Nutrocker!

Not the song by B. Bumble and the Stingers mind you, but an AI hovertank employed by the SDR to hunt and destroy Mercenary SAFS troops.

This is a 1/76-scale kit (the only official Ma.K kit at that scale sadly - there are some garage kits but they are very hard to get hold of) which consists of the Nutrocker itself (with photoetch wide-band antenna) and an in-scale SAFS (teeny tiny!).

I managed to pick this one up for a fiver on eBay and figured, as I was getting peed off with lots of sanding and filling, I would quickly knock it together to get me out of the modelling blues.

The paint scheme is simple. I first assembled everything (using stretched sprue for the thin antenna) although didn't glue the turret to the main body. Everything else is out of the box.

I then primed using Halford's Matt Black (it's all I had to hand at the time) and then did a light base coat using Vallejo Light Blue Grey. I then masked out the camo pattern using Winsor & Newton Artist's Latex Masking Fluid and applied the mid colour, GW's Codex Grey. Once that was dry, I masked off some more patterns with the latex and applied the dark colour, one of GW's foundation paints (the name escapes me at the moment, I think it's "something" Granite).

I then peeled off all the latex (which was very therapeutic) and rubbed any flaking edges with a cut-down old toothbrush.

Gloss coated with GW 'Ardcoat and applied decals. The numbers and elephant are from a 1/35 Tiger kit and the SDR Sun Wheel is a homebrew decal using Roggenwolf's insignia design (I want to tie all my SDR stuff together and this is a good thing to use - thanks to Roggenwolf for letting me use it).

Once the decals were dry, I put some satin gloss on (GW again) and then used the Promodeller dark wash on it. Worked like a dream, as long as you follow the instructions on their web site. Once this was rubbed in and off, I put on some of their dark mud round the bottom.

I then gave it a flat coat (Dullcote) and used a Tamiya weathering stick and some MIG pigments to simulate the dust and dirt that gets thrown up around the skirt as it hovers.

This will eventually be part of a large diorama, but I haven't thought that far ahead yet - I just wanted to finish something!

More pics on Flickr