Thursday, September 27, 2012

Wolfson's SSU Walker and Close Combat Squad

 Hello everyone Wolfson here to show some of the Dust models I have been working on.  I really enjoy all the models from the line but I settled on SSU since the Allies and Germans are being covered by OST and CVinton.   Lets take a look!


The SSU walkers are some of my favorite models of the entire dust line line and the first model I worked with.  The walker came preassembled and undercoated in olive drab green.  I wanted to change  the positioning of legs to add some character and make sure all my walkers would not look the same.  A sharp hobby knife and some minimal cuts can disassemble these walkers for the most part however i recommend taking care when cutting the knee joint as the shield for the knee is a separate piece and the mount is easily broken while trying to get the joint apart.  If you do break the mount the shield is easily glued straight onto the leg.  The arms plus weapons are all one piece and come easily ready to be swapped in and out with no conversion work needed.  I built up the base out of cork sand and spare frame pieces.  everything was glued in place and then undercoated in a neutral grey tone.  I still like to undercoat Dust models due to after cleaning up mold lines the pre done undercoat will have some spots missing and i am not really a big fan of the color and texture of the base coat the models come with.
 The paintjob itself was pretty simple and actually a lot of fun as I was allowed to be pretty sloppy.  I wanted to push the wierd war 2 aspect while avoiding a standard flat green.  The SSU are still known as the Red Army so I figured I would push that in the paint jobs for the army.  I began with mechrite red covering all plates of armor and the ammo drums for the howitzters.  The inner workings of the walker and anything i wished to be gunmetal such as the tanks on the walkers back were coated in black.  The howitzers and gun shields were then painted Knarloc green.  The entire model was washed in a good amount of badab black.  The next step is pretty much the same as OST's sponge weathering on his Necrons.  Using a small piece of left over pluck foam I would go through Silvers, Browns and Blacks dabbing them on all the Armor plates.  The hard edges were picked out in silvers and all inner workings of the walker are Boltgun metal drybrushed over black and washed in black.  Final details like the light and Hammer and sickle were done with a mixture a yellows mostly Iyanden Darksun and Golden Yellow.  The base was painted Charadon granite with a drybrush of Shadow Grey and Space Wolves Grey.
The SSU close combat squad was painted using the same methods above for the reds and metalics.  The Camo was painted starting with knarloc green washed in devlan then highlighted back up with knarloc green and snot green.  Calthan brown Khemri brown and beastial brown were used in the patterns on the camo.  Leather areas like masks and gloves were painted in codex grey and washed black.  The visors on the masks were painted enchanted blue.  Overall a pretty easy scheme and fast to execute.  My Dust army should be ready in no time and I hope you enjoyed this sample.  As always I would love to hear any questions comments or criticisms.

2 comments:

  1. Nicely done man. The undercoat they come with is odd I agree. The models themselves are decent enough and pair up very well. You did a good job with these ruskies and now if we can just get our three armies in the same geographic location, that would be great.

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