Another daring step where faith is necessary! There´re a lot of ways for simulating mud: with plaster, with acrylic resin and pigments, with specific products so on. All methods are good ways to achieve an attractive result with the mud, depending on modellers taste or affinity with the materials involved. My favourite: Tamiya´s texture paint. Why? A big bottle, can mix it with sand, pigments or acrylic paint and, most of all, fix strongly with any kind of surface.

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Adding some dark brown pigment and paint to the Tamiya´s paint, I achieve approximately a nice colour to start adding the mud. Anyway, the colour is NOT important. Just the texture IS important. Must be in scale and as heterogeneous as possible.

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Using a bush, I applied the mix to my taste to the wheels and the lower part of the tank. As can be seen in the pictures, the result is anything but nice!. But keep the faith! This is just the beginning!

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Once the texture paint is dry (a day or more, do not be impatient), using a colour mix of paints similar to the AK´s dust, I randomly applied a fine coat of dust over the wheels. Be sure that this paint do not hide all the elements or you´ll achieve a dull and unattractive surface. As usually, do it as heterogeneous as possible.


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Remember that this paint can´t be removed, so be carefully when applying the paint with your airbrush.


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And, why not, let´s start with the tracks. Use ALWAYS the same colours for dust in all the parts of the vehicle. Of course you can play a little bit with the mix proportions, but do not use different colours to simulate the same effect: dust and dirt.

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Now, the final steps for the mud is a mix of techniques and products that I´ll try to resume at my best


- Using oils: Napless Yellow, Natural Umber and Black, I made 3 mixes of this colours (like I did with acrylics) and using them as a wash, I applied them randomly on the different wheels with different intensities.

- For splashes, I used acrylic paints slightly diluted projected to the wheels with the help of an old airbrush

- Just in the tracks (where the two previous steps were also applied), I added punctually some pigments (a mix of three colours from Iraqi Sand and Russian earth ) to achieve some textures here and there. Remember that if you use a lot of pigments, you´ll spoil all the previous work as the surfaces where the pigments are used, if you´re not careful, will get dull, bored and will hide all the previous work!

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And then ..... finally, at last .... miracle!!! ........... just painting the tools, towing cables ... et voilá!

Many thanks for your support, opinions and criticism ... all highly apreciated!!!. Thanks to Lu and Pat for organizing this GB and thanks to all participants and friends looking at our work!

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Bye!! :^)

Hi Jose Luis:

Simply fantastic!

A perfect SBS for an awesome model.

My h(at)ead is off to you!

Regards!
Alvaro

Many thanks Alvaro!

See you soon!

Jose;

I am your biggest fan Amigo! This is the reason, a whole new style of painting, with great professional results.

My hat is off....way off to you my friend. An excellent result with lots of color and variety.

Cheers, Pat

You´re allways to kind with me, Pat!

I think that this is not a new style, this is just the way a bored man loss his time!! Jokes appart, I just make difficult what so many modulation sets really makes easy! Just making a slight pre-weathering before the base color will help the modeller to choose the best weathering and can be a new technique and useful after all.

Thank you for your support!!

And to be honest with you, on occasion. I have thought to myself stop ....don't do anymore or no. I don't like that effect but, in all honesty the finished model is outstanding piece, I agree with Pat We may be seeing a start of a new weathering trend. well done!

Luke

This Tiger have mistakes ... all kits have mistakes. There´s always room for improvement and this kitty too. Anyway, a finished kit is always a nice amount of knowledge ans experiences for the next model. So ... next one ... much better!!!!

´Thanks for posting!!

A stunning result. The mud really sets it off, I love it.

Regards

Regards
Archy

And I just can say ............ thanks!!!!

I had no idea it was so versatile


David's Model Pages on Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/modelscale

Imagination to power! But texture paint is just a way to make mud! ... just try the best for you

The result ist really fantastic! I think this approach has even more potential than the classic Modulation Style. Bravo! Now I have to go back to study every single step again...
Cheers
Sven

Sven, really .... thank you very much for your words. B&W base, modulation, can also work together to get even a more attractive result. Just imagination!

Regards

Well i have to say at the start i thought you were going for a winter type finnish and i wasn;t sure, but the end result is very good,it does leave me one question and that is how will it work with a muilti color scheme? .Thanks also Jose for thanking the time to show us step bye step with such good clear photo's and instuction's ,well done .Have fun with the next project ,as i look forward to seeing it , wayne

Hi:

Just some quick thoughs on the question about camouflages with the Mr Lopez technique.

Ok. Only time will tell but the key and the success of this new approach is the use of non saturated colours. That´s why we see all of those previously painted (b/w) details under the Panzer Grey Layer. Jose had already show us the same with his desert colour Enigma. So, for an OD or any other single coloured vehicle, the technique seems to work perfectly.

Talking about camos, and because the use of low saturation colours, the story may be different. I think that there is a bunch of camouflage patterns that may be reproduced using the same method. Think in a black over green, green over sand or so vehicles. No problem at all (*). Or multicoloured camos where the camo pattern is composed of different colours over a base colour where the camo colours do not overlap (like the camo on Ralph Riese´s Stuka Zu Fuss here). Ok, no problem as well. The technique become more difficult (*) but not impossible to perform.

