Concept

Before starting I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted the finished model to look like. It was going to be a Basilisk ‘on campaign’ in the desert, with a Tallarn crew. By ‘on campaign’ I mean carrying all the gear it would need, spare fuel cans, water, crew kit, camo-netting etc, all piled up as stowage, and with lots of vehicle upgrades, like track guards etc. I would leave the back open so the interior detail was on show.

Basic Construction

The first thing to do was build the Chimera kit, following the instructions and using plastic cement glue, that part was straight forward. Now I needed to apply a little thought to what order to approach the resin parts, because, if I just constructed the model to completion I wouldn’t be able to reach the interior to paint it.

First I would have to construct the hull with the interior detail and stowage and vehicle upgrades in place. Next I would construct the fighting compartment with its interior detail, adding more stowage to the exterior, before spraying everything black. Then I could paint all the interior detail before gluing the chassis, fighting compartment and gun into place. The gun and gun mounts would also have to remain separate and be painted before being stuck in place, as would the rear door. When all these parts were glued together, with the interior detail finished, I would move on to the exterior. The very last job would be to paint the crew before sticking them onto the model.

Exterior Construction

My plan was always to go to town with the stowage. On this model I’ve used the following Forge World accessory packs; tank tow cables, packs and rolls, Imperial fuel cans, searchlights and the new Tallarn tank commander. I’ve also used the plastic tank accessory sprue for the dozer blade, smoke launchers, track guards (which are cut down versions), spare track links, pintle-mounted heavy stubber, tools, more packs and rolls and the aerial (actually clipped off the improved comms piece). I also gave the Tallarn tank commander legs using the plastic Cadian legs. The second crewman is a Tallarn mortar crew from Mail Order’s classic range.

Positioning all this stowage took some time and was done using trial and error. I used blue tack to place the pieces before making a final decision and super-gluing them in place.

Taking my pin-vice I also drilled out the barrel of the hull mounted heavy bolter. Drilled out barrels are one of those little details which stop a model tank looking too much like a toy tank!

Interior Detail

The sub-floor was my first painting job. On the finished model it is buried beneath the brass-etched grill and floor of the fighting compartment and therefore needed completing before the rest could be stuck in place. It is one piece of resin, so I sprayed it black and gave it a generous dry brush in dark metal. The only detail I picked out was to paint the shell cases brass before super-gluing it into place on the Chimera chassis.

On top of this was the floor itself. Having carefully trimmed down the resin piece I sprayed the brass etch grill and floor black, dry brushed the grill metal and painted the floor codex grey, highlighting by adding white. These where then stuck in place.

The next job was the rest of the interior detail. The interior was painted codex grey all over, highlighted by adding white, then covering it all in a thin black wash at the end. I did this on the interior of the chassis and the (still separate) fighting compartment. Details like video screens, buttons and pipes were picked out in dark green or black. I also painted the main gun supports and the gun breech to match at the same time.

Final construction and exterior painting

Now I had a model in various parts (all sprayed black except for the completed pale grey interior), I could glue the parts together before painting the exterior. I glued the gun supports and gun into position first, then slid the fighting compartment over the gun and glued it down. The only part I still left separate was the rear door, which would be down anyway, and if glued on now was likely to continually snap off as I handled the model to paint it. The door was painted separately and glued on at the very end.

With the final model construction completed I could start the main job of painting the exterior. The first paint applied was a mixed colour of black, boltgun metal and brown for rust. This was liberal applied with a big brush to the tracks, tow chains, heavy stubber and other exposed metal. This is a rust undercoat over which the metal finish would be applied. Any parts missed during painting would now be just rusty underneath.

Using various yellows, browns, black and light grey I mixed my base colour and painted the entire exterior in it, except for the stowage and metal parts. I added some more light grey and dry brushed the base colour again. Once dry brushed I took my largest brush and covered the entire exterior in a thin dark brown wash, and let it dry.

When the wash had dried I could start on exterior detail and the stowage. I kept to a reduced pallet or greenish greys, browns and sandy yellows, to avoid the stowage becoming too gaudy and out of character with the rest of the model.

Exposed metal was carefully dry brushed with a mix of black and bolt gun metal, occasionally adding more bolt gun metal to the mix to lighten it. When dry I used a thin brown wash over it.

The final paint layer on the exterior was to mix up some dark metal and dry brush over areas of the model where the paint might have been worn away to expose the steel beneath, mainly around the edges of the tracks and the lower hull.

Painting Technique – Colours and Greys

I don’t really use many advanced techniques when painting tanks. I wanted a really flat, dull matt look, and I find blending and highlighting don’t give you this finish. These techniques accentuate the detail and make it stand out. Also colours straight from the pot tend to be very strong, so I always mix my colours, never using any pure colour, this allows me to dull them all down.

To dull down the colours I add black to everything. This does mean all my colours start darker, but I then lighten the colour again, usually by adding light grey or yellow rather than white, because pure white does exactly the opposite to the black, and gives the colour luminosity again (as well as turning it into a pastel shade!)

The black effectively kills off the luminosity of a colour, it puts the ‘greys’ backs into it. All colours contain ‘greys’, it is by adding or removing grey that you effect a colours luminosity (basically the black acts like turning the brightness down on your TV). I also use a lot of thin black or dark brown washes, which run into the cracks to pick out detail, but also help reduce the paints brightness.

Combined with fine dry brushing and weathering powders (see later) this produces very dull, more realistic, colours.