The Stug's Tools and Decals

Now that the modulation is done, it's time to start painting the tools. I was rather dubious about gluing the tools on and then painting them while attached to the vehicle. Turned out, it wasn't too bad to paint them in place. Sure there required a touch up here or there, but all in all, not bad. The painting of the wheels and tools were done over a weekend when the kids were away. Amazing the progress on models one can accomplish.

After watching a movie with the wife, at 9:30PM we weren't quite ready to get to bed, which is in itself unusual. She had a knitting project she wanted to work on and I my models. I queued up Twelve O'Clock High on Netflix for the third time, bust out the Stug and my new set of Ammo's Tool Set acrylic paints.

Here's how the next two and a half hours went.

Let's start at the back end with the muffler.

I was always concerned about the "right" shade of rust. On the side of the Tool Set paint box, it said to use red brown base for mufflers....OK!

To create a variety of tones I used some rust pigments that I have.

Some soot for the exhaust.

A touch of pigment fixer and I think the muffler is done!

I won't take you thru each of the tools, so you can gawk at your own convenience.

The next day I took on the tracks. I used Ammo's Track Rust pigment and worked it on.

Some fixer and done!

Next I did the same process to the rubber band tracks. Probably a bit red for tracks that are in use, I'm continuing to mull this one over. There maybe a changes comin'!

Pigments are a messy business.

You know what I love about decals on armored vehicles? There's usually only a handful. In this Stug's case, three.

Everything is all sealed now with another gloss coat. Soon I will be starting on the weathering. Hopefully you'll see an update in the next three months...

Thanks for stopping by!

The Stug's Color Modulation

I have to admit, the threat of all those wheels, rubber band tracks and doing paint modulation has kept me from moving forward on priming and painting the Stug. I'm glad to report that I have broken thru the trepidation and made some significant progress recently. Here's the damage I did.

(shutter) So many wheels.

In one session I decided to prime all this stuff across four different projects. It was a bit ambitious and took 3-4 hours I think, but the time just flew...and the compressor was searing hot by the end.

We'll just focus in on the Stug here.

I've been hearing a lot about the Badger Streeylenzee.....whatever..........it's in the picture, so I wanted to give it a try.

I used a .4mm needle in my Infinity and sprayed at 20 PSI. It sprayed beautifully and the finish is a fantastic satin surface. I'm done with AK primer, and already have the Badger Gray Primer on order. It took a day or so to fully cure, as it scratches pretty easily at first, any primer does I think. I briefly considered leaving it like this.

Ugh, wheels.

I used Mig's Dunkelgelb modulation set. The first coat is the Dunkelgelb Dark Base. Everything got a light coat, then a little heavier topside and I left the areas under the fender and gun a little darker for natural shade areas.

The other side!

Just a few more paints to go....

The next step was Dunkelgelb Base.

You can see the color modulation forming a little better on the armor plates.

And the wheels.

On to Dunkelgelb Light Base.

I think it turned out pretty well actually. Not bad for a first attempt. As a note; I thought the Dunkelgelb Light Base was too stark so I held the airbrush about 12 inches from the model and mist coated the whole surface. I think it tied it all together.

Armor plates hung. You're probably thinking, "Where's the rest of the rail on the left side?" After it was painted, I left it on the table to take a walk with the family while a domesticated feline roamed the residence.

Here's the vicious culprit that knocked the Stug off the table. I performed some repairs, but decided to leave the broken part of the rail off. From what I've read, when Stugs that had this armor plate and rail system went through brush, it could knock off the plates and damage the rails. I suppose she just added character to the vehicle as "field damage".

I thought the Dunkelgelb High Light color was too bright to spray, so I just used it to pick out the nuts and high details.

The Panzer Schwarzgrau plates also had some modulation applied. I didn't have a dedicated set, so it was a matter of adding white to the Schwarzgrau.

There it is finally painted.

I purchased the Olfa Circle Cutting Compass to cut masks for the wheels. It worked pretty well and it only cost about $11 so it wasn't a huge investment to try it out. The only downside is that it is too big to make masks for 1/48 Spitfire wheels.

It was my first time so I was probably a bit slow, but I think I watched 2-3 episodes of Frasier to cut and mask the wheels. A drop of Maskol was added to cover the puncture holes in the center.

Painted up with Rubber Tires from Mig Ammo. I don't know about that paint, it settles out really quickly, like within a minute or two. I haven't been able to get it to spray consistently from my airbrush either.

Regardless, the best AFV wheels I've ever done!

Chipping applied with a torn scrubbing pad and Vallejo German Black Brown.

I have pictures with all these different angles, so I might as well use them.

I didn't plan on this getting so over chipped. When I applied chipping I touched the pad three times and it left the exact same pattern three times. "Let me try to randomize this.", thought I. "Just a little more, I can fix this." ........Right.

I sprayed over it. Doesn't look quite right, but we'll see what we can do while weathering.

Re-chipped the area.

Next time I'll paint the tools, gloss coat and decals. I don't think it's turned out too bad so far, but so many more opportunities to mess this up lie ahead.

Thanks for stopping by.