Another story may be a camo where the camo colours (the darker ones mainly) are one beside the other. Working with non saturated colours may be risky because the border between those colour may turn into a darker shade. That seems the main shortcoming to me.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(*) no matter if the camo is soft (like a NATO camo) or hard edge(like a Caunter), if you go wrong painting and you had to apply any retouch could be difficult!
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Anyway, that doesn´t bother me at all. I love this (hard to perform well) technique and its great (end eyecatching) result. What I see here is a model that looks like an artist picture due the richness on every single squared centimeter/inch.

In some way, and looking at those pictures, looks like Jose has turned our 3D models into 2D treasures! :D

Regards!
Alvaro

I completely agree with Alvaro. There´re no techniques useful for all posibilities. Some have advantages ... other, sorthcomings.... nothing is perfect!

Once I finsh a pair of kits with just one color (one Abrams and another 1/48 DAK Tiger), I will paint a 2 color kit, a What If Italian P-40. It´ll be a real challenge for me as I´ll have to think hardly about the more effective way to do it ... just a little bit in advance of my crazies ideas:

1.- To know the places where the differente colors will be
2.- Increase the light effects in the BW base in the places with the dark color
3.- Paint the lighter color al over the kit.
4.1.- Mask the light color
5.1.- Paint the darker color.
4.2.- Paint directly with the darker color
5.2.- Reinforcement of the darker color with a little bit of modulation (o zenitah light effect .... differente techniques can be used at the same time!

.............. or something like this!

Time to see and Alvaro, thank you very much for your veluable ideas and thoughs!

Well i have to say at the start i thought you were going for a winter type finnish and i wasn;t sure, but the end result is very good,it does leave me one question and that is how will it work with a muilti color scheme? .Thanks also Jose for thanking the time to show us step bye step with such good clear photo's and instuction's ,well done .Have fun with the next project ,as i look forward to seeing it , wayne

Thank you! Reply to your camo question on Alvaro´s reply

Jose: appreciate your modelling and photographic skills, and also your way of including the human aspects of the hobby. I think your "Black-and-White Tiger' is just the tip of an iceberg. Many thanks for your generosity. Cheers, Ralph.

Thanks to you, Ralph! Your multi colour pre-base is also an interesting idea .... very, very interesting!!

Hi Jose,
I don't know much about German vehicles, but I know a good model when I see one.....and that is a VERY good model. It looks believable. Keep posting because it gives people like me ideas on how to finish models realistically.
Regards,
John.

Thanks for your nice words!

Superior Work, Jose. Not only a great result, but you are blazing a trail for a new technique(s) as well. Hat's off to you, your work and your contributions to scale modeling.

Best,
Rick

Thank you Rick! Happy to know that you liked the result! Your work is also my inspiration!

G'day Jose
your results here are just sensational, enjoyed the tuition and now I realize I must try harder!
regards to you and a very well done.
Alan

Just do it to your taste my friend! But never be scared!

to one of the moset spectacular models I've seen on ML in the last years.
Mate, this one was woth every time you spend for.

BTW - it's time for a talk again !?? Anything new in your life ?
I will you drop you a line later

Best Regards
Erik

You´re a little bit excesive with your compliments!!!! Thanks anyway!!!!!

My situation? as bad as usually! ... but my faith is invincible!

Thank you and keep in touch!

Halleluja...thats a very convincing new style with a first-class result!

Outstanding!

Cheers
Lars

http://tankmodels.blogspot.com/

Thaaaaaaanks for your nice worddsssss!!

Regards

Not even in Spanish. All that interesting contrast everywhere. It is hard to believe how you get such amount of eye-catching points in such a small model. It is a perfect masterclass of modelling, thanks for the SBS.
Está de muerte, como la fabada.

Q

http://dqscaleworks.blogspot.com/

Q, belive me if I tell you that your kits are my inspiration. YOur 1/48 KT, your last Panther .... much of the details of my kits came from yours!

Para fabada buena .... la tuya!

One of the works mqs I have liked in long time, step by step .espectacular, a hug.

Juan Gabriel, thank you very much for your comments! Hpoe that my next 1/48 likes you more than this one!

and also waiting for your impressive works!

nuff said

Well done Jose.

Best

Paul

Paul ........... you´re greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaatttttttttttttttt!

Thank you very much for ALL

The standard of work on this forum is pretty high to begin with but this is absolutely amazing.

Cheers

Calum

My Blog http://mainly-modelling.blogspot.com.au
My web site http://a4-alley.x90x.net/

Calum, if you make a lot of kits ... your level will be also high very soon! Just make ktis!!

Regards

Have been on vacation. Great work and thanks for excellent lecture on how to paint a model (again).

http://roman-bizarre.blogspot.com/

Roman, we all missed you and your fantastic works!

Thank you for your comments!!