Nothing drains the oxygen from a room quicker than hours spent adding tiny flecks of paint that no one looking at the model from any kind of normal distance, will ever notice or truly appreciate.
3rd March 2025
After what has been a pretty full-on weekend of birthday celebrations for my wife and my mum, it was back to the workbench this morning and a day of weathering the Resin Scales Centurion AX.
I once read that Keith Moon, erstwhile drumming god with the rock band The Who, had to be almost retrained to play the drums before every tour that the band embarked on. It wasn’t that he suddenly forgot how to play or he’d lost the muscle memory to deal with their set and the individual songs, it was just that he seemed to forget the intricacies of each one. And thus he had to almost start from scratch until the lightbulb went off and he was back in the saddle, ready to rock as only Keith Moon, could.
It always struck me as a rather odd thing to have to deal with. After all, extracurricular activities aside (of which there were many…) he’d played the songs over on and over so how could he possibly forget what to do? Yeah, it seemed odd. And then I started to build amour and the same thing happened to me. Every time I go back to an armoured vehicle kit after focussing on aircraft, I have to start from scratch. I have the basics in place, I just can’t never remember the specifics. And thus each build starts afresh and I have to endure a day or so of dicking around until my muscle memory returns and my own lightbulb, goes off once more.
So today, having already painted the Centurion and applied what can best be described as rudimentary dark wash (which frankly added little to the look of the model) I set to work adding paint chips and scratches. I loath adding paint chips to a model. It is the single most tedious, soul-destroying, boring process that I have to do. Nothing drains the oxygen from a room quicker than hours spent adding tiny flecks of paint that no one looking at the model from any kind of normal distance, will ever notice or truly appreciate. These days, because I find it astonishingly difficult to paint these random flecks by hand, I tend to use a sponge loaded with acrylic paint. Reminder #1: which colours to use, how to dab the paint on and how to make it look like actual paint chips and not, well, dabbed-on paint? The first round looked crap. The second round little better. It was only after the third and what I had decided would be the final round, that things started to look if not good, then borderline acceptable.
That done, I started to think about dust: reminder #2. Dust is actually rather fun to apply, but again it took time for me to remember the best way to apply it. I started off with thin pin washes, blended in, before remembering that that was as tedious as paint chips, so grabbed my airbrush which I hoped would speed up the process. I wasn’t trying to rush, rather trying to hold on to at least some will to live. Spraying on the dust and then working it in with a paintbrush moistened with thinners created what is to my eye, a rather pleasing layer of light dust that I can work on with darker shades. And of course it was quick. It’s all rather bland at the moment, it’s monochromatic finish doing little to raise the pulse, but at least I have something I can work with.
Another day on the model should have it close to the finish line. I still have those darker patches to deal with (which will no doubt raise further concerns) as well as the running gear, which is proving annoying thanks to the wheel hubs being rather more vibrant in hue than the rest of the model! All being well, the work that I’ve carried out on the turret will be enough to remove at least some of the guess work from the process and give me a model that I’m happy with. I still have a few days to finish it off should the need arise, so I’m not hitting the panic button just yet…
See you tomorrow.
TODAY’S MUSIC CHOICES…
Simple Minds: Big Music
Simple Minds: Direction Of The Heart
Simple Minds: Walk Between Worlds
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[…] around the edges of my consciousness for awhile now, and that Spencer Pollard’s recent post, “Stop Competing with Yourself…”,…
Hi, Can I please politely ask if your excellent blog is to continue, or has it stopped indefinitely? King regards.…
The content is very well organized, allowing readers to easily grasp the key points without feeling overwhelmed by too much…
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Fabulous build, Spencer! I’m currently building this kit as well and have t say the fit is amazing. My only…
SPENCER POLLARD'S KIT BOX 
A timely reminder!
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i find it very hard to get model armor out of that monochromatic post-dust/mud stage. I look forward to seeing your solution.
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