GunHed is progressing well. Since last time, I put down a black oil wash into all the crevices and panel lines. Once that was dry, I tidied it up with a cotton bud pulling off the oil where it wasn’t wanted. To protect it, I put on another layer of Future Finish varnish.Once the Future Finish was dry, I got out the grey and white acrylics ready for chipping. I put a very small amount of paint in a dish, dab in my piece of sponge, then press it into edges. You don’t want the paint on the sponge too wet, or it’ll just make splotches. If the paint is just starting to dry you’ll get a great effect.  I didn’t just do the edges though. When the paint was nearly dry and the sponge not adding much paint to the model, I pressed it into flat areas too, so as to put down a little texture. I used the white acrylic on the brighter areas, and the grey acrylic on the darker areas. Once the chipping was dry, I put down another coat of Future Finish.Using a small stuff brush, I smeared more black oil paint onto the model adding the circular effect under where the gun would rotate, and lines across some of the flat areas.  When the last of the oil was dry, another layer of Future Finish, (It’s a good job it comes in large bottles!)then some edges darkened with Tamiya weathering master oil stain.

That’s it for the underpainting, and now onto the actual painting that will give this model its colour.I chose to do this kit in blue, so I mixed up some very thin dark blue paint by mixing Rowney pale grey, Payne’s grey and blue. Then I added a lot of Tamiya acrylic thinner, 2 parts thinner to 1 part paint, and this paint is already pre-thinned. The paint needs to be thin so that when it goes on it adds colour without obscuring all the lovely detail.  I’m loving how the browns of the weathering master are showing through. The paint is still wet here and a bit glossy. Right at the end of the build it’ll get flat coated, but while it’s being worked up, glossy is good. The next stage will be to work on bringing out some of the nicer chipped areas with some silver paint, ready for some rust to be added.