Well, I tried.

I made tracks wrapping up the Wrath of Kings Goritisi Saturday morning, so I decided to push ahead and try to paint up this 28mm Trenchworx A7V for NOVA.  I ordered it a while back, after having such a good time painting those 15mm A7Vs a few months ago.  I quickly basecoated it but then got sidelined with other stuff.

I wanted to paint it up like 563 – Wotan or 561 – Nixe: I like the way the cool grey tones of the armor contrast with the warm brown of the weathering (which is fun, especially since the armor itself is actually painted with some greenish browns, highlighting up to khaki).

I made speedy progress on it, getting pretty much done by bedtime on Saturday. There are definitely some problems with it: had I been a little more deliberate, I’d have been able to fix the skirts: they’re the wrong make for 561 (compare this to this to see what I mean).  I also had a lot of trouble with the decals I’d gotten; they were quite a bit more fragile than I’m used to and broke apart: those side crosses had backups but the ones that go on the front of the tank didn’t… just as well, since I don’t think it would have handled the rivets well, but I didn’t think I had time to fight with free-handing them on.  So I left them off.

Would you notice either of those things if hadn’t mentioned it? Maybe not… but what’s the point of it if you’re not going to try to get it right?

Failures, but acceptable ones. This thing wasn’t going to win any awards, literal or metaphorical, but then disaster struck:

I got it airbrushed. I got the decals on.  I got the oils on, I Dullcote’d it.  I put on pigments.

Fixing the pigments was what ruined the model.

I think I failed to give the Dullcote enough time to cure.  Last time I did this, I think the models sat around overnight; this time the model only got a couple of hours. The result, an ugly, white corrosion that might be appropriate elsewhere, but is absolutely not what I want here.

I’ve handled this pretty well, I think.  An “Oh no,” a little frustration, and then moving on.  I won’t have anything in the Captial Palette this year. I’ve made peace with that.

I will see if I can salvage it: I’ll Dullcote it again this afternoon to see if that kills the frosting.  If it does, I’ll re-pigment and maybe have something.  If it doesn’t, at least I learned something.