A Tank Called Coleraine
Painting the base coat
After building the kits I decided to unpack my airbrush, I’ve not used it for a while so I had a fun game of ‘fight the airbrush’ while I worked to get my paint mixing mojo back up to speed, the white in particular didn’t want to play. this was surprising because it is the Stynylrez airbrush ready stuff. I faffed around with air pressure for a while but it still spattered, so I tried thinning it just a little and it immediately started blowing spider patterns everywhere, oh well, need to spend more time experimenting with it after I get this project finished.
To start I put on a black under coat, then tried some highlighting with white, the picture shows how this went.
Next step is choosing a base coat. This is where references and research come into play if you are looking to try and achieve some level of historical accuracy, however, I’m going for a gaming piece rather than a scale model, so ‘close enough’ will be my target. The problem is, conflicting evidence; some references I have show the tanks overall Light Stone colour, another (that I found today) states that 25th Armoured Brigade (of which North Irish Horse is a part) were Khaki Green. Why do these things show up after I’ve started painting?!!!
I think that Vallejo Model Colour Buff gives a 'close enough' match to BSC No 61 Light Stone but it's a looong way from Khaki Green no 3... Do I stick with the Light stone or swap to Khaki green? decisions, decisions. Time to ponder some black and white WW2 pictures and try and decide if it's stone or green with a heavy layer of dust...
Have you considered the new AK Real Colours sets. I have started using them and they go through an airbrush like a dream and the colours seem to work
Light stone would be the ‘correct’ colour for the desert, as the other colour would be for home service
Yes completely agree, certainly 8th Army were Light Stone or Desert Pink for the base colour, but the problem I’ve got is that the latest information I’ve found specifies that 25th brigade deployed in Tunisia in Khaki Green, there is some evidence of part repainting with the new regulation colour Desert Mud or that real mud was daubed on in other units but nothing specific for the North Irish Horse. I know trying to interpret black and white pictures is very unreliable but to me the few pics of NIH tanks I’ve found do look like a dark base coat… Read more »