5 - Completing Osario

• There was a raised panel on the right turret side - that was where I painted a white rectangle, and inked a black cross (representing the Universal Church).
• On the left turret side, I painted the flag of the Brazilian Star Union. (I don't really have a name for my empire yet - anyone speak Portuguese and have some suggestions?) I made my own variation on the "real" Brazilian flag: a field of green, a diamond of gold, and a circle of blue.
• I realized I needed a way to tell my tank units apart, so I broke the company into platoons of five (I wanted large, unwieldy units!), and painted the raised panel at the rear of the turret with an identifying color (red, green, blue, silver, and gold). I also inked on Roman numerals, numbering the units I through V. (With my historical vehicles, I get pretty fussy about hand lettering, but I don't mind it at all on sci-fi vehicles - don't know why...)
• I also needed a way to identify the leader of each unit. So I painted the back corners of the lead vehicles in the same color as the unit's patch. Some of the colors didn't stand out well, so I edged the corner with black ink.

The Brazilian flag seemed like a great idea when I started, but I quickly became worried that it was too much work. However, I found an easy way to paint the flags: the gold first, then the green field around the gold, then a blue dot in the center.

After my prototype unit, I changed all the colors I was using as they looked too dark on the yellow tanks. I used inexpensive craft paints - Leaf Green and Cardinal Crimson (Apple Barrel), Inca Gold (Folkart), Silver (Aleene's), and Ocean Blue (Ceramcoat).

I also realized that I needed to do something with the gun barrels. The main gun ended in some kind of projector bulb, which I painted bronze for lack of any better idea. The secondary gun barrel also needed something, so I carefully applied a dot of black paint at the end of each to give the impression that the gun was hollow.

Then I did something really dumb.

Throughout the course of the project, I'd had problems with dust getting into the paint. New homes are being built in my neighborhood, and I've noticed the difference whenever I pick up my models and notice what has landed on them while the paint was drying. For some reason, the Sunburst Yellow seemed particularly prone to collecting tiny fibers and specks, and nothing seemed to help.

So, before I painted the final protective spray on the finished tanks, I decided I wanted to wash them to remove any more dust.

This created two problems:

• It washed off all the yellow ink I had added to bring out the details!
• It turned out that I had been careless - the pen that I had used to draw the crosses and Roman numerals did not have permanent ink, and the markings faded and blurred!

I mention this only to make the point that all of us, even experienced hands, sometimes make really dumb mistakes.

And so I touched up my tanks. This time, I finally went out and bought what I think is a better pen - a Micron art pen, with permanent ink (when dried), and a very fine point (005) for drawing delicate lines. (In fact, the lines are too delicate... I'll buy the larger size soon.)

I sealed the tanks with several coats of a clear protectant (Dullcote).