Chevrolet Radio Van conversion - Part 8

Weathering
This stage is - particularly for the novice/intermediate modeller - is something of a dark art. I feel like getting out my charms and spell book and uttering a few incantations before I begin the weathering of my models.

I am always dreadfully nervous and worried that this is the stage that I am most likely to ruin any good work that I might had done thus far! Which is why I prevaricate so much and am hesitant to put brush to plastic...

Bleaching and staining.

First thing I do is what I call 'bleaching and staining'. This is supposed to represent water and sun damage to paintwork, how much you do depends on the age or the vehicle, which theatre of war it served or how neglected/used it might have been.

My Finnish Chevy van is supposed to be an early war era vehicle that has chugged along to 1944 (I have photographic reference on which I can base my work). This is why the truck has a non-standard camo scheme and early war Finnish insignia. By 1944 this venerable van should be pretty banged about so my level of weathering will reflect this.

As usual, I begin by streaking white artists oil paint to indicate paint bleaching. The untouched areas between the streaks - where the original paint scheme is left quite vivid - serves to give the impression of water damage or streaks. I follow this up with subsequent streaks of grime, light rust and fuel stains with different colours of oils - narrowing the streaks to indicate 'drip damage'.

Dust, mud and chipping
After this colour modulation, I begin to add dirt and minor paint damage. For this, I mainly rely on a mix of Vallejo pigments and Tamiya Weathering sticks.

The chipping is various spots of panzer grey or dark grey and purple mix. In my opinion, a touch of purple gives a nice impression of bare metal that is just starting to develop a touch of surface rust. But in this case, I have decided not to go over the top and the chipping is quite subtle (hopefully).

Not so the dirt...I fancied a dirty old van!

As you can see in these photos, I have part-completed the vehicles base. However, I have not added the static grass - which I have been adding to my Finnish model's bases - as I wanted to match the colour of the mud on the base to the colour of dirt I was adding to my model.

I think I will add some final mud splashes, before I call the weathering complete and finish the base. Then I'll peel off the masking tape, which is protecting the windscreens, and add some dust to the windows.