The last week has seen a surprising amount of progress on the Stormlord. Most of the hull has had it’s hull colour airbrushed on and I’ve spent two whole evenings sticking on tiny pieces of masking tape so that I can touch up some areas that need to be black (ready for metallics) and the strips on the hull that need to be done red. I find that masking off is one of the most infuriating tasks when doing any airbrushing. Do it poorly and you’ll completely mess up your model, it takes ages to get it “just right” and ultimately you’ll just rip the tape off again! However without it you’d never achieve the crisp neat edges that people associate with a good paint job.
The majority of the black touchup had been done and the only exception is the rear and middle parts of both tracks. In order to finish this, I need to mask the “skirt” of the tank off, which I can’t do until the red strips have been sprayed on, which I am aiming to do tonight.
After a bit of investigation last night, I’ve found out that the aquila on the tank are going to need a black undercoat as the hull colour is too light for a gold colour (which looks pale and washed out). What’s really annoying is that because of the way they’re moulded onto the tank I’m going to have to paint them by hand. I did start on one last night and have found that I need to hold the tank at all sorts of funny angles so that I can get a nice smooth colour on. It looks highly likely that because of this, I’m going to have to wear some gloves in order to ensure that I don’t get any grease from my hands onto the paint :s
I’d like to hope that I’ll get the tank gloss varnished at some point on Sunday, but I do have quite a bit to do though, before I’m at that point. I have got all of the metallic sections (guns, treadplate, tracks), the red strips, all of the detailing (bits on the top, engine shrine, aquila), the basic weathering done (chips and such like) and any touchups of the hull colour. Oh the main gun is going to need fitting into place too. Looking at that list I think that gloss varnish on Sunday is looking unlikely… However I’m not prepared to rush and end up with a poor job. If can carry on at the speed I am then I don’t see any reason why this won’t be complete by the end of the month.
