Zebraoutrider joins the Ordo Xenos and the Mubraxis Dustdogs

Sadly our faithful greyhound Ollie passed away last week aged nearly 13 (around 88 in human terms)… so he had a good innings and above all a good life. As someone who works from home, Ollie was my constant companion coming to interrupt my day-to-day paid jobs and my hobby time.

Whilst my Mubraxis Dustdogs Rough Riders were drying in the paint queue, I started the salt weathering experiment on an old Leman Russ Battle Tank with the aim of making a very old vehicle to accompany the very new Leman Russ Incinerator. Ollie watched me start this tank, but as he’s not now here to see the end creation, so I’ve dedicated it to him with a few personal touches – it may be old and knackered but it never gives up and brings much joy and happiness.

RIP Ollie (the fifth member of the family) 01-11-07 to 16-07-20.

Once the tank was clean and dry, I used artist’s masking tape to cover areas that I wanted to retain the original paint colour – I.e. guns and tracks. Then using a wet cotton bud I randomly dabbed cool water onto the tank’s surfaces and before this could dry, I poured bog-standard table salt all over the tank and left to dry in the sun for an hour.

I then carefully shook the tank so that the excess salt fell away leaving patches of salts mounds and I sprayed the whole tank with Averland Sunset and left to dry for another hour. After an appropriate time I used an old toothbrush to remove the salt mounds and the reddish undercoat came through to appear as rust. With a bit of fine detailing with Blazing Orange and Nihilakh Oxide the damage looked suitably weathered. The tank was washed with Cassandora Yellow and edges worn with sponged on Chainmail.

The Hunter Killer Missile had its end drilled out and attached to a bent out paper clip and then stuck in to the missile firing box. The wire was covered in corse flock and painted with a smorgasbord of smokey colours.

The base was made out of a CD-ROM in a similar fashion to the Leman Russ Incinerator base. However, this time I’ve added my interpretation of Ollie with the nearest dog in my collection that could be ‘converted’ into a greyhound – it needed a long tail!