Thanks all! Here goes another one, the dreaded SSU Ground Attack Helicopter:

This was quite a chore to paint, specially until I realized I could carefully remove the propeller blades (that really helped a lot). My friend wanted a dark chopper, so I made it a dark gray (it's actually considerably darker than this picture shows) with black parts and some red trimmings just to reinforce the russian theme. I was surprised to find that at the end I couldn't fit the pilots in their cockpits. I had to heat them up and push their arms down a lot to manage to squeeze them in.

Ok, here's another one. The "airborne walker" Nastasia, Nikita or Nina:

Really happy with how this one turned out. Because the "faceplate" was so different from the other KV-47s I decided to make it stand out even more by painting it red, and I think this solution looks very good, specially with all the chipping. I didn't glue it do the base so it can still be attached to the carrier chopper, but the problem is that the pins on the feet are not very well lined up, so I can only attach one to the base and the other one wiggles free…

PS: How the hell does a walker with 3 jets doesn't have Jump or anything like that?

Really nice!

Did you use a sponge to create that chipping effect on the airborne walker, or have you graduated to the "hair spray & salt method"?

Either way, the contrast between the red, gray and rust colors is stunning.

LotusPwn3r said:

Did you use a sponge to create that chipping effect on the airborne walker, or have you graduated to the "hair spray & salt method"?

Yep, plain old sponge chipping. "Hair spray & salt" sounds like sorcery to me…

Yep, plain old sponge chipping. "Hair spray & salt" sounds like sorcery to me…

[/QUOTE]

Check out "Girlpainting" doing a demo of the technique on Youtube in this link.

The effect is so cool you would swear it was sorcery.

Or voodoo…

Wow… nah, that looks like way too much of a hassle. Plus I don't have an airbush.

This time, the russians are going old school, it's the heavy tanks! It's the Karl Marx:

And the Lavrentiy Beria:

Again, I think the real thing looks a bit better than the pictures, too much glare is hiding some of the details. Anyway, this was a fun one to do, quite differenet from the other Dust vehicles. I tried removing the tank threads so I'd have an easier time painting them, but only 2 of the 4 connections were giving away, and I didn't want to risk snapping the threads. So I had to make do with it as it is. Turns out it's an area of limited visibility, so you don't have to be very fussy about the detailing.

What I really liked about this model was the weathering. It has several sharp angles and obvious places where a lot of chipping should occur, so I had some fun with it. Inspired by the official photo, I first did some sponge chipping with a very reddish colour, and afterwards added some darker chipping on top of that. I think the rusty tone is a great contrast with the base green.

Here's the last SSU walker, the basic KV-47. I painted this one to be the Nadya, but it can also be configured as the Natasha or the Natalya:

Nadya:

Natasha:

Natalya:

I stuck very close to the official Nadya paint scheme. In fact, I think that's as close as I ever stuck to the official colours for a vehicle. The only differences were a few details like the tanks on the back, metallic handlebars and lack of white stripe and text on the arms. If my buddy buys more of these I'll do specific bodies for the Natasha and Natalya, but looking at these guys' stats, I think that might not be very likely…

The Airborne Walker Transport:

Just used the primer color for this one, with a wash and a highlight. I think the red nose detail added some interest to an otherwise pretty bland vehicle.

Your speed and quality of work amaze me!!  Love your thread.

Brett