Today Max Dubois of Hellfire Painting is going to be showing us an easy way to paint and weather dozer blades in one fell swoop for beginners and veterans alike.
I love me some Dozer Blades and I paint mine the same way 90% of the time: kicking ass. Here’s how you can do it easily too.
Dozer Blades Made Easy
It’s easy enough and always gets nice reactions from people. It looks realistic and advanced, but it’s a really simple process that requires no skill at all; only a few fringe products and an airbrush.
Step 1 and 2 – Black Undercoat and Silver Basecoat
You can do both with shaker cans; or use your airbrush for the silver. For these guys, I went with a shaker can, but if you’re airbrushing silver on your models, go with that instead.
Whichever method you chose, go lightly with the silver to leave some black showing through.
Step 3 – Varnish
Yup. Again, I like the shaker can to save time, but lay on a nice coat of varnish on your models. I am a big fan of the Anti Shine spray from Army Painter.
Step 4 – Hairspray
I’ll upload an article on this technique pretty soon. But yes. Regular hairspray. I buy whatever’s on sale and/or cheapest. As with most un-hobby products ( stuff that’s not meant for hobbying originally ) I tend to get the most generic brand/flavor available.
Make sure you cover pretty much everything with 2-3 light coats.
For steps 5 to 7, you really need an airbrush or at the very least a spray gun.
Step 5 – Black
Lay on a thin coat of black on the front of the blade. Highlight that by adding some Bone color to your black.
Thin is king for this step, as putting on too much paint will not work with the later steps.
Step 6 – The Mask
Wait a minute or 2 for your black to settle and mask off hazard stripe patterns ( or whatever shape and design you want. I like this simple diagonal pattern )
Two tips for this step:
- You really don’t need to make them perfect, you can fix lazy masking later.
- Find tape the of the correct size. Cutting through your masking tape to make it thinner is nasty and time-consuming, so I advise against it.
Step 7 – Yellow
I like off yellow for this, GW’s Zamesi Desert, with bone added to the color for the highlight. Again, you want to work with light coats of paint here, don’t go all Leeroy Jenkins with colors. Spray away, and remove the masking right away (it’s better to remove the mask before the paint dries )
8- Large Flat Brush and Water.
Brush on a coat of water over the entire dozer blade. Then, using a downward motion with your brush, wipe away the water. You will see the black and yellow come off with it in patches.
Keep doing this and brushing on the parts where you want to remove the paint. You can be a little more insistent here and there; I really like random patterns and a really weathered bottom ( where the dozer blade would hit the ground and debris )
You can add water to your brush and/or wipe away the excess water or on your model with a paper towel to get the correct wet/dry ratio to work on.
Step 9 – RE: Varnish
Once step 8 has fully dried – I like to wait a solid 3 hours at least for the water to be completely evaporated – varnish again.
This step of varnish is to prevent more hairspray to lift while we add paint on top of it.
Step 10 – Final Weathering
Oil paint gets the best results here, but you can add weathering with shades, washes and regular paint. Really, whatever you like. Here I used Burnt Umber oil paint.
This step blends everything together, so it’s important not to skip it.
And voila, you are done and ready to bulldoze you’re way through the tabletop!
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