. Green. Progressively adding more and more of these lighter colors I have airbrushed about 4 different shades of green vertically, with the last one only applied on the top edges of cargo bed walls and cab roof.

I have also generally highlighted vertical surfaces of the cab and engine hood and to a lesser degree of other vertical surfaces, such as doors. I added the highlights to the outer edges of the front and rear fenders, benches and stowage boxes on the cargo bed.

I left the lower part of the vehicle pretty much in the base color, only adding little bit of intermediate highlights on the outer part of the four-wheel sections (forgot to mention that I have kept these separate until after applying the base coat).

I was thinking about how to add something interesting to break the monotonous green surface (even though highlighting has achieved this to a significant degree). I recalled that in one of my books on T-34 were examples of air recognition markings applied to the top of the tank turrets. These were usually combination of circles and triangles in bright colors – combination of yellow, orange or white. Assuming that such a marking could have been applied to the artillery tractor as well, I have decided to apply this to the cab roof. I have cut out the masks for this marking from Tamiya masking tape – one circle and one triangle and applied the marking.

The white triangle is not as perfectly aligned with the orange circle as I wanted it to have, but I guess Red Army wouldn’t be so perfect as well.

To tone down the bright markings I have applied light wash of Burnt umber oil paint on the whole cab, using  Winsor & Newton Sansodor oil thinner. The markings are still too bright, but I will rather tone them down in steps, rather than risk making them too dark and flat in one step without ability to correct this.

This wash also changed the tint of the paint job on the cab toward the earth brown shade  and added depth to the color (not sure this can be spotted from the photos). I still plan to add some markings to the cargo bed, nothing major, just two small red triangles that are included in the kit’s marking options.

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