Star wars legion: Camper Van spring cleaning challenge 2023

Well done fantasy flight games. Very easy to build and tesolated well.

I thought about keeping it in separate peices to build, paint them separately and then assemble.

But then I got over it

• So I’ve decided to heavily weather it, never really tried too much weathering before so looking forward to experimenting.

After a black undercoat (by the way this was a chore, no t sure if there was something in the plastic but it struggled to take in places, should have washed it!) I did a rudimentary later of Vallejo ‘rust’ my air brush was playing up so it did a load of splatter and wasn’t very smooth, but I don’t care, it may even be a ‘happy accident’ as wholesome afro sporting Bob Ross used to say!

After the initial brown I built up smaller areas with air brush mixing various red  browns and oranges (red terracotta, armour brown, firey orange, a bit of yellow) then finally stippled some Ryza Rust on the most orange places.

This will serve as a base for the next stage and act as rust areas revealed through chipping medium after I add the main colours.

I actually think it looks pretty cool like this! Riddled with space STDs after several ‘adventures’…..

Well I did a full matt varnish to protect the under rust.

Next I applied (probably far too much) chipping medium. I’ve never used it before and panicked that I had no idea where I had put it, so when I spray over it, how do I know where to scratch away at??? Anyway I solved this by sprinkling salt in those areas. It’s what I’ve used before successfully and as it creates a bit of a texture I’ll know where to chip away. Looks disgusting

Now I’ve got my base and chipping stuff down I need to build up my main colours on the panels.

For this I air brushed (infinity CR plus by the way, this stage I swapped from the 0.4 nozzle to the 0.2 for a bit more precision) the following on each panel, blending up from dark to light (all colours Vallejo air by the way):

Armour brown

Wood/ivory sand

Ivory sand

Ivory sand/ivory/white

Pleased with how it looks now, panels starting to pop!

Well seeing as I’m basing my truck on the breaking bad camper van, I need to put the yellow and red go faster stripes on! I making taped then in turn and air brushed fire red and medium yellow. This looks great APART from the masking tape pulling off several sections of paintwork down to the plastic (see photos). I wanted to cry.

Anyway I decided to make these more ‘happy accidents’ and simply rebased with black via brush, then use some typhus corrosion and dry brushed Ryza rust to build up big rusted areas.

It’s not the end of the world as I wanted it to look as old and war ravaged as possible so in for a penny in for a pound!

I followed this up by using a small dry brush and water to scratch off the salt and chipping medium.

Hey presto it’s REALLY beaten up.

A hunk of junk, the land based millennium falcon……

Excellent

In added edge hilights using ivory to all the vehicle.

I did this fairly roughly as I didn’t want to make it too ‘clean’

It’s popping a bit more

I’m not looking forward to the cockpit. Maybe I’ll do that next to get it out of the way….

I just remembered that I bought some Vallejo streaking grime.

If not now, then when?

Anyway to cut a long story short I used it to create the effect of rust dripping down.

Maybe I’m just trying to avoid doing the cockpit….

well, it’s the moment I’d been dreading. The cockpit.

Oh how I wish I’d done it pre assembly when it was open to the world, I dismissed it at the time. What an idiot.

Anyway it’s fiddly. I air brushed sea grey all over which have some natural definition. Edge hilighted with white grey all the bits then picked out a few buttons and sliders with red and yellow. I painted the monitor screens white and did some rudimentary display text and stuff (black squiggles, I can’t actually write in huttese or whatever)

Finally I painted the chairs in US field drab, I like to think they are leather. Luxury!

This was fairly quick and I didn’t bother with too much detail as you probably won’t even see 90 percent of it once the wind screen goes on :/