Posh shadering! (Patreon)

My friends, I'm so sorry for taking my time here! I started editing the build video on Tuesday because on Sunday and Monday (May Day here in Eastern Europe) I had some other duties. So today I finally sat down at the workbench again and gave the mangled Valentine some proper posh-shading treatment! 

 I cleaned the entire model in soapy water, per usual, sprayed the large PE parts with VMS Metal Prep (per usual), and gave everything a generous coat of Mr. Black Surfacer - per usual! 

Even when I was building the model, I kept wondering about the proper color scheme. I know that Soviets rarely, if at all, repainted Lend-Lease equipment with their colors (4BO would be the case here), so the only question was - was the Mk IX painted SCC2 brown or some variant of Bronze Green? Everything pointed to SCC2 and I've heard some horror stories about this ugly color from other modelers.

Then it was brought up to me in Patreon messages by Sherminator that the new Tamiya Red Brown 2 (XF-90) is almost a perfect match for SCC2. I remember when I bought it and planned to use it on my Tiger F13, and how shocked I was by its greenish-brown diarrhea color. Looking at the reference he sent me (included in this gallery) I think it's a pretty good match! Of course, it's extremely dark when you spray it on top of black primer, but everything can be steered to your desired result with post-shading. In this case, I kept adding Buff into the brown paint and layering the highligts as usual. Naturally, the final color doesn't look much like SCC2, but that's kinda the point of post-shading, color modulation, zenithal lighting, or any kind of manipulation with the base color. You either keep it 100% authentic or distort it according to your needs and goals. 

I'd say this result offers a pretty awesome base for weathering and further play with acrylics and enamels! Plus it still looks brownish-green-enough-to-me, and it'll be an interesting and fun challenge to weather with earth effects! I already know that desaturated, greyish dust tones are in order here! :) 

More to come tomorrow, my friends, I want to spray some of the hard stowage in basic colors, add some decals, and then seal it with flat varnish... and then... the real fun begins!