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28 Days Later

28 Days Later: Part Three
A T-34 Battalion
with Chris Townley

Last week I finished assembling the T-34 battalion and I found myself feeling a little flat as I looked at what still lay ahead. Part of this was because I enjoy assembling models more than I enjoy painting them. It is a nice feeling just having a fully assembled tank sitting on your desk, when in reality the bulk of the work is yet to come.

Learn more about the Guards Tank Battalion here...

Read part one of 28 Days Later: A T-34 Battalion here... Read part two of 28 Days Later: A T-34 Battalion here...
Read part four of 28 Days Later: A T-34 Battalion here... Read part five of 28 Days Later: A T-34 Battalion here...
My painting plan for this week was very simple:
Leaving the tracks separate from the hull (see more details below), spray the hulls and turrets with Tankovy Green (CWP240).

■ Spray the tracks Black.

■ Paint the road wheels with Tankovy Green (FWP341).

Give all the pieces a wash with Black (FWP300).
■ Drybrush the hulls and turrets with Tankovy Green (FWP341).

■ Drybrush the tracks Cold Steel (FWP481).

■ Glue the tracks on (I decided to skip ahead and do this one week early).

■ Paint all the tools, stowage etc. 
Black (FWP300).
Chris Wise?
I decided to follow the Tom Wise school of painting tracks and hulls separately. This is quite counter intuitive to my normal style which involves assembling the entire tank and then leaving it in a box for six months (or more) whilst I get distracted by another project! Given that he has painted more armies over the space of a few years than I have in my entire life I thought that there might be something to his way though.

The theory is that by leaving the two pieces separate you make painting each of them a little easier. In this particular case it would allow me to spray both pieces the predominant colour and do the least amount of brush work to speed up the painting time.


For more of Tom’s work check out Tom’s Corner here...
I found that leaving the components separated really speed up the painting process. I was able to complete the tracks quite quickly as I was only painting the road wheels, rather than having to spend the extra time carefully painting the track links whilst they were attached to the hull. A quick drybrush of Cold Steel (FWP481) and the tracks were finished and I have to say I was really pleased with how they were looking even at this early stage. Especially considering that I had put relatively little work in to them. Score one for the new plastic tracks!
Below: An example of a completed T-34 track.
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Below: Spraying the T-34s green.
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Drybrushing the hulls and turrets was a relatively quick process, although it does pay to take some care as you don’t want to cover up all the nice shadows that you have created with the Black Shade. It is also advisable to have a quick look at each of the tanks to make sure you have a uniform coating of the Black Shade before diving into the dry brushing. I opted to do a few lighter coats of Tankovy Green (FWP341) rather than one heavier one, I felt that this would help me to make sure that I did not obscure too much of the detail as well as (hopefully) letting me build up some variable streaks of colour going up and down the vehicle, helping to simulate some of effects of dust and dirt.
Below: An example of a spare track link painted black.
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The last task was to paint all of the stowage and equipment black. This achieves a few things.

Reminds you of the pieces that you are going to need to do some detail painting on later.

■ Makes them stand out during the detail painting process, as well as making it more obvious if you have not painted them.

■ Helps them to “pop” a little more once you have finished painting them as there should be a little black shadow around the item.
Another tip is to keep your hulls and turrets organised into “like for like” groups as you are less likely to miss something when you paint four hulls with the same stowage arrangement in a row. Of course there are no guarantees that this method will always work as I managed to miss the piece of track shown in the images above.
With another week down it is looking very tight on the painting schedule, especially since I am going to loose the last weekend to a tournament but I am confident that if I plan out my time well I can get the army finished. Next week I will tackle painting the stowage, leaving the last week for decals and weathering.

~ Chris.


Last Updated On Monday, June 22, 2015