By Jamie Haggo
Target subject for demo: Hasegawa 1:48 B5N2 Kate – Bomb
Intro from Geoff…
Realistic scale weathering on models and how to get an authentic look to that finished part can be ‘interesting’ but a whole lot of fun too. Here Jamie shows how to use what has become known as the ‘speckling’ or ‘spattering’ approach. It’s a great way of adding a stage to your weathering that will make a great difference to the finished item – in this case a WWII Japanese bomb. Here’s an image of the finished item – looks real to me, how about you? You can see the whole of this build progressing now (Sep 2012) in Build Now and after that, when it’s finished in your Finished Now area of SMN.
Over to you Jamie…
…On with the bomb, the two halves were glued together and the seam eliminated. The rear part had the moulded fins removed and all the gaps filled with a mix of super glue and talc. This gloop is a great filler as it can be dried instantly with accelerator, doesn’t shrink and never goes too hard like neat super glue, it also behaves just like plastic so is easy to sand and scribe.
The brass parts are sanded with a gentle sanding sponge to remove the plating and the parts glued together, I tried to solder the fin supports but they kept breaking off; the attachments are tiny so they ended up being glued on.
The painting was quite fun. The body was sprayed with Tamiya Sky Grey and then the white and green nose bands were masked off and sprayed with Tamiya White and XF-5 Green respectively. There are no colour call outs in the instructions which was a pain but a quick Google search revealed the answer.
Next up was the paint chipping, Vallejo German Camo Black Brown 70822 was applied with a sponge. (see you Techniques Bank series of HD video demos)
Now it was time for the weathering and a filter of AK Interactive (AKI) was brushed on and allowed to dry, this was followed by an oil pin wash using Abteilung Shadow Brown. Any excess was removed with a damp brush soaked in thinner.
The bomb was looking good but we’re not there yet. Speckling is a good way to add those tiny little dings, marks and staining. I used 2 different tones, a light grey and a darker shade, the mix is make up and using a stiff brush the bristles are flicked at the model. With trial and error, the correct consistency can be found as different dilutions can make different types of speckles.
And here’s the finished bomb.
Cheers,
Jamie H.