Men In Boxes

 I couldnt resist. I've been working on my dirt cheap sci fi tanks and I snapped a couple of pix over the weekend. Then a slow day at the office pushing pixels led to my fooling around with the files and VOILA! The tanks aren't finished yet  -- detailing and decals and weathering to go -- but I opened one file to play around with in photoshop while I waited for my storyboard materials. Another one followed the first. Then another one. So here're the results of a lazy morning at the office. The pictures are clickable and opens my photobucket gallery. Let me know what you think:)

I finally chose a camo pattern for the sci fi tanks, or at least for one version. These babies will be joining the Terran Commonwealth. The camo is made of three colors: desert yellow, tan and red brown. After cleanup, the tanks were sprayed desert yellow all around. A set of putty masks were placed and the lighter tan was sprayed on. FInally, Red brown was brushed on the edges where the two colors met, but only on one side. When the paint was dry, a wash of earth brown was applied to spread on the sunken parts of the models. For some reason, the inks beaded a bit, even after a modest dose of acrylic smoothers. I just wiped off the beads and plan to reapply some desert yellow and tan with the brush when the washes dry.   Sorry for the blurry pic but this eye-level picture shows the color order from the fron to the back. More to come soon:)

I found some more variations of the dirt cheap tanks I bought before. The smaller tanks cost less than 50 cents each with the bigger one going for less than a dollar. This time, I bought a bunch, including more of the previous types I wrote about. One of the newer tanks is quite large and features a single but thick barrel while the smaller model had dual barrels plus rockets on the sides. The hulls of these tanks are visibly different than the previous ones seen here and could be fielded with different armies. I've begun scrounging parts from my other models for spare tracks, jerry cans, bags, crates, etc to festoon the tanks as well as spare parts from the equipment of the models I plan to use the tanks with. I'm sure that each model would need some putty because the plastic's a bit brittle. The bigger tank has very nice raised detail and looks heavy. I'm planning to use it for my futuristic Roman legions while the smaller one will be assigned to my...