Himmel, ein Hummel in 1:35!
I started building the Tamiya Hummel a couple of weeks ago, instead of taking dslr photos of already completed projects. At least I remembered uncle NightShift's armour texture trick this time 😄 Now all I have left are are the 3d printed tracks and the crew with accessories. Then I can start painting, yay!
This'll be slow as time's limited during this season. Priming's a January thing earliest, I think. That'll be fun 🤘🏻
Getting the tracks, and that length of track arnour for the Hummel took three sittings. As always, I am so very pleased with them.
If I get the crew stitched together, and if homelife agrees, I may yet get to prime and if I really push my luck, basecoat too. But I won't hold my breath, the pre-solstice week tends to be busy for some reason 😄 And then I'll be at the in-laws for almost three weeks, far from hobbies, enjoying very different routines and schedules.
First part of priming the Hummel is done, bad lighting + eyes combo made me miss a couple of shadowed spots, and I simply didn't have the time for the various wheels, sprockets and and such today. More priming tomorrow, maybe a bit of black grey over the tracks. If I get truly carried away there'll be Dunkelgelb as well.
I _did_ have some time to prime the bits in the Gray Death Legion Heavy Battle Lance box, but that's just having priorities, dear friends 😋
Basecoating the Hummel in sandy yellow, blasting more from above and high angles to keep some shadows. Also, I was again not aiming for a flat coat but to keep a bit of the shadows given by the black primer. If it looks off tomorrow, I may touch it up, otherwise I'll start on brown/green for the camouflage.
Tracks, being bare steel, got painted dark grey. I'll do the ground-clean steel later, and after that the diluted dirts. Or that's the plan, anyway 😋
Airbrushing a freehand-camouflage out of my own head left me with a couple of things to fix on the Hummel. This is why I like masking, less space for those 😋
When the greens and browns were done, I diluted some gunmetal and went to town with the roadwheel-polished parts of the tracks. The running ones will be muddy-dirtier while the short track armour will be mostly fresh rusty.
I think this is the last hobby update of the year, I just applied some heavily diluted dirt paint over the Hummel's tracks and the lower parts of its hull. The gun's aiming bits and a few other bits got the black grey + cold grey drybrushing.
Little things, but they're important. When we get back, I'll be full of energy to resume painting 🤘🏻
I still think it would be stupidly fun to hide a sandy yellow or brown Autobot marking somewhere for those who enjoy silliness 😋
My optimism was unfounded. I've been doing tiny things here and there, pushing the model for the oil paint phase. The best thing is that my guess for the track length seems to have been perfect, yay!
I also freehanded a (bad attempt at) Autobot insignia on the front hull, as Hummel translates to Bumblebee and what else would a middle-aged nerd like me do, but something as silly as that? 🤭
You cannot (or maybe you actually can) imagine the amount of non-rushed hobby time I've spent on painting wooden bits badly. Somehow I accept I can't at the moment reproduce what I imagine, and that has to be good enough. A brown wash later'll do some more good.
Then the red/white aiming sticks. Didn't feel like setting up the airbrush so I freehanded the areas, using the 1:1 reference. That ended up nice, I think.
And then some thin choco brown for the tracks. Mm.
The sticks need a bit of sideways touching up but otherwise I think they're great. With that out of the way I assembled the three humanoids and slapped a layer of Vallejo's black primer on them.
I don't think I feel like setting up the airbrush & co for zenithaling them with greyish white so I may just drybrush it on to see how that approach works. Painting living beings stresses me out but I survived the five-person crew last year so this should be easier 😅
Baby steps with my suffering, bloody and cracking fingertips and little hobby time: accessories detached and cleaned up, jack block and the jack installed, as well as the rammer and MG. Because I really couldn't be arsed to set up airbrushing, I gave drybrushing the off-white greyscaling on the three Krauts. The camo green shall reveal the level of my hubris soon enough 😅
Almost as soon I can actually start thinking of the oil paints. Yay!
Despite its name, using the VMC German Uniform Green made these dudes look like they're wearing uniforms made of freshly mown grass or something. While it would fit Wehrmacht's Barbarossa plans, I think it looks silly.
Maybe I can salvage then, maybe I cannot and then I won't be making a diorama. Either option works, path B would just reinforce my mindset of "I truly cannot paint living beings". I'll give them a chance anyway, for better or worse.
Yeah, the crew didn't get that much better with the dark grey wash-filter-tint. This looks and feels more like /dev/nulling the plastic zermans and any fantasies of making a diorama.
The brown oil wash, on the other hand, worked very nicely and I will attempt to go for a sepia pin wash tomorrow. Unless I go for a last moment green/brown/dunkelgelb dotting to make the camo more ambush-y, which was also fun the first time I tried it. Things move forward soon, anyway 😄
Quick image searches didn't show anyone having done Hinterhalt-Tarnung on a Hummel but I liked painting it once on the Jagdpanzer IV, so to offend overserious hobbyists that's exactly what I started doing.
I obviously didn't get all done in one go but enough to amuse myself. Maybe I'll stencil on the Balkenkreuze before getting more oils out. I can also skip them.
So much more fun and motivating than organic forms 😅
Today's wrap-up brought me up to 1,5h of painting tiny dots on a scale model and that'd driven my partner insane 😄 I am happy with my second attempt at Hinterhalt-Tarnung. To go with it I decided to do a low-vis version of the Balkenkreuz, instead of white corners with a black interior and edges I just did the corners in black-grey.
Tomorrow, if calendar agrees, I'll get to do the sepia wash over the panel lines and whoknowswhatsits. "Awesome, awesome to the max."
Today the calendar did indeed behave, and allowed me to play with the sepia oil wash. Having given the mess some half an hour to dry, I went back to clean excesses away. Normal surfaces were nicely simple, the no-slip floors noticeably less so. But I knew that already.
Now I guess I have to let it dry for a day or two before oiling more. The next step might be installing wheels and tracks, which also need some oils before I get to more weathery things.
Wheelsets and tracks on. I had made a mistake and the tracks snapped at the stupidest moment. What a disappointment.
Maybe I can fix them semiacceptably, maybe not. While lamenting my choices I glued the shovels in place and let the thing wait for a new day and fixes.
One track was easier and more fixable, and that happened to be the one that looked worse 😅 When the glue had cured enough for the tracks to stay in place I went to town with the sepia pin wash. I just love that part.
Despite the crew/diorama part being scrapped I glued the loading plank-shelf on the boxes. Maybe I'll glue a couple of shells and oddly empty cartridges on it or something. Or I'll leave it as is.
In a few days I should have hobby time for highlighting
Hummel pin washed, cleaned up, then chipped and after that again dirtified wit different brown oils like fresh and old rust and just "mud", and all gently blended around. So much fun.
When all that had dried up, I matt varnished the whole model. Tomorrow I'll use some mud pigments and a graphite pen for final highligts and call the Bumblebee done.
As hoped, I managed to use some mud and light sand pigments here and there, rub a graphite pen over the bare metals, and also touch up the aiming sticks. The convoy light on the bottom left rear edge got painted off-white and then I used some of my Citadel Green Wash bought in 1996/1997. Actual photos coming somewhat later.
ISD