Zvezda 1:100 T-34/85 airbrush test run

[PilotMM]

Hey guys! So my first ever airbrush was delivered yesterday and I wanted to get cracking and try it out. Instead of using a piece of scrap or a water bottle I picked up a super cheap kit from the LHS. They had this kit for $5.99 *shrugs* Why not?

I was impressed with how much detail such a little kit has and let me tell you... It is little
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These are 10ml bottles! I was trying to decide on a color for the tank. I ended up picking Olive Green
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I put together the hull and the turret and left the tracks off. I figured I would paint everything separate. Its only 4 pieces once put together.
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I am pretty impatient and waiting for the post I decided to hand paint the tracks. I was going to have to detail paint it anyways. I found a few photos online showing that the little nubs on some Pre-1944 T-34/85's with solid road wheels had red nubs. I liked that so I did it to this although I couldn't find any COLOR photographic evidence that this was how it was done on T-34/85's post 1944 with the spider wheels.
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With the tracks finished my cousin (who likes to follow along with my builds, I am gonna get him to start building soon you watch) suggested that I do some damage to the tank.
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Here is the before shot


I thought long and hard about how to accomplish this and remember seeing someone recommend a soldering iron. Well, that would be too big for this little tank. I grabbed a finishing nail and heated the tip and made what I thought would look like smallish arms damage, or maybe from a HE round.
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I went over this a few times with a little CA as filler and sanded it down a bit to get to what I liked in the end.

Next, I wanted to do a bounced shot. I really like how this turned out.
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Lastly I wanted this tank to really look battle worn. So I cut part of a fender off. To make it look like it had at least been touched with a torch after I warmed the plastic with a lighter and molded it up a bit.
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This was really by the seat of my pants. I wasn't sure how the results would come out. I think its a little thick for scale but I like it.

With this all finished my AB finally arrived. I decided to give it a go. My recipe was 50/50 Tamiya Olive Green with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner. Wow this sprays nice! It lays down so much finer than a rattle can.
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Then I decided to get crazy! This was my test bed after all. I had seen a few T-34/85's that had rolled into Berlin and had significant battle damage and these white stripes around the turret. Eyeballing it I tried to make some 3mm stripes around the entire turret.
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As you can see they are not perfectly masked but from the photos I saw you could tell the stripes were painted in haste and not really even. Plus I wanted to try that new airbrush again.

Apparently, I missed the photos from the next step of the build. I was up till the wee hours of the morning working though.

I detailed up the paint on the damaged areas and then tried my hand at putting down some clear coat. The only thing I had was Mr. Color clear so I mixed it up 60/40 thinner to clear and went to town. I cleared it so I could weather it further. Once the clear had dried I pulled out detail using Tamiya panel line black and some Tamiya weathering powders.

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This was after clear
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Being too glossy for my taste I took the whole thing and sprayed it with some Tamiya Flat Clear (from a rattle can, I have to pick up some flat clear for the AB). I noticed it muted some of my dust weathering so I went over it a touch more. Here is the final result!

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I love this little guy so much I want to make a diorama. I don't know where to begin so that will have to wait but its super cute! Plus it looks the part IMO. The only thing not shown is the areal I put on in front of the cupola. It's "eyeball-scale" from photos I saw online.

Thanks for following along!
-M