Six Leg Robot / Walker Step – by – step (Installment
3)
More Details
Another detail I added was something to help set the scale
of the model. Because I had settled on
1/100th scale, I determined that this vehicle was something that a
crew rode around in. To help show this I
punched out some discs of plastic and glued them to the top of the main body to
represent hatches. I used a Punch and Die set from Harbor Freight and sheet styrene that I had laying around.
I also sculpted some crew
gear that could be glued to the exterior of the body. Again, I used Kneadatite Epoxy Modeling
putty, more commonly known as “Green Stuff” to sculpt in. Equal portions of the “A” and “B” components
are kneaded together until you get a uniform green color. I now have about 90 minutes of sculpting
time. Using toothpicks, knives, and
other sculpting implements, I fashioned a small collection of bedrolls, sacks,
and bread bags reminiscent of what the Germans used during WWII. I used my little figure – “scale-guy”, as my
scale guide to insure everything looked correct. When cured, the gear was glued onto the body,
near and around the new hatches.
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fig.8.5: Crew hatches punched out with a Punch and Die set |
fig.9: Crew gear
sculpted from Green Stuff Putty
With nearly everything in place, I was ready to start the
real fun of painting and weathering. A
quick wash under water with a drop of dish washing detergent and an old
toothbrush helped clean off resin dust, fingerprint oils, and any other
unwanted schmutz that may be stuck to the surface. I let the model dry over-night and prepared
for the next step.
fig.10: Build
mostly complete. Time to start slapp’n paint!
Painting - Priming
We prime models for a number of
reasons. A smooth primer coat helps
provide a “tooth” or surface for subsequent coats of paint to grab on to. A primer coat can also help one spot
imperfections or missed seams. Believe
me, you want to deal with these way before you start painting in earnest as
fixing these at a later stage will mar or ruin the surrounding paint finish. When dealing with a multi-media model such as
this (rubber, putty, resin, plastic, and metal), the primer coat also provides
an even color base and even surface texture.
You may not want the smoothness of the aluminum to stand out from the
rest of the cast resin texture so a primer is the perfect way to remedy this.
In this case, I started with a few
light coats of Citadel Chaos Black Primer.
I like the darker primer color as it helps hide missed painted areas in
nooks and crannies and I was going to try a technique where I actually use
three different primer colors, black, grey, and white. I come from an armor model background and
this technique has been in vogue for some time now. With its interesting shapes, I thought this
would be a perfect candidate for the technique.
The black was initially sprayed up
at the model from below. The undersides
of the vehicle will be in shadow and the black primer helps set that tone. Grey primer was misted from a horizontal
angle coating the majority of the surfaces.
I had an almost empty can of white primer which I sprayed from the top,
allowing white to rest on all the horizontal surfaces, heaviest near the
top. Unfortunately (but actually quite
fortunate) the white primer started sputtering all over my model. I stopped, but then thought the speckled and
spotty paint might be useful, so I kept on, splattering white primer from
above.
fig.11: Priming with black, grey, and
white. The splattering was due to a near empty can.
Base Coat
After the primer coat I proceeded
with the base coat. I decided to go with
a German Dark Yellow color (my armor past catching up with me). I used an airbrush (Iwata HP-C) to lightly
mist Tamiya Color acrylic XF-60 Dark Yellow over the entire model. I then lightened the color by mixing in a
drop or two (in the airbrush paint cup) of Tamiya XF-57 Buff. This was lightly sprayed over the top
surfaces, highlighting high points and exposed areas. I did this a few more times, each time adding
another drop or two of the Buff to lighten the color. I tried to keep each application light and
this allowed some of the Black, Grey, White work to show through. The speckling of the white actually added
chromatic texture and visual interest to the otherwise boring base color. I finished off with a coat of Tamiya XF-52
Flat Earth around the feet and lower surfaces of the legs to represent dirt and
mud picked up during a recent trek.
fig.12:Base coat complete with Black,
Grey, White tones still peaking through
That's all for today. More to follow soon.
