OPR, Oil Paint Rendering
This trac-bike has been on the bench for a few weeks now getting a work over. I won’t go into too much detail on this portion of the dio, but just a minor update on progress. The real issue with this kit is the forks and the tracks, they are weak, IMHO. No worries, the worst is past, now the fun part, painting and weathering.
Using Mike Rinaldi’s “Tank Art” book series I am stepping away from the traditional weathering approach and trying something new, or at least to me it is. Oil Paint Rendering, or OPR for short, which is very thoroughly explained in book #4, German Armor. The SBS sequence is located at the end of chapter in each book for quick reference making for a pretty slick arrangement of the steps to follow.
Being an oiler at figure painting already, this OPR method is right up my alley. This really is a simple process, but it just takes a bit of practice, like everything else in this “Sport”.
I picked up the first four books a few years back, so now I’m ready to give it a go and see if I can incorporate this OPR method to its fullest. Kudos to Mike for such a well written and illustrated set of what I would consider essential volumes for armor geeks. Mike’s books can be found here:
https://www.rinaldistudiopress.com/
Off we go,……….. This current camo pattern is not exactly accurate, but close enough for my purposes. My airbrush talents are lacking, so a true hand sprayed on pattern would have been a dismal disaster. I’ll run with this one and carry on. I did use elastic masking putty from AK Interactive. This stuff is great, my first time using it, but it’s rather tricky in tight spaces or on delicate details, so be aware of that if you’ve never used it. I also used the hairspray method for the chipping sequence. I still have a long way to go to feel comfortable with this method, but the possibilities are incredible. The biggest issue being “less is more” when it comes to chipping. It’s too easy to get carried away with the process and trash all that prior work only to end up with a redo.
So, as you can see there has been appreciable progress, but’s it’s slow going, especially learning a new technique and not wanting to jack it up, lol. I will use some pigments for mud work, but not much. I want to blend and fade using the oils and get the rust and dirt streaks down correctly. I’ll post the end results when it’s finished, but remember, I’m working to get to the AB figures, this is just a necessary next step to reach that goal.
Thanks for watchin. Cheers, Ski.