Zvezda Tiger I (early production) 1/72 scale

One year after my greyhound diorama, my mum sent me a plastic model kit as a Christmas present. At first, I didn't like it very much but there was no reason for throwing it away.

In fact, it was a nice surprise that the kit was so easy to assemble and it didn't require gluing the plastic parts.

As it was just a cheap kit, I decided to experiment a little bit. Instead of using a proper primer spray can, I applied a coating of white acrylic gouache.

On top of that, I used black gouache to add gradations and weathering marks. Weathering is normally done during the later stages, but I wanted to investigate how it would look like if I did them from the beginning.

I protected the black and white paint with transparent lacquer varnish. On top of that, I applied a coating of Mr. Weathering color filter shade blue. Then, I glued the decals and applied a new layer of lacquer varnish.

Next, it was time to paint all the parts using acrylic gouache. The exhaust pipe was painted in steps: from darker to orangish color. Dilute the gouache a lot to create interesting rust effects.

Probably not very realistic, but the process was fun and not too convoluted.

Finally, I reused the base of my greyhound diorama and decorated it with stones and plastic plants.