24 Tanks in 24 hours

First let me apologize for the title. It just sounds like a cool headline. Nonetheless, it's not as misleading as it seems actually.

I managed to paint up all 22 of the Gaming Models Tanks that I received yesterday. Not in 24 hours per se, but in about 9 hours.

Yes the models came fully assembled and primed black. That saved me a huge amount of hobby time. Probably at least 4 hrs or more I reckon. However I went ahead with my standard method of painting according to the rest of my other tank models. And boy was it a tedious challenge!

The models went through a few simple steps (multiply everything by 22 here and it becomes not so simple anymore hah!).

Firstly an airbrush of light grey to provide the "zenithal" base color. Then another airbrush coat of Russian green. The zenithal method has already provided all the important shading at this stage. Then I washed the entire model in Vallejo Black Wash. This was to give all the crevices its required dark shading and to bring the Russian Green down one notch. As all the pictures I see online of real Russian tanks to be a tad darker than the color scheme suggested by Flames of War.

After the wash was dry I went over the entire armor areas with a light dry brush of GW Dheneb Stone. And the tracks were also dry brushed with GW BoltGun Metal.

The next step is the most arduous of all. The painting of the red Soviet Stars and tank number markings. This took almost more than half the total time spent painting up the entire model. But well worth it as it adds to the overall look and makes it much more realistic and complete.

Final stage is to use chalks to weather it with the mud stains. ( it looks bright in the pictures but once I hit it with a coat of dull coat tomorrow it will tone it down alot). I'm too tired now to dull coat it. I have been painting for almost 6 hours straight and I'm totally smashed.

I hope my efforts will change the perception of Gaming Models in general. They are really nice models once a decent paint job is applied to them. And like I mentioned in my previous post, the photos on their site is really not a positive representation of the models at all.

Enjoy the fruits of my labor.

p.s drop yourself a challenge once in awhile. It's worth it.