The Thin Beige Line

The final unit to be added to this army is the AAT Trade Federation Battle Tank. I have had this model for some time and have been working up the courage to use the airbrush again! I’m not very experienced with an airbrush but wanted to try the pre-shading technique as it seemed the best way to tackle the sleek design of this vehicle. The tank was initially primed Mechanicum Grey, though in my excitement to handle the airbrush again I forgot to take a ‘before’ picture!

In my limited experience of airbrush usage I had noticed that it was harder to lay down lighter colours smoothly. There is a tendency for these kinds of colours to spit and splatter, which I assume is due to the heavier pigment.

For this reason I opted to begin with the White Scar, that way I could use the darker passes to tidy up anything I didn’t like. However with a little experimentation I found heavily thinning the white with water yielded more consistent results.

Once the lightest areas were down I went for the Corvus Black to hit the darkest recesses and areas that I wanted to appear more worn. Next I worked the grey mid tones, Dawnstone and Administratum Grey, over the black. As I was feeling more confident about using the white I finished the pre shade with a second pass of the White Scar.

For the top coat I would be using XV-88, which happens to be an uncanny match for the AAT colour scheme. This was applied sparingly at first as I wasn’t sure how much of the pre-shade would show through.

Subsequent layers of XV-88 were built up and I went back to the Corvus Black to add burn marks and weathering around the hull mounted cannons and prow. The sponson guns were painted Corvus Black before being dusted with the Dawnstone.

Still using the airbrush I put a wash of Soft Tone, thinned roughly 50/50 with water, over pretty much the whole tank. This helped to even out the mottled areas and added a richness to the colour. The final stage of using the airbrush was to selectively work Agrax Earthshade (also thinned 50/50 with water), into the deepest recesses.